Learn To Improvise Using The Blues Beginner Banjo

[Mike]

This is the discussion topic for the lesson Learn To Improvise Using The Blues Beginner Banjo. Please leave your comments or any questions you might have about the lesson here!

[Jon]

Good topic and lesson, Mike. It fits in with what I’ve been trying to do lately. If you haven’t already done it somewhere, it would be great if you could at some point show some techniques for traversing the neck of the banjo in a somewhat “linear” fashion. By that, I mean not jumping chord inversions, but climbing the neck with phrases or with passing tones, and using that to make a more complex blues solo.

I saw a video on YouTube about making improv solos that said a person should try to land on the root note of each chord at the end of each phrase. Is that a good rule to follow? Say you’re in the key of E and your next chord is an A7…your phrase should land on an A?

[Mike]

Jon,

Thanks for checking out the lesson. Sure, you could use this tab to practice playing more “linear.”

All you’d need to do is look at the tab and grab multiple notes on same string rather than going “across” the strings. You’ll have to pick notes from multiple measures of the tab but it should be fairly easy to do.

Per your other question, that’s certainly a good spot to start but like all rules they’re made to be broken. If you always had to land on the root note at the end of every phrase, it would get a little monotonous.

But that’s definitely a good practice tool you could use to improve your ear training and make sure you really know all the root notes for each chord.

But once you get that down, it would also be good practice to expand out beyond that and give yourself the freedom to land on any note you’d like.

If you have any other questions let me know.

– Mike

[Author]

Posts