a born improviser

1. NF: Hi Vin, I've known you for some years now and I've wanted to ask you about the way you improvise and how you approach it in different music genre like Rock, Blues and Jazz.

Hi Nick, thanks for coming over, it will be my pleasure to try and explain - it's not that complicated really, well the jazz part might be a brain strain but the rest is easy enough I think.

NF: Great, maybe we can start by listening to you improvise a little?

Sure thing, how about a simple Gospel Blues then?

NF: Gospel Blues? what's the difference?

A Gospel Blues is often in a 'major' key rather than a 'minor', I suppose it sounds more optimistic or something. ::laughs:: So I'll use the major pentatonic scale here, and just use a little bit of minor Blues scale to bring out the pain.

NF: That makes no sense to me, major scales to get altered tension?

Yeah, it's not easy to fully understand until you've looked at chord substitution and done some work with triads. At first it seems like there are thousands of chords to learn, but in the end you realise that all these chords are the same, they just have different root notes.

NF: Really!? How can all chords be the same?

Well, not literally all of them, but here's an example. Let's say the Dominant chord is a 'G7'. Well G7 is one chord in a family of dominant chords that all do the same job; like different flavours of ice cream. So G9 is also a Dominant chord like the G7, so is G11 and G13.

if you remove the root note (G) from G7 , then the lowest note in the chord becomes B - now the chord is now Bm7b5. Now remove the root notes from the other dominant chords in the G7 family and you'll find that G11 has the same notes as Dm7, and the G13 is the same as Eminor and Fmaj7b5.

NF: OK, so how does this knowledge make it easier to improvise?

Because now I know that I can substitute all of these other chords for G7. I also know that all these chords are diatonic to the key of C so I can just use C major scale. This is what you find out when you study chord harmony thoroughly. For example, take the Fmaj7b5 - that chord is a four chord diatonic to C major that corresponds to Lydian mode. To me it's all just C major and my ears do the rest.

NM: Got it! So what about altered dominant, do you think the same way over those chords?

Yeah, pretty much. G7 altered has #5 and b9 or #9, so again, take away the root note (G) and you'll see Ab minor triad or an Abm9 chord. I like to use arpeggios from these chords. And going back to what I said about using major scales for altered tension, I can use Ab major scale over the G7.

NF: Ab major as well as Ab minor? How does that work? Now I'm confused!

Well the only difference between major and minor triads is the 3rd. So if you play an 'Ab major' scale over the G7 chord, the scale hits the the suspended 4th of G7, rather than the major 3rd interval. Ab major scale also hits the b5 of the G7 so you have to be careful with this one not to sound too out there.

"..Theory clogs your mind when you're trying to be musically free..."

Basically when you play a major scale a half step above the 5 chord root, you get a sh** load of altered notes. I know some guitarists who will call it Superlochrian and that's OK too. So it ends up sounding like I'm playing fancy scales but I'm not really thinking like that. If you happen to be a musical genius like Wes Montgomery was, maybe you don't have to think about all this crap, you just hear it and play. But if you can't hear it, you have to think it - at least at first.

NF: OK I've got it. So how do you tackle a minor 2-5-1 then?

Not much different really. Say we're in the key of D minor with an Em7b5 to A7b9, resolving to a D minor. I can still use my major scales here, because it's all about where you land musically - the destination - you know, tension and release.

So D minor is relative to F (major), therefore I can play F scale over the Em7b5 to get the diatonic 'Lochrian' sounds. If I play F major scale over the A7b9 too, that also works because F major scale hits the altered notes in the A7 chord - the #9, b9 and #5. That doesn't mean I'm just going to run up and down the major scales all day. I use triads and arpeggios too ya know!

NF: OK, so what about triads and arpeggios, how do you include them when you improvise?

Triads are great because they have all the juicy notes inside - the 3rds and 7ths and b9s especially. I imagine triad shapes on the neck all the time when I improvise. They light up and remind me where I have to land - like an airport runway. I have a video clip which shows how this works in my mind.

In this clip I'm descending over a 1-6-2-5 in they key of F using F major scale only. But I have the triads all laid out over the top and that helps me find the tension I want on the two Dominant chords (C7 & D7)

"...it doesn't sound at all jazzy, just very cool..."

NF: So what's the point of learning all the fancy scales in the first place if your'e not going to use them?

Because I do use them - all of them! Take that minor 2-5 - If I was a 'scale' thinker, maybe I'd be talking about playing Lydian Dominant or Superlochrian and Melodic minor scales. But to me these scales are just major scales in disguise. I don't want to have to make scale choices when I improvise, there isn't time. If I want diatonic notes I use major scale, if I want some form of non-diatonic tension - you know, the notes that are technically out of tune - then I use major scales but in different keys. I learned about this technique 20 years ago when I was studying jazz. I had a book by Mickey Baker which opened my eyes to a simpler way to think about it all.

NF: Why do you think chord harmony is so important to learn?

I think it is the single most important thing I ever learned; because to learn to improvise, you have to understand intervals. To know intervals you need to know chords. To understand how chords work you need chord harmony. Basically it's a journey where you find out how to play a major scale with diatonic chords. Music Theory will always seem complicated until you debunk it by learning chord harmony. The sooner you nail it, the sooner that knowledge will become second nature and you won't have to think about it any more. It's taken me a lot of years to be able to forget about theory completely when I improvise. Theory clogs your mind when you're trying to be musically free, so the quicker you can digest it and be done with it the better.

NF: What about licks, do you use them a lot when you improvise?

I try not to because that's not really improvising to me, but sometimes I just like to throw some in just because I like how they sound. Actually I think every rock or blues guitarist needs a bag of licks. They are great fun to learn and you pick up a lot of technique by memorising them. In fact, one of my favourite things to do is make up new licks. I basically improvise with some ideas, then when I play something I like, I try to memorise it by turning it into a lick. I probably do this every time I pick up my guitar.

NF: So your improvisations turn into licks that you memorise. Do you then use these licks when you improvise later?

Sometimes I do, yes - if I really like the lick or I think it is technically challenging enough to be one that I should really get better at especially.

NF: What about Rock or metal, how do you improvise there?

I'm probably guilty of scaling around too much in this genre , and churning out a lot of licks. But I always look for good melodies in my rock solos, you know a good theme to base my solo around. If you don't have a theme, then then all you do is scale around as fast as you can and punch out some licks. Just like Jazz, for me it's all about identifying the key centres so I can find my major scales. The only difference to jazz is that I wont go heavy on the altered dominant tension or use whole tone.

NF: So you don't use any non diatonic notes in Rock solos?

Yeah, I do but probably limit it to Blues scale b5 and Diminished arpeggios in minor keys. For example, in D minor I might think about the 5 chord - A7b9 , which is basically a Diminished sound and I can use E Diminished arpeggio to slip in and out of D minor (Fmajor) key centre. It might seem jazzy but it doesn't sound at all jazzy, just very cool. I mean, Diminished sounds are just part of the Harmonic Minor chord harmony and a lot of rock players use that scale, it's very common.

NF: Can you show me what it sounds like to use a Diminished arpeggio in a Rock context?

Sure, in this rock lick clip I'm using exactly that approach. I'm playing over D minor rock backing track with F major scale, and I throw in an E diminished arpeggio as I move up the neck.