Beginner that has a beginner question about soloing.

[meoweth]

Hi guys, I am recently playing the tenor recorder and Im loving it.
I am finding sheet music online and memorizing simple tunes.
I stumbled across this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRy0Z3FZb7E

And found it pretty impressive. I know that I never had a musical ear, so I don't really get what he's doing.
Is he is just playing scales up and down? If so, would I just need to be familiar with a scale and then just go up and down it randomly?
I guess there might be an easy explanation to how to solo, but I'd appreciate any input.

[CHasR]

Welcome to the forum!

You asked: "I guess there might be an easy explanation to how to solo, but I'd appreciate any input."

well yes & no. A beginner might start with taking a small "characteristic "portion of the tune,(many call it a 'motive' ) consisting of perhaps only 2 or 3 notes. Then playing it backwards, forwards, upside down, mixing the notes up, playing it on or off the beat, making the rhythm longer, playing the notes short, repeat a note, tounge it a few times, go louder, go softer, up an octave...just playing around with this small portion until your ideas of what to do with it are exhausted.

Obviously, taking an improvised solo can get complex very quickly from there, and its effectiveness often depends on years of experience.

anyway.

That's about as simplistic an explanation (that I can think of) of how to improvise a little solo. Have fun.

[mutepointe]

Welcome. I never had a musical ear either and still rely on sheet music for guitar and keyboard. I use sheet music for wind instruments too, when I have it. What came as a big surprise to me was that I could pick out songs on a wind instrument, IF it was a song that I had in my head, like a Christmas Carol or a song that I knew very very well. Although I'm a big Pink Floyd fan, Another Brick in the Wall is a song that I enjoy but it's not a song that I have in my head, at least not yet. I'd probably need to learn it off of sheet music first and then amazingly, I could memorize it on wind instrument, which is something that I could never do on guitar or keyboard.

Here is a site that you might find interesting. It has an assortment of lead sheets for all kinds of music. wikifonia.com They don't send junk and stuff. The music transposes to a couple of keys too. It's free.

[meoweth]

Thanks, thats exactly what I needed to hear, makes complete sense. Check out noteflight.com they got alot of user submitted scores too.