hi all, i`m new to this forum...i know somethings in life have a time scale and some questions could be answered as "how long is a piece of string" but i wanted to pose a question to teachers in particular as we know the average time scale to learn to drive is 12-15 lessons..my question would be this ..how long from being a complete novice would it take to learn to improvise on a guitar if say..we were learning the basics and practicing say an hour a day..i know it depends on the individual and how fast that person picks things up ..but on average based on say over a 100 students..how long could it take for a student to get up to scratch and learn to improvise..this would be from learning chords,scales and so on.. then progressing to play the blues (my favourite style)..any feedback would be grateful and thanks in advance...happy strumming and keep the faith
I'm not a teacher but it's pretty difficult to give you an average when everyone advances differently and also when you say improvise at what level? the very basic or advanced.
Depending on the person it could take several months or several years but let's see what some of the teachers say.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
Music's a language. How long does it take to learn a language?
You can learn some phrases in a day. As long as you're not overly self-conscious about it, you can be improvising literally within minutes. But like any other language, limited vocabulary means a limited ability (think Pidgin English)
The more you add to the vocabulary, the more you can do. You might be adding in terms of technique, scales, fingerings (each scale has a bunch), or you might be adding to your ability on the 'grammar' side, learning theory, harmony, composition techniques, and so on.
Like any language you're never really "done" learning it. As you get better, you just find yourself reaching for the dictionary less often.
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
cnev...the level i was asking was from beginner starting from the basics..to playing lets say to a jamming session..as i said in my original post you can gauge as to how long the average novice can pick up the basics to drive a car ..i was wondering on a average of hourly lessons how long would it take a student learning from scratch to imrovise..i`m asking because then i can get a rough idea as to how long it would take me to get to that standard...thanks in advance for input :wink:
Hey bluesman!
I like NoteBoat's answer a lot. Music really is a language. Not metaphorically...it really is just a nonverbal language. So imagine asking how long it would take to be conversational in Spanish if you were just starting to learn Spanish.
With a few basic ideas, you can improvise right away...though in a somewhat limited context. It's like if you learned how to say "yes" and "no" in a language. You could probably get through a conversation with just those two words, but you just couldn't say a whole lot. Then you'd expand out from there by continuing to learn new vocabulary. At what point do you say that you are "fluent"? It's sort of hard to say.
To learn to improvise in a blues style, you just need one scale - the blues scale - to get started. Get the scale shape down, and start to become familiar with what each note in the blues scale sounds like. Think of each note as a color you're painting with, or a character in a play. When you're improvising, you're basically telling a story using a certain cast of characters (the notes from the scale).
Hope that gives you some ideas. I know you're looking for a time estimate, but that's really not possible to determine.
If you want some help with getting started improvising, I've got some free stuff online. Go to the Rock Lead lessons at Tunessence.com. There are videos explaining some basic improv ideas that should help you start to "speak" in music basically right away. There are some other tools on there too (playback tabs, recording yourself, jam tracks) that might be helpful. Good luck!
thank you ben and to all with their input..please feel free to add more comments as i`m always looking for suggestions...excellent site by the way ..keep up the good work..
