Ok, so I'm a guitarist, just want to know if anyone has any advice to help me improve. I mainly play metal stuff, i'm a pretty able guitarist, can do a lot of that shred malarky so my overall technique is quite advanced and I know a bit of theory, know pretty much to write a decent enough metal song. It's the more theory side of things I want to get better at, my improvising isnt too great, I limit my soloing to the minor scale and minor pentatonic with the odd harmonic minor. I know all my major scale positions and minor pent positions but not fluent enough with them to just improvise anywere on the fretboard. I only know the one position for the minor scale. I really really want to grasp modes properly as I feel it will definately branch out my playing more but I just cant seem to understand them properly. I also have trouble memorising all the chord formulas and stuff, my memory isnt the best either. After doing all that I might try branching out more to learn different styles such as jazz and classical etc... Any advice from anyone would be greatly appreciated.

you dont always have learn all that to advance your guitar playing because shit I personally dont know any theory or scales and I can shred and solo like allmost one out their so just try playing your style and what you know

Yea you just have to have an understanding of when playing a fret what other frets you can go to afterwards.

Jazz and folk music use this sort of method.

Trial and error. Trial and Error, trial & error.

That's the way to go. I believe that really good improv players are really good at imitation. I don't think there is any kind of original improv out there. If you're trying to improv something, your mind tries to think of situations that you have done before and you resort to your already 'set in stone' habits. Guitar players I know who 'improv' sound good. If I jam with them 7 days in a row and record them every time they improv, I'm sure alot of it would repeat itself over the seven days.

Remember, the heavy majority of solos on records are planned out ahead of time.

Modes are really easy. Pick a root, and do a particular scale. The first mode of it would be to do the exact same scale with the exact same notes (and keep the intervallic relations between the notes the same) but the difference is: start the scale on the second note, instead of the root that was played the first time through. So,
Key of A: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1
Key of A: 2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2


Piece of cake

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All your aspirations can lead to missing the trees for looking for a forest. It's better in the long run to use the early stages to develop the mechanical aspects of the instrument in my opinion, thus reduces the frustration of not being able to express the things that are in your head as a result of reading work by people who have developed such techniques over long periods of time. Secondary research is always good, but will get you no where withoutn some solid foundations and primary studies on which to build them.

Everything Party Time 2000 says though is pretty much the same opinion I have, it's just a shame so many musicians strive to be the best and as a result develop an ignorance whereby they'd not accept that improvising comes largely through memory rather than pure inprovisation.

My best tip is to just work at a couple of scales you like the sound of, until you get a feel for them. This doesn't mean learn scale boxes, but more pick a band that you like and learn their songs. Dying Fetus are a great example of this and you'll pick up their riffing habits and styles in no time, realising what frets -or more specifically, notes- to play and when etc... This will eventually just cross into your style when you're exposed to nothing more than a naked drum beat and you find yourself playing smoothly without deep thought. If it sounds in key, it'll flow, to an extent.

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My favourite band is Death, they've really helped me with writing ''out of the box'' things, ive also added a lot of different time changes to my music so thats cool. I think for metal riffage you just need a good variety of metal bands to listen to because a lot of it uses notes out of the scale anyway. I think Chuck used a lot of harmonic minor and minor scale for their solos., but ive found it sounds weird when i use harmonic minor over a melodic chord progression, like say some maiden style one so ive only been able to work it with more out of scale ''chromatic'' riffs.

The most important thing to remember is that no skill is more important to any musician than a good ear. If you haven't taken the time to really improve your ear, than by all means do so. Where every musician should be is at a point where they can hear a riff, melody, etc.. in their head (or on the radio, TV, wherever) and play it on whatever instrument(s) they play. Basically, if you have a well-developed ear, you've won half the battle of being a good musician.

About the modes. Like Party Time said, they are easy enough to figure out what notes belong to what mode in what key with a little practice. I think the most confusing part of modes is learning when to use them. Basically, modes today are looked at as nothing more than a few extra scales to dick around with. You would choose this or that particular mode to play over some chord based on what sounds good (both in key and fitting to the style of the song). A simple way to know what scales ( or modes) would work over a certain chord is to examine the notes of the chord. So if we have a Dmin chord, the notes of the chord are D, F, and A. As such, any scale with these three notes should sound good over a Dmin.

The modes (D root):
D Ionian (D Major): D E F# G A B C#
D Dorian: D E F G A B C
D Phrygian: D Eb F G A Bb C
D Lydian: D E F# G# A B C#
D Mixolydian: D E F# G A B C
D Aeolian(D Minor): D E F G A Bb C
D Locrian: D Eb F G Ab Bb C

Above are the scales derived using the modal formulas with a D root. Keeping in mind that any scale with D, F, and A will sound good over the Dmin chord, we can see that D Dorian, D Phrygian, and D Aeolian (which is the same as D Natural Minor) will all work, though each one will lend its own unique sound to the tune. If you don't understand how I came up with the notes to each of the modes, search google. There are plenty of tutorials on the net about constructing modes, scales, chords, etc.. The important thing to remember when choosing scales or modes is this: First, you find the notes of the chords you will be playing over, then you find any scales that use these same notes. Really nothing to it, especially once you have scale/chord construction down pat.

Hope that helps you out.

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just, follow your own inspiration, how do you feel? how can you play this solo?....visualisation is a really good thing, and like the guy said trial and error, he is right, its not because you learn one scale that your job is done, you can do 123214 technic on a guitar.

Indeed, scales is not bad to learn but, not a MUST totally

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Exactly. That's what I was getting at when I said the ear is your most important tool. I mean, theory can be helpful, but you can't let it constrain your creativity. Say you are writing a song and you are working on this riff or that lead... you shouldn't be saying, "Okay, I should do something like this because that's what the books say". Instead you should be saying something along the lines of, "I'm gonna play this here because it SOUNDS good." I mean, music is just organized sound. Bottom line, knowledge of all the theory in the world can't hold a candle to a good ear that can guide you to produce the sounds you want intuitively, without resorting to some particular scale and whatnot.

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