Sam Bell: Sugar Squirrel, Improvising Tom Quayle and extracting the Lydian b7

During the week I play improvised/jam based music with some friends at a local pub, we all contribute fun cheesy riffs to jam over, or we take pop tunes and do instrumental versions of them. This is one of my ideas called Sugar Squirrel. Enjoy!

(The solo is improvised. I left the original clean guitar on the recording alongside the live track, you may notice in the funky Cm9 section that some of the strumming looks off with the audio, which it isn't, its just accenting the original 16th note clean strumming pattern.)

'Sugar Squirrel' by Sam Bell (HD)


I SUCK at Improv, I know, so if you are going to slate me, please make it constructive and intelligent! The aim of this jam was to just jam and have fun, I tried my hardest to avoid any "licks", and there are a few bum notes (quite a lot actually). If you are new to my videos and can see that I am playing an 8 string and you are thinking something along the lines of "why is he using an 8 string" etc...its because I play 8 string regularly and write music with the 8 string, which if you subscribe to this channel you can find lots of 8 string related videos. I have a column in Guitar Interactive Magazine breaking down 8 string techniques and songwriting approaches in my own music, feel free to check it out! (Tom Quayle and Rick Graham also have some AMAZING free columns which you should check out!) Massive apologies to Tom Quayle for this atrocious improvisation that I am doing over one of his tracks that came with his "Modern Legato Part 2" package (worth it, buy it!)
Practicing Improvising on a Tom Quayle Backing Track



WARNING! No real phrasing in this video, just noodling around with the Lydian b7 scale. Which is a scale I have written with, however, never really improvised with. So this video is me practicing the scale just getting a feel for it! I created the backing track, if I get enough requests I can upload it to my soundcloud page for everyone to jam over!
Practicing the Lydian b7 Mode (HD)

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