Keeping the groove up...

[chilipepperflea]

Hey, im not sure if this is the right forum but i'll give it a go.

Basically i'm self taught and although im not really into all the theory im open to it, at the moment i dont know much tho.

my question is when ill be doing a song, ill have the rhythm going, really feeling it and ill wanna start to improv, you know add a few bits in, jump about, the problem is...

i can never keep the rhythm going,

i can never link the notes up, so they sound good, like a scale type thing i guess, moving up and down doing patterns,


so should i just learn loadsa little patterns so i can link them all up and have sumthin to play, or do i need to learn scales so i know where to go is it? a mate says scales would be good to lear anyway and would help with that.

the type of thing im getting at is like flea for example, having a jam session with john before a song, some imrpov moving about in a groove before the song...how can you get good at this?

sorry for being long winded! cheers

Ryan

[Meyekul]

Practice with a metronome or drum machine, that will help you. Try a steady groove do some fills on it, working on making them fit. Change it up a lot, just test yourself and eventually you'll get better at it. I don't really know of any shortcuts, you just have to keep doing it until it becomes natural to you.

You should learn as many scales and modes as you can, if nothing else so you have some variety in your improvisations. Also, practicing scales is a great way to train your ears and build your finger muscles.