Photo by Riley Bartel on Unsplash

Often when improvising or generating ideas on the guitar, most of us tend to quickly move on from one idea to another, exhausting everything we have in our arsenal. Once we’re done, we get stuck not knowing what to do. There is musical potential in absolutely any idea you can whip up. The danger with simply running through ideas one after another is that you don’t get to explore the full potential of each idea and what you play ends up sounding random, lacking any story or common theme. Whenever you come across an idea that you like, you want to make sure that you get the very most out of it. Here we will explore some ways of doing exactly that.

1. Repeating patterns

Using repeating patterns is a great way to get more out of a particular idea. All you have to do is take a smaller fragment out of the larger lead idea and repeat it. For example, if your main idea consists of 6 notes, you can take a 2 to 5 note fragment of that idea and play it repeatedly either ascending, descending or both. This builds tension in your playing. Be sure to resolve the repeating pattern to any note that sounds good over the chord that’s playing in the background.

2. Changing rhythm

Changing the rhythm of your phrase is also a great way to get more out of an idea. All you’re doing here is simply taking some of the notes in your phrase and stretching them out, while taking other notes in from the phrase and squishing them together while maintaining the same sequence of notes from the overall phrase. This allows you to come up with very different sounding phrases while maintaining the same general feel of the original idea

3. Changing notes

Another great way to get more out of an idea is by changing a note from the main idea to any other note in the scale you’re in. The note you change can be any note in your phrase. Generally a good starting point would be to change the last note. Experiment with different notes in the scale and decide for yourself what best serves the piece you’re playing over

4. Multiple picked notes

Multiple picked notes simply means choosing one or more notes from the phrase and picking them multiple times. This is a very simple idea but creates a cool effect. Try changing up the rhythm of your note(s) to better fit the music being played.

 

There are merely a few simple yet effective ways to gain the most out of a phrase. Try them out and have fun. Try to come up with your own ways to stretch out an idea.

 

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