Sound stupid but...

[Guinness20]

...I struggle with improvising.

I'm self-taught, so my technical knowledge isn't the best. That said though, ask me what notes are in a scale and I can tell you. But when somebody says "Have a play around in C" I get all awkward and don't know what to do - even though I know what notes are in the scale of C.

War Pigs is a good example, I can play most of the song except the bass solo in the middle. Geezer says he never plays it the same way twice, but I struggle coming up with something.

It feels like it doesn't come naturally to me. Is it something that lessons could help with or something I could work on myself at home? I feel like I just need my eyes opening or a eureka moment or something.

 

[MalcolmAmos]

The Major scale box and it's patterns were an eureka moment for me. After I could visualize he major scale pattern all over the fretboard and could stack 3rds (every other note) in a scale so I could see where chord come from it all began to fall into place. Knowing all this and then finding all that stuff on my fretboard was the second eureka moment. For example you find yourself on a note, if you know that note's interval in the scale; within the box lies all the notes necessary for anything you want to do with that note.

If you take that note's scale and skip a note going up the scale you just built all the chords in that scale. Another example; if you find yourself on the 3rd note of a scale a safe bass line, or improvised riff, could be 3-5-7-2. Skip a note! That was a very large WOW for me.

So where to start. I would recommend getting the major scale box pattern into muscle memory first. Yep I know of no musical instrument that does not start you out running your scales. Running our scales gets our fingers moving over our fretboard and we get to recognizing the sound of the "good and bad" notes. But does little to help us do anything beyond run a scale up and down our fretboard. So we have to learn what to do with those notes, scale intervals, chord tones, harmonizing chords, etc. The list goes on. Another problem pops up about now. That's a bunch of stuff, yep you will need to take it one item at a time. Small bites so all this does not make you sick and you stop studying.

Everything I've listed above can be found in the getting started sticky thread.
How to get started?

May need a little help with stacking 3rds.... I don't think that is in that string.

C major scale is C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.
the C chord is made by stacking every other note in the c scale C, E, G makes the C major triad (chord) now take it out to a four note chord by adding the B for C, E, G, B. That is the notes in the Cmaj7 chord or R-3-5-7 intervals of the C major scale make the chord tones in the Cmaj7 chord.

D chord would be D, F, A, for the Dm chord. Whoa, where did the minor stuff come from?
The D major scale has a F# in it. Our stack has a standard F. So our D, F, A has flatted the F# or 3rd note. Anytime you have a flatted 3 chord tone you have a minor chord. OK that's enough of this for now. After doing the complete C scale all the major chords, all the minor chords and the one diminished chord all fell into place. That was a big WOW for me. But, it will not be a big WOW for you unless you work it all out for yourself. Keep working on stacking the c major scale. Need some help this should keep you on track. Chords In The Key Of C

Get busy.

 

[enricogaletta]

Improvising is the most deep topic in music because merge all your skills, harmony, techniques, timing, feelings, all together.
Off course the harmony need to be at least good and believe me, every musicians, from a beginner to a pro, never stop to practice or develop the improvisation, so don't worry.
Coming back to your specific problem, start to study the applications of the Major scale, learn it is just the first step, look for some good harmony book or better take some lesson on this topic, sometime you need to follow a good path to understand better some concepts and nothing is better than a teacher.
If you need further helps, just let me know, happy to help you!

 

[Jloch86]

Learn sax solos in the key of C or...

Find a jam in the key of C and noodle away until it becomes 2nd nature. There are tons of these on YouTube.

It's tough to get inspired, I know.

 

[swooch]

I'd say that most of the time a you just need to stick to a very simple line and do small, small, variations of it and everybody will be happy.

If we're talking an actual solo, a good point i read somewhere is that you don't need to rush it. continue with the groove for another 4-8 bars or until you feel ready.

(And crowds love fast ostinato riffs more than anything.)

 

[DigitalMan]

Do you know all your modes?

 

[KulNova]

...I struggle with improvising.

I'm self-taught, so my technical knowledge isn't the best. That said though, ask me what notes are in a scale and I can tell you. But when somebody says "Have a play around in C" I get all awkward and don't know what to do - even though I know what notes are in the scale of C.

War Pigs is a good example, I can play most of the song except the bass solo in the middle. Geezer says he never plays it the same way twice, but I struggle coming up with something.

It feels like it doesn't come naturally to me. Is it something that lessons could help with or something I could work on myself at home? I feel like I just need my eyes opening or a eureka moment or something.

Well, I think that we are on the same boat. At least, I was! I had been studied a lot of music theory, scales and many more, but I didn't how to use them nicely in the improvisation, groove fills or whatever. After a long time of researching and practice, my suggestions for you are the following:

- Firstly, start with pentatonic scales, because they feel so nice and easy to use.
- Experiment different type of rhythm. For instance, take 5 notes: two 8th notes, 2 quarter notes, 1 quarter rest. These 5 notes can give you tons of cool rhythms. Write them down and follow what you write. Get used to what you were not familiar with.
- Experiment more uncommon interval that you were not familiar with (4ths and 6ths for example)
- Last but not least, train the ear to be familiar with the scale tones. Sings the notes you play every time. That makes a lot of sense.

Here is a video of my trying to improvise something in E major. Nothing fancy, not so many rhythms in there, but the goal of this practice is to experiment more intervals. I recorded every practice session. And in each session, I stay focus on 1 problem (rhythms, intervals, dynamic...)



I hope these information above can help you a bit.

Cheers,
Thang