Home \| Site Map \| This Site Is For Sale \| Develop Your Domain Names
	Improv Central: You CAN Make This Stuff Up!

Improv Central: You CAN Make This Stuff Up!

Creating Caverns - an Improvisation Exercise
In a recent post to my Yahoo group, I mentioned that I created the piece "Caverns" using one chord. I'd like to explain how I accomplished this.

Comedy Defensive Driving School® Launches New First Fully-Animated No Reading Required Online Defensive Driving Course
Each year approximately 16 million traffic & speeding violations are issued in Texas, most of which are eligible for dismissal through participation in a state-approved defensive driving course. Following their twenty-year, 2 million students, classroom success, Comedy Defensive Driving School® has released the first ever, 100% no reading, online defensive driving course available for ticket dismissal & insurance reduction for all eligible Texans with an Internet connection. This course uses 2D & 3D celebrity parodies, live footage of local & national comedians, & stop motion action figure characters to teach state-regulated material in a unique, humorous, interactive, way.

Dinner Theater in Portland Oregon Takes Off with ‘Who Stole My Dead Husband?’
From its humble beginnings in Portland, Oregon, this dinner theater has now matured into one of the best shows on the West Coast.

For Funny People Only: Introducing The Stand-up Comedy Success Program
Revolutionary new education program teaches individuals how to apply their natural sense of humor and develop marketable comedy skills for a high paying part-time or full time stand-up comedy career.

The Dufus Detective, a Free Online Entertainment Site, Puts the Comedy Back in Comic Books
Dufusdetective.com, a new comic book, is written for fans of both the comedy and detective genres. This bimonthly online publication applies cartoon effects to digital photos of live models to create a unique look. Each episode presents another mountain to climb for the intellectually challenged hero.

Comedy Film Short is the Hot Ticket at Summer Film Festivals -- Owning Mahowny Scribe, Maurice Chauvet
Maurice Chauvet, best known for the screenplay adaptation Owning Mahowny (Sony Classics, 2003) has a side-splitting comedy short and a packed schedule on the 2007 film festival circuit. Short film "Three-Fifty" is being snatched up by festivals here, there and everywhere.

Rove Daily and Snickers Team up in Search of the Best Undiscovered Comedians
RoveDaily and Snickers are searching for the best undiscovered comedian in the country to perform in the final Rove Stand-up spot of the year and take home the Snickers Golden Nut Award. Some of the country's top unknown talent has been gathered to battle it out in heats at secret locations in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth.

"Accidentally Engaged," A Quirky Comedy -- The Romantic Road Trip of the Psychic No One Saw Coming
She's found the one -- but he's already taken! Daily Horoscope for Pisces: Beware road-trips, handsome strangers, and mysterious, unidentified flying objects. An entertaining journey with unique and likeable characters entangled in an increasingly strange series of events.

New Novel Characterized by a Criminal Comedy of Errors
Questionable morality and good intentions characterize Our Friend Jimmie, a humorous and bighearted crime drama from James Sweat.

Iranian, Muslim, Arab-American Comedians Join Forces for One Night of Politically Charged Stand-up Comedy on Sunday, March 4 in New York City
Can an Iranian be funny? Can a Muslim tell a joke? Can an Arab make you laugh? Find out at this edgy stand up comedy show featuring many of the comedians from Comedy Central's "The Watch List".

The Comedy Club Launches Five New Entertainment Venues Following Edinburgh Festival
Comedy entertainment giant, The Comedy Club Ltd is set to launch 5 new venues in September following huge excitement at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival. As the Comedy Club continues to host premier nights with top stand-up comedians at quality venues from London to Sunderland to Switzerland they're raising the roof with laughter. Find out who is this year's if.comedy Winner.

'BECK '08 - LIVE' Offers Evening of Political Comedy and Insight During Special Nationwide In-Theatre Event
National CineMedia's Fathom and Mercury Radio Arts Present Glenn Beck's Comedy Tour in Select Theatres on July 17th

PyxWorld(TM)/2008 Kicks Off Year-Long Program with Competitions for Music, Documentary, Comedy, and Horror: PyxWorld(TM)/2008 is "Connecting Artis
PyxWorld(TM)/2008, a year-long program of multi-media, multi-genre, multi-national events "Connecting Artist with Audience(SM)", was launched today by Pyxix(R) Corporation, a global diversified media company with a network of broadband entertainment channels.

Dailymotion and Jim Biederman Announce The Dregs as Winners of First "Great Sketch Comedy Showdown" Competition
- Winning troupe receives six month development deal with comedy producer Jim Biederman - Over 200 comedy troupes submit total of more than 900 videos to the contest - Watching every single video entered takes Biederman and the Dailymotion creative team approximately 200 hours - Biederman develops mild case of myopia but believes it was worth it

Comedian Dana Carvey To Be A Special Guest At "Controversies And Advances" Symposium For Heart Specialists
Two-day program for heart doctors and heart surgeons will be held Sept. 4 and 5 in Beverly Hills and is sponsored by the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in conjunction with the California Chapter of the American College of Cardiology and the California Chapter of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons.

Guitar Fretboard - Major Scale Patterns For Improvisation

Guitar improvisation is a necessary aspect of playing as it will help you to master the various scales of lead guitar and helps you to play solo.

Guitar improvisation can be divided into several categories that include using scales like the blues scale, minor and major pentatonic and many others as well as applying techniques like bends and tapping etc. Most of the guitarists end up spending their entire life trying to learn how to solo using only one or two different scales.

Most guitarists use the 5th and 12th frets but then this is not improvisation. Guitar improvisation uses many more scales and the entire fretboard. The scales that can be used for guitar improvisation include:

The Basic scales

There are mainly 5 basic scales that you as a lead guitarist should be able to play.

Learning the scales will help you in:
?Building strength so that your fingers can work independently on the fretboard
?Playing these scales will help you to train your ears in recognizing the basic note combinations
?You will be able to use various note choices for guitar improvisation as well as writing music

Once you are well-versed with the basic scales, you can move to the open position major scales.

Open position major scales

The open position major scales represent the 5 common keys for acoustic or electric guitar, which are C, G, D, A, E. It is important to play scales in the full range of a position. Even though a C major scale would technically only go from C-C, if you just practice that limited range you would be leaving out the notes in the upper and lower range of the first position. This is why these scales are written the way they are. You will start on the root of the scale and descend to the lowest note in the position, ascend to the highest and return to the lowest root note.

Minor pentatonic

The minor pentatonic is one of the major scales that is used extensively for guitar improvisation. It is also known as the king of all scales by many great guitarists of all times and they have been used repeatedly lead guitar improvisation. The minor pentatonic scale is also the most common scale used by rock, metal, alternative and blues bands. Penta stands for 5 and this means that there are 5 different notes in the minor pentatonic scale.

Blues scale

The blues scale is another major scale that is used extensively by blues guitarists. The blues scale is a type of minor pentatonic scale with an added note often called the blue note. This type of guitar improvisation helps in creating a little bit of tension that brings out the blues sound.

Major Scale Shapes

The major scale shapes should be studied by every lead guitarist as understanding it will help in guitar improvisation. This is also known as the CAGED scale system and is considered as one of the corner stones of understanding the guitar neck or fretboard.

Want over 1000 Guitar Backing Tracks? Visit Planet of Rock for backing tracks and jam to professional live bands! Eugene is the founder of Planet of Rock Music Studios. He is a full time guitar teacher and has contributed to publications as Guitar Player and Maximum Guitar. Professional Guitar Jam Tracks - For The Rock Star In You