Guitar Noise

Thematic improvisation occurs when playing becomes based on musical ideas that we pull from the head. Matt Butler explains in this first of two parts.

Improvising is basically composing on the fly. To do this you will need a fairly deep understanding of harmony and compositional techniques.

There’s nothing magical about improvising, except the great feeling you get when you hit the right notes. In this article we show you how to hit those notes.

We’re going to take some chord shapes that you know already and start working on moveable chords. These chords sound cool and we’ve thrown in several examples.

This lesson continues our look at ways you can build your improvisatory vocabulary.

The classical guitar is an instrument that leans heavily on a repertoire of standard works. Is it possible to improvise classical music?

Let’s pick up where part one left off. We’re going to write a simple solo that will round out our version of Horse With No Name by America.

Let’s take a quick journey into song arrangement. In this lesson we’re going to arrange Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here for two guitars.

If a good guitar solo is the result of planning, how do you plan for the spontaneous, spur of the moment solo? Here are some ways to prepare for that moment.

The trick to being a better guitarist is you have to be able to work both inside and outside of the box. Imagination plays an important part.

In this beginner lesson we’ll learn a few basic techniques for both the rhythm and lead guitarist. They are hammer ons, pull offs, slides and bends.

This is the first in a series of lessons teaching you how to play a guitar solo. We’re going to start by learning the fundamentals of a melodic guitar solo.