Good week for me musically.

Still playing around with All of Me.

What I started to do was play along with a nice

I graduated from playing just the chord changes, to the chord changes with the melody included in the lead tones and then just just the melody.

After playing with the melody for a bit, I started to add little notes, sometimes just neighbor tones but others being from the scale.

For instance, the first part of the melody that has the lyrics, "All of me,..." is R-5-3 in the C scale. I started simple and changed it to R-7-5-3. I then added a simple fill before the next part of the original melody came in. I did this for all parts of the melody through the song. Making those little changes.

After that, I got a bit more brave. I would say 95% of what I did sounded great! It was my first REAL venture into improv playing.

From there, I already knew the C scale for the finger positioning I was happy with for the start of the melody so.... I just played notes in whatever direction felt right making sure to target the original melody notes for familiarity. Even with other notes in between the original melody notes, it held its familiarity. So... that was good.

Next, I went on to E7, then A7 and Dmin. I found myself then doing some rather nice improv single note leads!

What I learned from this was that the song itself must be internalized. Not that you necessarily have to have some sort of cosmic connection with the song, but that you learn every aspect of the song from every imaginable angle. You have to learn the chord changes. You have to know the chord changes. You have to know where those chords are all over the board and really get a feel for the what the different voicings will bring to the song if you use them. Next, learn the melody. Know the melody and really develop a feel for how the melody fits against the song. Finally, really know the scales for the all the changes. Started simple and build on that. Learn one scale in one hand position and add to it.

I'd say within a few weeks of having little to no familiarity and little to no improv experience, you will be doing some improv!

So, yeah. Good week! The 575 through the Vox was the equipment I was playing through for my first jam. Gotta love that tone!

I have jammed schedule for the forseeable future but I will try to get some sort of video posted soon.

....Try.