1 String Improvisation Exercises

by | Jazz Improvisation

In this lesson I want to introduce you to an effective fretboard mastery method suggested by one of my mentors, the late Charlie Banacos. For those not familiar with him, although he was a pianist, his students played a variety of other instruments. Among his guitar students were Mike Stern, the late Vic Juris, and many other great players. And he used to say to many of us guitarists when we started out…“you already know how to play vertically, that is staying in position”. …..So, as an exercise he’d ask us to practice improvising across just ONE string at a time!

I know that guitarist Mick Goodrick, who like Banacos was also in the Boston area, also prescribed a similar exercise to his students. However, I’ve heard throughout the years that Jim Hall was one of the pioneers of this system. But regardless of who started it, In this video I am happy to share in detail, 7 key steps that you can follow to gradually master any scale or arpeggio throughout the entire fretboard using ONE string to start out!

 

PDF & AUDIO DOWNLOAD:

The 1 String Improvisation Files can be downloaded for $7.00 . Your contribution is much appreciated, as it helps support the site and allows me to keep investing the long hours required to produce these lessons. The download includes the following files: 6 PDFs with both regular notation and TAB containing all the step by step instructions & exercises included in the video, plus an extra set applied to minor tonalities.

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1 Comment

  1. Michael Rich

    Very interesting lesson.. It will certainly help with fretboard visualization.. Highly recommended…

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