Let Go of What You Know

Let Go of What You Know - How to Improvise Freely on Guitar

One day, while feeling somewhat hemmed in and creatively stifled by theory, shapes, patterns and whatnot, I was searching for a way to improvise on guitar using the whole neck as my note palette, as well as freeing myself from all those ‘rules’. It came in the form of the information in this book; and while you may not find it technically difficult, the real challenge here is the mental one.

Believe it or not, most guitarists are not creative when they improvise, and consequently are not truly improvising in the strictest sense of the word. Most are playing things they’ve played thousands of times before, or are working from the confines of patterns, shapes and well-calculated fretboard maneuvers. You have to look a little harder, and usually in the direction of jazz, to find players that are truly, ‘composing on the spot’, as I’ve heard it called. You can tell when a player is truly improvising because it’s unpredictable, yet captivating, and has a certain ‘truth’ to it that a pre-fabricated solo simply doesn’t possess.

The objective of this book then is to let go of what you know by reducing the rules to a bare minimum in order to see the fretboard as a palette of possibilities when we go to improvise; just as a painter would see their own palette of colors and simply create. This is achieved from both the physical and mental perspective by providing a basis for freer improvisation where the player can concentrate on sound and free movement within a very loose framework, as oppose to patterns and boxes.

This method could be used for anything from the rock, blues or jazz you may already play, right up to avant-garde or atonal improvisation.

*Includes 8 full-band backing tracks.

Available on Amazon Kindle