Practice improvising

I’ve been practicing improvising on both piano and guitar recently and I’m taking the approach that a number of my guitar professors at Berklee College of Music had; practice improvising. In addition to practicing all of the arpeggios and scales over the changes and everything you need to also just practice improvising.

You need to practice thinking of things on the spot and playing them, and trying to play the ideas you want to hear over the changes.

Because if all you do is practice arpeggios and scales then all you’ll do when you try to improvise is play arpeggios and scales.

Thinking of musical ideas on the spot and playing them is a skill in itself. And it needs practice.

Luckily for many musicians this will be the fun part of improvising.