Improvising freely is a really tricky thing to do. You might have a few licks you can play comfortably, or the odd melody, but you just can't weave them together in a natural way. Or you watch other players and think, I wish I had that kind of freedom on the fretboard.
Here's a very simple exercise you can do at any level that helps with exactly that. It looks easy. It's harder than it looks.
The exercise: play a scale without stopping ▶ 0:29
Take a scale you know and play it continuously at a set tempo, without any pausing. You can do it to a backing track or just to a metronome.
Start at a tempo that's quite easy for you. I started at 120 BPM, playing eighth notes, so two notes per click: "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and". The only rule is that you never stop. Every eighth note gets a note.
If that's hard, start in order ▶ 1:07
When I do it, I don't just play the scale in order. I try to vary it a bit. But if you find this difficult, and some of you will, just play the scale straight up and down. As soon as you feel like you've got the flow of it, change the direction a little bit. Then a bit more.
Get more inventive ▶ 1:50
Once that's comfortable, start bringing things in:
- Techniques like slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs.
- Jumps, skipping notes in the scale rather than going step by step.
- A faster tempo.
There comes a point where the more creative you get, the harder this becomes. And when you turn the tempo up as well, it gets tricky quite quickly. I can play way faster than these tempos, but playing in a jumpy, free, continuous way is a completely different thing. That's the point. You're training your ability to just keep moving.
Why continuous playing helps your phrasing ▶ 2:52
Now, normally I encourage students to break their phrases up: a phrase, some silence, another phrase, maybe a pause or a sustained note. Continuous playing can sound a bit monotonous if it's not done well.
But sometimes you want a phrase that lasts longer than four to six notes. If you can start a phrase low on the neck and keep building it in a dynamic way all the way up the fretboard, you could play for several bars unbroken and make it sound interesting, as long as what you're playing is good. This exercise is how you build that ability.
Move around the fretboard ▶ 3:26
Ideally, you then start moving around the neck. Pick a key (I used B minor), start in one position and keep playing while you change position, jump to another area and carry on. My knowledge of B minor across the whole neck isn't perfect, and you'll notice that in your own keys too. That's fine. It shows you where the gaps are. The only rule is still: keep going.
Then try it over a backing track. I used a bluesy B minor one. Just continuous playing, varying things, moving around the fretboard, skipping notes in the scale.
It doesn't sound super musical, but it's a great way to get your brain into the habit of just keeping going.
It makes a really good warm-up, too.
Keep making it harder ▶ 4:48
This is a bit of an infinite exercise. The better you get, the faster you set the tempo, the more you jump around, and the more techniques you bring in.
One I didn't use at first is bending. You could give the bend two clicks, one for the bend up and one for the release. Or just one click on the bend up, then go straight to the next note.
Link your phrases together ▶ 5:23
There's always going to be a tempo where you find this difficult. Find it, put on a track or a song you want to play along to, and work there.
Then go back to playing normally, building phrases you like, and see if you can weave in some of this continuous playing to link those phrases together. You might be surprised how much more flowing your playing becomes.
Do it for 10 minutes a day for a few weeks and your fluidity as a player should really improve. Have a go, and see how far you can push the tempo before it falls apart.
