[thewing]

Hey! I'm a mediocre guitarist who is band now (but have only played for about 7 months). There will be a jazz concert next month and I've already mastered the songs and the solos, but I have to improvise myself. The obvious problem is I'm not sure how I'm going to receive a good sound off the minor pentatonic scale our teacher recommends us to use. I was thinking a Dorian or Mixolodian scale would be best, but I'm not sure if I can master it. A Major Scale might be good too. (I'm trying to work in a key that works well with B flat) Thanks.

[bmurnahan]

To get there, you need to do a whole lot of playing

Enough said!

Bob

[Dewy]

One thing I find odd that no one has really hit upon here is the actual chords? What is the Rhythm section doing? That would be worth learning before hand... giving you a better grasp of what scale or chords you'll be playing over.

Thats what I would call rehearsing for an Improv. Work the chords over in your head... "jot" them down onto a recording and try a few thousand things... remember what worked, and you'll have something to draw from, but no real idea of whats first or last.

[Kirk Lorange]

Dewy, when I kept mentioning the 'structure' of the song, I meant the chords. They're the only thing that matters, really, and not so much their names but the Roman numeral values. That's what you 'hear' when you listen to the chord structure ... whether it's a I chord or vi chord or IV chord, whatever.

[Dewy]

I see... that seems like something I have heard referenced when people talk about the I,IV,V structure of a song?

[Kirk Lorange]

That's it, Dewy. If you go to the 'Music Building' lesson The Music Building the analogy would be that you get to always know which room you're in simply by hearing it.

The I-IV-V structure you mention are the three major chords of the key, and they underlie just about every piece of music ever written in some way or other.