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improving your improvising on the guitar
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is something that is incredibly hard to
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do it can be incredibly frustrating to
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practice and that's kind of where
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today's video is headed we're looking at
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ways that we can improve faster have
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more fun while doing it and if we're
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having more fun we'll probably play more
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guitar and therefore get better at it so
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the trick that I have found in terms of
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getting better at improvising and so
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spontaneous kind of playing and writing
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of musical ideas is to do it slow and
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this really isn't a fun sexy answer I
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know but doing it slow is something that
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is hugely hugely hugely beneficial so
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that you have time to kind of think and
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react I kind of liken it to learning
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another language I don't know how many
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of you out there speak more than one
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language but if you learned one of them
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as an adult or even a teenager like for
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example here in Canada we had to take
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French classes and then I moved from the
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west coast to Quebec so now I speak
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French quite a bit uh when I was first
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learning French even if I could
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understand the words in a sentence and I
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was familiar with the words in a
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sentence I could not string them
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together fluently and I think this is
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the same thing that happens with
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improvising is you have to practice slow
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enough that you can actually process and
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do it so for example let's say I was
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soloing over chord progression are we
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going to solo over today let's say I'm
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playing over a chord progression that
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goes D
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major to B
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minor to G
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major to a
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[Music]
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a and now let's say I'm trying to Target
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arpeggios over those ideas so over a D
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major chord I would be thinking
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ideas with a D major arpeggio over B
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minor
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uh I'd be thinking ideas over a B minor
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arpeggio for G
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major I'd be thinking ideas from G
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major and over a major I'm trying to
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play some a major ideas now what I think
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a lot of my students do is we might get
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excited by the fact that we can play If
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I were just playing a D major arpeggio I
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might be able to play it this
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[Music]
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fast and then when it gets to B minor
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G major
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then which is awesome playing arpedio
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fast is awesome but when we're actually
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doing this and
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improvising we probably can't play them
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that fast or think that spontaneously
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because it takes practice to do them so
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when you're working on your improvising
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you need to treat it like you are using
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your or like you're treating your
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arpeggios when you practice the first
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time you look at a new arpeggio you
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don't bust it out in perfect eth notes
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at 180 beats per minute unless you're
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some freak of nature in which case godp
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speed but you want to practice doing it
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slowly so a good way to approach this
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would be find your four arpeggio shapes
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one for each chord so I know I'm going
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to use this D major
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[Music]
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here I'm going to use this B
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[Music]
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minor I'm going to use this G
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major then this a
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had a little flub there and what I'm
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going to try to do is I know I have a
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bar of each of these so say
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[Music]
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it's I'm going to try to just improvise
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a simple little idea over D so one I
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might in not even in time what if I just
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went so that say that's my
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idea now I need a B minor
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idea okay so now I
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have say over G my
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ideas then over a maybe I
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go and again just try to take it slow so
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it's simple little Melody over d
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[Music]
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again mistake in there for free but all
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I'm doing when I'm doing that is I'm
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just trying to improvise these short
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little phrases because even though again
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maybe I can
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play through all of my arpeggios that
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doesn't mean I can improvise those fluid
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ideas now another great thing to do
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whenever you're working on this is take
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that chord progression and try out some
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different arpeggio shapes so what if I
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played this for my D
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[Music]
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major my B minor is maybe here
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[Music]
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my G major is now going to be
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[Music]
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here and then my a
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[Music]
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major is going to be there now I'll try
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to talk you through this kind of how I
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go so what I'm going to do again I'm not
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playing this in time I'm just trying to
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come up with some cool Melodies and a
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nice relaxed Tempo that I can sustain
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and actually think and be aware of
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what's happening so let's say I think of
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a little Melody maybe I want to go da da
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da now maybe I want to repeat the same
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thing over B minor and
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go so there I I heard this simple
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[Music]
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idea now what do I hear over
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G let's
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try then maybe I Echo that going back up
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on the a
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so I
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[Music]
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had now maybe that
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[Music]
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falls so again I'm just trying to hear
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where this Melody is going and I'm
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practicing this slowly and I'm letting
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my ear kind of dictate where my choices
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are whereas if I was trying to play say
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if I haven't done any of this work
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before but I just tried to Jump Right In
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to play
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[Music]
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over I would have a harder time
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obviously I don't have a crazy hard time
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with this now cuz I've spent the better
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part of the last 10 years thinking about
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and practicing improvising but you need
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to start slow so that you can speak kind
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of like the same way with when I was
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first learning French I couldn't say mat
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I would have had to
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sayel mat you know what I mean you have
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to slow it down and you have to spend
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some time thinking in that slower space
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before you can bust this stuff out at
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the speed of the light at the speed of
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light so anyways I hope you found this
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video useful if you did I'd really
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appreciate it if you could like And
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subscribe it really helps me out more
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than you could know if you want to take
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a guitar lesson with me there's a link
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to get in touch with me down in the
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description there I'd love to work with
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you on whatever is troubling you on the
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guitar if you want to support me in the
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free educational content that I put out
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working on so I'd love to see you over
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and what I do is to check out my ebooks
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and video courses that are for sale down
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in the description there as well it's a
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great way to get some educational
00:08:31
content for yourself that's a lot more
00:08:33
in-depth than I can go into in a 10 to
00:08:35
15 minute YouTube video and last but not
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least I have new videos coming out every
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single week so I hope I'll see you in
00:08:40
the next one and until I do I'll wish
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you a wonderful day and I hope you have
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some fun playing the guitar thanks
