Have you asked "What scale do I use for this progression?"

Here's a breakdown by Dave Weiner of how to do it. Enjoy!

such a good video, thanks for putting it up. It gives a good insight. How amazing is he at improvising?? crazy dude

More people should see this, so I am artificially bumping it back to the top.

Okay, I have a question. I watched this and felt I learned a little bit, but felt waaaaay overwhelmed. My question is this: How much background knowledge should I have before I even attempt to learn to solo?

none. you can form a perfectly good solo by judt using your ears, even if you dont know any scales or anything. sure they help, and knowing what modes go over what chord make it sound better, but i say just follow your ears

someone should start some online theory classes that start at the very beggining and slowly advances every week or so.

@btimm he does have quite a fair bit of background knowledge there. You do need to understand a few things like chord progressions and the structure of chords as well as some basic scale knowledge and a bit about the modes. But he explains it in sucha good way. I watched other videos of him in youtube and he is an amazing teacher. many vids are on youtube. He toured with satriani apparently

@btimm

I agree with BodomBeachTerror. I find the most amazing solos are the ones that are sooo simple but sound awesome.

The best example I can think of now is Nirvanas version of "The man who sold the world"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7UftStYuqE

If you play both the rehearsal and the live version, you can hear during the solo that Kurt slides up to a note and over shoots! But, then slides down one. It sounds AMAZING! The feeling of that "mistake" makes the solo IMHO.

Even "smells like teen spirit" is an great solo IMO. It just follows the vocal melody in a really laid back way.

A good example of solo "cut backs" is Nivana's song "school". On the Bleach album, I think Kurt over played the solo. I have a live version of that song where Kurt explores a more sonic distorted fuzzed feedback solo and I think it just kicks ass.

I love modes, tone, speed and technique as much as the next dude, but I so admire sonic exploration as opposed to music based on musical theory.

Ive looked into a number of jimi hendrix solos and Im amazed at how he used a stock standard pentatonic scale, but used very controled bends to hit notes that are from complex modes. This is very different to the way modern players look at these issues.

Imho, jimi knew what sound he wanted from what was in his head, and he bent up until he achieved the note. As opposed to learning all 7 notes and then using "mode changing" theory.

They are just my views. I love all music.

http://www.youtube.com/user/EpiphoneGear

Background information you should know to improve your improv:

1. Chord progressions
2. Keys (major, minor, and all modes inbetween)
3. Notes on the fretboard, frets 0-11
4. Melodic Ideas, such as appogiatura, suspension, passing and neighboring tones, and pedal points

This will all help you when you start to do improv, and give you the technique and musical understanding to improve your music.

he got a new vid up! About modal interchanges. Got to check that one out too!