Listening and time keeping

[pcox7161]

emil i think you have something good going here and i hope you continue to help us. i think in order to improvise you have to be able to hear the progression as you improvise. that's a very hard thing to do (learn) . keeping up with where the progression is at at all times is a must. am i wrong here? i find that when i try to improvise, all of a sudden i've lost the progression. what would you suggest i practice to overcome this, again thanx for your lessons

[emilernebro]

@pcox7161
Thank you for the nice message! :)
Yes, in order to improvise well over different changes, you need to be aware of the chords that fly by at all times. I think it's very important to start with a chord progression that you've heard a LOT! That's why it's always a good idea to start with the Blues! A simple three chord blues (12 bar blues) in any key is great. And try to outline the chord changes over the blues.

I'd strongly suggest the lesson Country Guitar: Soloing Concepts if you want to learn how to really follow the changes! We talk a lot about how to do that in this lesson, and we start off by working with the pentatonic scales to follow the changes - but we also use the mixolydian mode, chromatics and much more.
Then when you want to take the next step in learning how to follow the changes and add more tension to your playing, check out the lesson Jazz Up Your Blues, where we also talk about this subject.

Hope this helps, and have a great day! Thanks for being part of our community! :)
Kind regards/Emil