3 tips to improve your improvisational guitar skills

Hi, how are you doing?

Today I want to give you 3 simple tips on how to better up your improvisation skills.

This is going to be rather short because I'm probably going to expand on these tips sometime near the future.

Okay, let's start!

Tip#1: Be rhythmically interesting

Ever wondered why you know the minor pentatonic scale (and all 5 positions on the fingerboard) but playing them sounds so bad?

Well, if you primarily run the scales up and down - the result will be bad sounding.

Reason is because this doesn't sound musical.

Rhythm is also very, very important!

It's essential to have a vast rhythmic vocabulary too, not only knowing scales.

Tell a story!

You do this by being rhythmically interesting.

Tip#2: Use repetition frequently

Second super important tip is going to be this - repetition, repetition and repetition!

When you don't use motifs and phrases which repeat, the listener gets bored rather quickly.

Repetition draws the listeners in.

Use your ear when playing.

Tip#3: Use chord tones

Another reason your solos may sound bad is that you don't outline the chord changes correctly.

When, for example, you use scales up & down there is a small chance that most played notes will sound great!

When you use the root, 3rd, 5th or 7th for example of the changing chords you instantly sound better.

The minor and major 3rds and 7ths are especially important and many times enough to outline every chord.

Quick summary

When you rely on scales and luck alone, your solos will most likely sound very bad. But when you start using these 3 tips, you will instantly feel and hear the difference.

Hope you will use these tips in your next improvs.

Have a great day and see you soon!