Authentic Expression: The Missing Piece in Guitar Improvisation

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Moving beyond scales in improvisation requires balancing technical knowledge with creative expression. We need to develop both our "guitar brain" and our "music brain" to create authentic musical moments.

• The guitar brain encompasses technical skills like scales, arpeggios, theory, and fretboard knowledge
• Most guitarists get overwhelmed practicing too many disconnected techniques
• The music brain thinks about what you want to sound like and how to respond to what you're hearing
• Consider elements like phrasing, repetition, dynamics, and register when improvising
• Start with backing tracks that match your current skill level and comfortable keys
• Narrow your focus instead of constantly adding more techniques
• Practice creative expression daily rather than occasionally
• Authentic playing connects with audiences more than technical flashiness
• Assess what's working in your playing before adding new elements
• Make deliberate musical choices about speed, volume, register, and style

Keep practicing and focus on developing your creative approach alongside your technical skills.

Links:

Check out the GuitarZoom Academy:
https://academy.guitarzoom.com/

• Steve’s Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/stinemus...
• GuitarZoom Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/guitarz0...
• Songs Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/GuitarSo... .

Episode Transcript

Steve (00:00):
Hey, Steve Stine from GuitarZoom Academy here.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
Today we're going to be talkingabout improvisation beyond
scales, Things to think aboutfurther down the line than just
which scale you're using or whatarpeggio or cage system or
something like that, which isall good.
We need that stuff, no doubtabout it.
But there's another way ofthinking about things that will
get you closer to actuallycreating the music, and so what

(00:25):
I like to do is talk to peopleabout two things I always think
about.
Number one is what I call theguitar brain.
So what the guitar brain is isreally all of those tools that
we think about studying andmemorizing and practicing, and
all those sorts of things youknow, from scales to, again,
licks, arpeggios, whatever thesethings might be, finger
exercises, fretboard development, all of those kinds of things,

(00:47):
theory, all of that.
And again, we need all of thesethings to some degree.
Each person's a little bitdifferent, depending on you.
Know what your goals are, whatyour experience is, what your
interests are, are going to, youknow, determine which ones of
these sorts of things are best,the most important things for
you to focus on.
One of the biggest thingsguitar players get bogged down

(01:10):
with is just way too muchinformation.
They're just practicing.
You know they watch videos andthey just grab everything and
then start trying to practice383 different things.
And again, if it's working foryou, great, but if it's not,
part of the reason for that isbecause you're just practicing
so much stuff.
And first of all, are thepieces actually connecting
together?

(01:30):
Are they just random thingsthat you're trying to do?
And number two, are thesepieces, these tools, working
together to get you where youwant to go, or are they outside
the sphere of what you're tryingto do?
And if you're trying to learnhow to play a G and a C and a D
chord so you can play, you know,whatever song, but you're

(01:50):
working on some sort of stringskipping or tapping thing Again,
I'm not judging, you can dowhatever you want, but you can
see that that element isn'tdirectly connected to whatever
this thing is, and so sometimesthe best thing you can do is
optimize that.
So if you think about yourguitar brain, that's all of
these thoughts, all of theseskills you're developing
physical skills, mental skills,all that kind of stuff To get

(02:14):
closer to the realm ofmusicality.
The other thing you want tostart practicing is developing
what I like to call your musicbrain, okay, or the creative
brain.
And so now you're not justthinking about all of these
things like oh, I'm going to jamover this backing track, so I
need to play this lick because Ipracticed that last week.
Or I have to do this exercisebecause my teacher told me to do

(02:36):
this thing.
Or again, I'm not saying it'sright or wrong.
You might be able to make themfit all the way around, and I
think that's awesome, all theway around, and I think that's
awesome.
But if they're not fitting andit doesn't sound musical, it
doesn't feel musical to you.
Oftentimes the reason for thatis because you're not thinking
musically, You're just thinkingabout the tools, right?
So with the music or thecreative brain, what you start

(02:57):
thinking about is what do I wantit to sound like?
What kind of responses do Iwant to make to what I'm hearing
?
What is the music asking fromme?
So then I start thinking aboutthings like phrasing, repetition
, dynamics.
Okay, I like to talk aboutthings like register, like where

(03:17):
on the fretboard do I want tostart singing, if you will?
When this music is playing,what does it make me feel like?
Do I want to play, you knowreally high and you know kind of
screechy, or do I want to playa little bit lower and kind of
more um, intimate, Like I haveto think about these things, not
just what scale I'm going tochoose or what lick I'm going to
play, or how fast I'm going toplay or how many notes of that

(03:39):
scale I'm going to play.
Again, I'm not saying thatthat's wrong.
What I'm saying is, if younever think about things on a
musical level or a creativelevel, you're not going to play
things that sound musical andcreative.
So it's learning to combinethese things together.
But the problem is is mostpeople don't spend near enough
time trying to create on thatcreative level.

(03:59):
So you know you're practicingyour exercises and your scales
and whatever it might be, songsthat you're playing with your
band, and again, this is allgreat.
But if you want to get reallygood at doing things like
improvisation, what you have todo is start kind of narrowing
down the scope and then refiningwhat you're trying to do.
And what I mean by that is,let's say, because I see this

(04:21):
all the time, let's say, you'repracticing.
You know, when you do yourfundamental stuff, you're
playing an E minor pentatonic orsomething like that, which is G
major pentatonic, like thatwhole conversation.
But every time you go to grab abacking track off of YouTube,
you grab some weird jazz thingin the key of E flat or A flat
or something, and then youwonder why you're not putting

(04:43):
that together.
Or you know, when you practice,or even just inherently, you as
a musician feel things at aparticular tempo.
But when you grab your backingtracks, your backing tracks are
nowhere near that groove or thatfeel that feels good to you.
So you're grabbing things inthe different key.
And again, if you're trying toexpand your palette, there's
nothing wrong with that at all.

(05:04):
But if you're trying to developsome sort of confidence, start
with what you know and thenbuild around that.
So if you're always practicingin the key of E minor, slash, G
major that's how you'repracticing your scale
development, your positions andall that kind of stuff why not
find some backing tracks thatcan support the practice that
you're putting in and then finda tempo, find a groove that

(05:26):
feels good to you?
You know whatever chords you'reyou're working with, you know
maybe it's skill, chordconnection or whatever it might
be.
Again, all of these kinds ofthings need to come into play,
and so when you go to practice,this isn't something that you
just do once a week or something.
This creative practice becomessomething that you do on a daily
routine as time permits.

(05:47):
If it's something that's reallyimportant you to learn how to
do that, you've got to stop justputting all of your stock into
learning more scales and modesand more arpeggios and whatever,
and you have to start actuallylearning how to sing with the
instrument.
But it's a different mentality.
It's not just playing, it'sinteracting with the music
that's being played.
Now you can make choices thatare fast or slow, or high or low

(06:10):
, or loud or soft, or you knowmore rock or more.
That's all entirely up to you,what feels good to you.
So I don't, it doesn't matterto me, it's just does it, does
it sound real?
That's what we're looking for,and so sometimes the answers
aren't just in more content,it's crafting the things that
you already have and then figureout what's missing and then

(06:32):
start adding those things in.
You see, that's how I like tothink about getting people to
the next level in their playingis not just watch these 15
videos and figure it all out andsee if it makes more music, but
get assessments of your playing, Like what's actually working
and what's not working and whatdo we need to do to fix that.
So start thinking about youryou know your guitar brain

(06:53):
versus your music brain and whatyou could do to change that up.
Okay, Once you get morecomfortable with that, then you
can start stepping outside thoselines a little bit.
Maybe you choose a different keyor a different tempo or a
different groove, right, or youstart adding on a new scale or a
different mode or some morelicks or whatever.
You can keep expanding.
But what most people do isthey've already tried a bunch of

(07:15):
this stuff and they just kindof have a lot of stuff sitting
over here.
Already tried a bunch of thisstuff and they just kind of have
a lot of stuff sitting overhere, but they have really no
idea how to put it together in amusical context.
So the more you can practicewithin that creative space and
start learning how to developthese things.
So when you get together withother players or jump on stage
or whatever it might be, you'vealready got a platform to work
off of.

(07:36):
Right, it doesn't always have tobe flashy, but it has to be
musical, it has to be authenticso an audience can connect to it
, and so can you.
You can choose to make it moreinteresting technically, or
again, we can use the termflashy.
That's a choice of yours, butthat has to come secondarily.
Once you've established theconfidence of the motion of your

(07:57):
fretboard, the creative aspectof your fretboard, then you can
start making these other smallerdecisions on what you want to
do specifically to make it moreyou.
You know what I mean.
So anyway, hopefully that helpsyou a little bit.
Take care, Stay Positive, keeppracticing and I'll talk to you

(08:28):
soon, all right.