One of the questions I heard most from my students was: “I already know the scales… now how do I improvise?” In this video I show how to use three minor scales to build a solo with more direction and variety:
- Minor pentatonic — the foundation of almost every rock and blues solo. With just five notes, it’s hard to sound bad.
- Natural minor — adds two notes to the pentatonic and gives a more melodic sound.
- Harmonic minor — with its raised seventh, it has that tense, almost neoclassical flavor.
The video is in Portuguese. You can turn on auto-translated subtitles on YouTube.
How to practice
- Pick just one scale and play it for a few minutes over a backing track in a minor key (A minor is a good starting point).
- Instead of running up and down the scale, create short phrases and repeat them with small variations.
- Leave space between phrases: silence is part of the solo too.
- When you feel comfortable, alternate between the three scales and listen to how the character of the music changes.
To practice you need a good backing track. In this article I explain how to use backing tracks to improve your guitar playing and where to find them.
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