help on making my own solos by improvising

[mr_pat3]

ok, I have this intro jam to a song (Two Step, Dave Matthews Band) and it consists of three chords: Dm, C, G. This is a spot for a solo. the only thing is, can I use scales from all those chords in random order and still sound OK? And also, I'm have a little trouble making my own licks. and what other scales could I use to make it sound good? I'm basically asking how create a good solo over a few chords. THANKS A BUNCH GUYS, I've been looking all over the internet for answers, even on this site, but none please me to well

Pat

[eische]

hmmm, if you want the chords still to exist as a backround accompaniment, you should watch out, that you change the key of the melody according to the chord-pattern to make it sound together. So you use the dm-scale during the time the dm-chord is played and then change key for the following C-chord in your scale-solo as well. Notes to make the change could be the notes that both keys have in common, like d, e, f, g, a.....Then use the notes of the C-scale as long the C-chord is played and change to the G-scale, when the chord-pattern changes again.

does that help?

[mr_pat3]

thank you very much! i would have never guessed using the notes that they all share. And also they are relatively fast changes in the chords, so i would prolly play a lick for each one right? and how do i tell what key its in?

[eische]

I'm not sure if I got you right.....

....how to tell what is in which key? - sort your scales and chords then you know which scale belongs to which chord. You can use any note from the scale then in the solo, you may also just use the notes that appear in the chord and play a chord-splitting like:

d-minor-chord: f', d, a, d, A
splitted chord: A - dad, A - faf, A - dafad (this is just something with a constant bass-line, but may use any variation of the chord-notes and fool around with it)

if you mean the notes that are shared by all the chords, well, you couldn't tell exactly. It's all on the accompaniment then to sort it into different keys, but some note-clusters hint more into one key-direction than others. Say you play somthing like d, g, b, d, b, g, a, g, b, d then they're of course all notes of G and C-major, but because they are all just the notes you play in the G-chord you would probably guess that it is a G-major key you play in....(needn't be true, but it's very likely)