6 Out of the Box Jazz Guitar Improvisation Exercises

Learning to improvise can sometimes feel overly technical in nature. Sure, we need to learn how to relate scales and arpeggios to chords and progressions, and later on add in chromatic notes to our lines and phrases to jazz them up a bit. But, this process of learning to improvise can also be fun and exciting if we look outside the box a bit when planning our practice routines.

Often times students become bogged down with the technical and theoretical side of improvising, which can cause them to avoid practicing or eventually give up all together. But, learning to play scales and arpeggios over chord changes doesn’t always have to be so bland. By using exercises such as playing with only one finger at a time, playing on one string at a time or with a static rhythm, you will not only be feeding your creative appetite, but learning about chord-scale relationships and other jazz theory at the same time.

The following exercises are six of my favorite ways to step outside the box when learning how to improvise. Each exercise has a technical, theoretical and creative goal to it, and can be used to learn chord-scale relationships, to navigate chord changes or even learn entire tunes.

Take some time to check these exercises out. They may seem a bit strange at first, but with a little experimentation the can really help open up your neck and be fun at the same time.

Practice Tips

Here are some of the ways that I like to practice improvisation using the exercises in the article below.

• Improvise over one chord using only its related arpeggio.
• Improvise over one chord using only its related scale(s).
• Improvise over one chord using scales and arpeggios combined.
• Improvise over a chord progression, such as ii-V-I, using the above restrictions.
• Improvise over a tune using the above restrictions.
• Do the above through a wide range of tempos from Ballad to Up-Tempo.
• Do the above in as many keys as possible, and for the single-chord exercises through maj7, 7, m7, m7b5, dim7 and other voicings.

You don’t have to do all of these for each exercise. Instead, a good way to do things is maybe pick one of the above limitations and run it through one of the exercises below. Then, move on to another limitation from the list above and run it through another of the exercises below. This will prevent you from becoming burnt out, and keep things interesting in the practice room at the same time.

One String at a Time

In this exercise, you will be using only one string at a time to improvise your lines. The goal is to break you out of any boxes or comfortable patterns that you’ve gotten used to, forcing you out of your comfort zone and getting you to think more about notes and less about shapes on the guitar.

Try starting out with a simple chord, say Cmaj7, and improvise using only the 6th string. You can further limit yourself to only chord tones, or only scale tones, or both. Once you have that down, you can move on to the 5th string until you’ve worked this exercise through all six.

After that you can change the key, so maybe Dbmaj7, and/or the chord quality, so maybe Dm7b5. The sky is the limit for this exercise, and there are enough chord/key/string combinations to keep your busy for years on end.

If you get tired of working through one string at a time, you can pair strings up and focus on only two strings during your improvisations. This is fairly easy when doing adjacent strings, such as soloing only on the 6th and 5th strings, but it gets trickier as you start to spread things out, such as soloing on only the 5th and 1st strings.

Focusing on one, or two, strings at a time is a great way to break out of boxes and patterns and get you being creative, while exploring the neck at the same time.

One Finger at a Time

In this exercise, you are going to restrict yourself to using only one finger in your fretting hand. For example, you could solo over a Blues in the key of F, but you only use your ring finger to improvise. Again, this exercise is geared to take you out of your comfort zone, force you to slow down and avoid using patterns as much as possible.

This exercise is also great for developing your third and fourth fingers, as we don’t use them very much on their own in normal playing. If you feel that your fretting-hand pinky is a little week, try improvising using only that finger for a few minutes every day. You’ll be surprised how much your finger will improve, and the neck will open up at the same time.

As was the case with the first exercise, you can also do two fingers at a time in different combinations. I really like middle-pinky to get a great fret-hand workout. You can also expand this exercise to your picking hand. If you use your fingers, or pick and fingers in combination, you can limit yourself to only one finger in your pick hand as you improvise over a chord, progression or tune. All great ways to push your playing in new and unexpected directions.

Static Rhythm

Here, you are going to pick one rhythm and limit yourself to using only that rhythm throughout your entire solo. This exercise can be done in one of two ways. The first way is that you pick a rhythmic duration, such as half notes, quarter notes or eighth notes, and use only those rhythms throughout your solo. You can play these durations steady throughout, so play only quarter notes without stopping during your entire solo, or you can add in rests for a little variety, but when you do play you only use quarter notes.

The second way you can do this exercise is to pick a rhythmic figure, such as a dotted quarter note followed by an eighth note, and use only that rhythm throughout your entire solo. When doing this variation of the exercise, you can either stick to one part of the bar, so always starting the rhythmic pattern on the downbeat of each bar, or you can move it around to different parts of the bar if you feel comfortable with this technique.

Often times we focus too much on scales, licks and arpeggios when we are playing, and not enough on rhythm and rhythmic groupings. This exercise is a great way to shore up your rhythmic improvising, as well as expand your rhythmic vocabulary at the same time.

One Octave Range

Another way to practice improvising is to limit yourself to one octave in any area of the guitar for an entire solo. For example, if you are soloing over an F Blues, you could force yourself to stay within the octave between the F on the 1st fret of the 6th string and the F on the 3rd fret of the 4th string.

By doing so, you will force yourself to break out of boxes and patterns, finding new ways of navigating chords and progressions in the process. Another side effect of this exercise is that when you play within one octave, you tend to play simpler ideas than you would if the entire neck was open to you. When you do this, you tend to remember what you just played more clearly, and then can build subsequent ideas on previously played lines and phrase. the resulting solo being more of a theme and variation rather than a series of licks and lines.

Four-Fret Range

This is a variation on the previous exercise, where you limited yourself to a one-octave area of the neck. In this exercise, you will limit yourself to a four-fret span on the guitar. This could be sticking to frets 1-4, 5-8 or 9-12, or whatever four-fret section of the guitar you want to work on during that particular practice routine.

The best results with this exercise happen when you focus on chord tones, arpeggios, within a four-fret span. Often times we rely on patterns and shapes to guide us when we run up arpeggios and solo with chord tones. But, when you limit yourself to just four frets, you won’t be able to fall back on these familiar shapes, which will cause you to find new ways of navigating arpeggios in these areas, often times thinking of the note names and learning them in the process.

One Bar On One Bar Off

In this final exercise, you will be limiting yourself to only playing in certain parts of the form, rather than certain areas of the guitar or physical limitations as in the previous exercises. With this exercise you want to set limits on when you can play and when you have to rest during your improvisation.

For example, if you were playing over a four-bar phrase, ii-V-I-vi in the key of C major, then you could limit yourself to improvising during the first bar, resting in the second, improvising in the third and resting in the fourth. So, you would improvise over the Dm7 and Cmaj7 chords, while resting on the G7 and Am7 chords in the progression.

Doing this exercise is a great way to focus on phrasing while improvising. As guitarists, we tend to overplay during our solos because we can, unlike horn players that need to stop once in a while so they can breathe. This exercise forces you to insert “breath” marks here and there, where you pause and let your ears digest what you just played and guide you to what you will play next.

You can use any combination of playing-resting that you can think of. Maybe 2 bars on 3 bars off, 2 beats on then 2 beats off. There are a million possibilities with this exercise so be creative. Not only will you become better at phrasing when you go back to improvising without barriers, but you will also be working on keeping track of the form at the same time, which can be a big roadblock for beginning improvisers.

The above exercises are great ways to break out of a practice rut, push your creativity in new directions and force yourself to move beyond box patterns and shapes at the same time. Feel free to mix and match these exercises as much as you want. You can play only on the 3rd string with only your middle finger if you want, or play one bar then rest one bar while only playing within a certain octave on the guitar.

Have fun with these exercises and if you try them out, tell us how they worked in the comments section below.

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