I have been playing around with random scale notes over recorded chord progressions for some time and having fun. I'm starting to get the feel of how the nearby notes is gona sound relative to the current note so that i in a limited manner can play what i mean to play. But now i wonder if this is a dead end?
Will my progress be limited unless i slow down and learn to always be conscious of the current and upcoming chord and where their notes fall in to the scale? No shortcut? ;)
Anything more to think if i'm gona relearn how to improvise?
Thanks.
In some ways we all 'relearn' how to improvise all the time - it's part of aiming for innovation.
The most important factor is to be able to think of a melody, and play it. If you can do that, it'll sound intentional (because it WILL be intentional!), and you'll need to worry less about the changes.
Thinking about the changes is important at times, and not so much at others... depends on how complicated the harmony is. So it's good to have an awareness - but if you couple awareness with intentional melody, you've got all the tools :)
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Ok, cool. So i'm not totally off.
Another question. Right now i think of the scale notes as positions in a scale pattern, not notes. I'm not aware of the note name i hit. Is this important? Should i fix this as soon as possible?
Thanks.
Start by thinking about targets. Try ending phrases with the root of the chord, then the fifth, then the third.
Identifying those targets by note name can help, because that's knowledge that you can apply in other aspects (like learning more about theory, harmony, etc)... but I can't deny there are folks who do it all by number - as in "this is the IV chord coming up, so I'll land on the 3 of this scale position"
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