1 hour a day routine
Friends,
Heres’ a 1 hour a day practice routine for a Level 1/Beginner improviser.
Warm up: 7 minutes
Gently stretch your hands for 2 minutes. Breathe.
Then, practice mechanical exercises for 5 minutes on position V, starting from the note A on the 6th string (so it’s not too difficult).
On each string you can play the first 4 notes by starting respectively from string E, A, D, G, B, E, using fingers 1 2 3 4. With a metronome, even better.
Triads and Arpeggios: 20 minutes
Start with simple major triads, two octaves, from string 6 (what I call Version 1 or V1) and string 5 (V2).
A good key is G.
Then practice minor triads.
Total time: 10 minutes
Right after, you can continue with 4 notes arpeggios, two octaves, also to be practiced from string 6 and 5 (again, V1 and V2).
NB: Major triads and arpeggios are easier to practice starting from finger 2, and minor triads and arpeggios from finger 1.
Chords: 20 minutes
To approach jazz harmony you must build a solid knowledge of the basic 4 part chords, generated from the major scale. As a starting point.
GMaj7
Am7
Bm7
CMaj7
D7
Em7
F#m7b5
Practice them by groups of 2. GMaj7 / Am7, Am7 / Bm7, etc.
The most simple structures on the guitar in the key of G (again, as a good starting point), are:
1 7 3 5 (G F# B D) > position III > strings 6 4 3 2
And
1 5 7 3 (G D F# B) > position X > strings 5 4 3 2
So, we will have a total of 14 positions.
Practice them slowly but precisely.
Improvisation: 13 minutes
Take the first position of a G Major scale and play it in eight notes (metronome at 60) without respecting the order of the notes. You can use a GMaj7 backing track to do so.
Feel free to build some ideas from those notes. Breathe. Listen to the beauty of those sounds.
Continue the process in another position if you wish.
Put you guitar back in the case and go for a walk :)
You just did a great job.
Feel free to leave you comment and tell us what do you think!