By now you’ve probably memorized the C scale shape. Now it’s time to
put it to use! Believe me, this is going to be fun.

Once again, here is the C style scale pattern:

We’re going to improvise with this pattern in the key of D. Here’s what
the pattern looks like in the key of D using tab:

We’re going to be improvising (making it up as we go) from this pattern
over a 2 chord progression: D and G. Improvising with this scale pattern
is not too hard. Simply play notes from the scale pattern over the chords.
Don’t just go up and down the scale, try to play melodies. Here is an
example:

Many times when listening to a chord progression, you’ll hear little
melodies in your head. What you are doing when you improvise is you are
playing the melodies that you hear in you head for everyone else to hear.
In other words: it’s artisic expression.

What you want to do is know the pattern well enough that you can find
the notes your looking for. You’ll only get this from many hours of practicing
it, but it will come.

Now It’s Your Turn

You can download the chord progression heard in the example above. It’s
in MP3 format and is 1.5 MB. Practice improvising with the C style scale
pattern in the key of D over the track (just like above). Keep praticing
this, because it will work wonders. Right
click here and choose “save target as…” to download the
track to your computer.