My goal as a guitarist is to become a master improviser. I wanna be that kind of guitarist where I can play anything that comes up in my head. I wanna be able to jam along with other musicians without sounding out of key and not being told what to play. Just play what you feel and hear.

However, you don’t learn to become a master improviser by reading guitar instructional books or learning from DVD’s, you master the art of improvising by listening.That’s pretty much it, really. There’s no other way around it. When you want to learn improvising you can’t expect it to happen right away when completing an instructional book. The key to mastering improv successfully is ear training and perfect pitch. Memorizing the sound of each note and each key.

Sure, learning music theory helps but all that is it’s just a tool. To get great at improvising… you have listen to as much music as possible. Try to play your favorite songs by ear. Download backing tracks from the internet to jam along to. Jam along to your own guitar playing or practice jamming with other real musicians.

That’s why I downloaded the “Ninebuzz Guitar App” for the Ipad ’cause that’s an app that allows you to play guitar along with different backing tracks. I downloaded that app a couple of months ago and it’s great.

Just this weekend, I downloaded several backing tracks from Itunes. Not full albums of backing tracks, just individual tracks. I wanna practice modal jamming so I downloaded a few backing tracks from Itunes that focused on the modes. Playing along with backing tracks is a great tool to spice up your lead playing. As you can see, I have taken lead guitar very seriously. I wanna take it to the next level and get even better.

From this point on when I learn new cover songs, I’m never looking at guitar tab ever again. Everything is gonna be figured out by ear. You wanna become a master at lead guitar… STOP looking at guitar tab and just play your favorite songs by ear.

There are too many guitarists that ignores the art of improvisation and ear training. When cover bands learn new songs, they rely on guitar tab. No offense but when all you’re gonna do is rely on guitar tab to learn new songs… you’re not a real musician, in my opinion. Figuring songs out by ear is definitely the way to go. Sure, I understand that people get frustrated trying to learn new cover songs so they end up looking at tab to help them but if you don’t give up figuring out the song by ear, YOU’LL GET IT. Yeah, it gets annoying as hell playing the song on your stereo over and over trying to figure out every guitar riff or guitar solo but trust me, you’ll get it if you don’t give up and the hard work will pay off.

My 2cents on how to memorize the sound of the notes and keys in your head singing them in perfect pitch. Even if you can’t sing and don’t have a good singing voice, you must do it anyway if you want to master the art of improvisation.

I’m not a pro at improv yet but I’m definitely getting there. I wanna master improv ’cause I wanna rock out and jam if I ever get my own band going. If I ever get a band going, I wanna do a lot of soloing. I’m just taking my time for now.

When you master the art of improv, that’s when you’ll know that you’re a real musician. That’s what it takes to become a virtuoso.

Maybe soon I’ll videotape me jamming on some lead guitar with backing tracks for youtube. It’ll be fun.

Kev