2 Responses

1. FranKie Loves Drums

   November 16th, 2009 at 10:32 pm

   1

   Wow. To improvise comes from the soul, your emotions. You have to build arond the melody, going off and coming back to it. That is imrpovisation. Keep it simple and make sure that you don’t go outside the mood of the main melody. I would improvise beause they score you on that as well. If you are going to add blues scales, I would suggest adding pentatonic major and/or minors and once in a while, add in a whole tone scale at the end of the lick.

2. tonyp128

   November 16th, 2009 at 10:32 pm

   2

   That’s what the chords are for, to direct you in which notes to use in your improvisation. If you’re unsure, read about chord scale relationships in a jazz theory book. If you are still unsure, do something minimalist, less can be more at times. I wouldn’t just add the blues scales, that can be boring and repetitive and everyone has done that. One thing I may do is to rearrange the piece and add chords to it, lengthen it and do an improve over that. That will show imagination and knowledge of where the chords go. Perhaps get another instrument or two to play along with you. A Bass and a sax may be good.

   Show some imagination. Get a lesson from a jazz teacher perhaps that may help. Best thing you can do is listen listen listen.