Rob Schumann

Soloing over a Diatonic Minor Progression

When grading students' performances at the Atlanta Institute of Music, I get to hear a wide range of improvising styles. Generally, there are a few characteristics that many students have in common which prevent their improvised solos from being as interesting as they might desire. Usually half of the guitarists will play basic blues licks in one position. Some of these will work just fine, while others are somewhat awkward since this particular progression is not a blues progression with dominant 7 chords. Other guitarists will take the corresponding diatonic scale, in this case D Aeolian (or natural minor), and blindly run around the scale, inadvertently landing on some appropriate chord tones now and then. The problem that arises is a solo that lacks interesting material with no levels, dynamics, or interaction with the chord progression. Also, with these two approaches, there is a lack of clarity in what is being played where the listener isn't really able to "latch on" to what they hear and discern one lick or motif from another.

This particular solo is one that I improvised on a quick take and then transcribed and analyzed. While not perfect by any means, I think that there are some very good ideas and concepts which can be utilized in your own improvised solos. When trying to come up with concepts for licks, it is important to remember that we learn scales in order to identify positions and choices of notes. In and of themselves, they are not solo material. So forget simply running the appropriate scale up and down...

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All of these ideas should be fairly simple to adapt to your own playing and add to your bag of tricks. Good luck.