Look Who it Was Random video

How to trade lead licks with other band members

1,711 views · Published 7 April 2017 · 7:12 · Indexed 30 October 2026

Channel: New Secret Guitar Teacher · 2017 · Music

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Here is the video transcript:
For this final Sound bite in the mini series, I thought it might be fun to do something on how to interact with other band members when playing a solo.

This is one of my favourite things to do whenever I find myself playing together with other musicians who enjoy improvising and are willing to have a go at a bit of spontaneous riffing off one another.

If you are still quite new to improvising, you may find the prospect of adding this dimension to your solo a bit daunting. But in this little lesson I hope to prove to you that this approach to playing is actually easier than it may appear to be to you at first glance.

I have made a special backing track to go with this lesson, that includes bars of improvising from drums, bass and organ. On this track I have left each second bar effectively blank for you to improvise over in response to the contribution of each of the other instrumentalists.

Let me demonstrate how this is meant to work... We are the key of G and I'll be using almost exclusively the blues scale n G. 

First to respond is the drummer ...So you can hear me playing in response to each of the bars he solos over. And the good thing about starting with drums is that I am putting your attention straight onto the most important aspect of how to do this. And that is to Concentrate mainly on rhythm. When we come on to the next section of the track we'll respond to the bass player. 

And you'll hear that although I might make some attempt to copy, or at least approximate, the actual melody lines the bass plays... I don't always get that dead right. But as long as I don't try to get too complex, and I pay close attention to the rhythm of the phrase he plays, I will come up with something that sounds like it works at least reasonably well...

Here's the whole track.  

Hopefully that will give you the general idea. I have deliberately made the keyboard part a bit trickier than the drums and bass solo sections. 

But as long as you focus in on rhythm first, and then gradually see if you can get closer and closer to copying the melody lines, you will I think, quickly get the hang of this approach to improvising.

Just spending time practicing against this track should really help develop your ears and your phrasing ability.

For site members you can access your own copy of the audio file for this track from the link below the screen. 
For the rest of you, I'll let it run through once now on the video so you can use that to play against if you fancy giving it a go. Do let me know how you get on and I'll see you again soon.

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