Sunday morning improv

Nice job, Jack. Maybe a tad long, but very well done. I've been reading a lot recently about the benefits of improvising for developing your ear. Looks like T-Bone was on to something all along. I've always been the guy who says, "I'll give that a try one of these days, but first I gotta learn all this other stuff." With that kind of thinking I'll never get around to improvising.

Thanks so much guys!  

Phil, yeah I don't know why I left it so long, I should have just picked out a minute or so.  

I couldn't find fault with your playing so, being the grumpy old man that I am, I had to find something to bitch about.   

Phil - that's why we love ya man   You're totally right though, it definitely goes on too long.

Rich - thanks!  Yeah that's my Ibanez RGT42BP that I put those Seymour Duncan 59's in a while ago.

Mick - thanks!  That's all just off the cuff.  I manage to string a few runs together here and there.  With improvising I guess my plan is that with a year more practice (okay, a decade more practice) the whole thing will be the best bits lol.  

I like those 59's it was a toss up for me between the 59's and the pearlygates. Almost went 59 bridge pearly gate neck, any the tone is excellent.

Thanks Bruce!  New age, eh?  Hmmm...maybe I should get a pan flute?  


Yeah those '59s are pretty nice, I'm still trying to find what I'd call a great blues sound with it though - a real tube amp would probably be of great help there lol.

Yeah that's pretty much what I do - go over to YouTube and type in "blues backing track" and you'll find a gazillion of them.  They almost all say what key they're in so you can just find box 1 of pentatonic minor in that key and start jammin'.  When you're first starting out it's easier to play over slow stuff of course, something like this:

 Pentatonic minor in A will sound great over that.

You can figure out what the chords are and look at what notes are in in each one and try to use those as target notes to end your phrases on over the corresponding chord, or you can do it like I've always done it and just go by ear.  Some notes sound good to end phrases on, some don't;  your subconscious brain keeps track of that stuff and eventually (weeks, months, years...) you'll just naturally start hitting the ones that sound good more often and the ones that sound bad less often.

The nice thing about blues is that it's almost always a I - IV - V progression, so it's basically like you're playing over the same chord progression all the time.  Once you've developed an ear for what notes sound good over the I chord, then over the IV chord and V, you can jam over most songs without much problem.