Improvisation Strategies

Sit in on a lesson with me and one of my students as we look at some of my main strategies for improvising over a jazz standard. Sit in on a lesson with me and one of my students as we look at some of my main strategies for improvising over a jazz standard (Stella by Starlight) with the focus on chord tone soloing and comping. We look at strategies for breaking up the guitar in digestible bites so that we can master the fretboard in it's entirety. We'll also look at how to analyze chord progressions typically found in standards so that we can determine the best scale choices. Additionally we will talk about substitutions for the dominant 7thb9 using the diminished 7th. We also discuss how to spot and handle secondary dominants. Another tactic we discuss is how to break the guitar up into 7 parts for 7th arpeggios which, once mastered, will allow you to see the chord tones overlayed on the scale. Besides chord tone soloing we switch gears and talk about soloing via key centers. Thi