Nastriamo in rosa...
Improv by S. Farinoli

Taking from a famous song by Lucio Battisti, Con il nastro rosa, we can derive an excellent base for the improvisation in minor. The sequence of chords that we will examine are Am, Fmaj7, G, and Am. Every chord plays for two bars and therefore the sequence has eight bars. Seeing the song is not fast (121 bpms), we have a lot of space to improvise with different styles and techniques.
First of all we will analyze the base, which you can listen to and use to experiment with improvisations. The eight comprehensive bars of the four chords are cyclically repeated, in order to have more than four minutes of song to work with. The base that you downloaded is obviously not the midi file of the song (where it would have been necessary to pay the copyrights to the author), but the adaptation of an educational piece. Let's see how the chords are set up.

As before we use the A minor scale, which is carryied for the entire succession of chords. Remember that the first chord does not always have to decide the scale of the song, but is just an accurate analysis of the chords and harmonies contained in it. In this case, however, the Am scale comes from the fact that all the chords are in A minor.

Ex #1

The first thing that we see is how to create a starting melodic line, which we will work on in order to develop a more complex solo. The idea is to use a series of slides on the first notes, maybe on just one string. If you listen the sonorous response, you will realize how these few notes connect to the sound of the underlying base. The sound can be either clean or distorted, it's your choice. It's important to have a good sustain of the note, which you can get either by compressing the sound (from the distorsion or the compressor), or by performing a vibrato on the note.

As you can see, a majority of the work is done horizontally on the first string, using the slide technique on all the notes that have the dash above them. Unless otherwise specified, the slide starts from the previous note in the scale, which in our case is A minor (or C major). For example, the first note to play (E on the third string) starts on the 2nd string of the D on the seventh fret (which is the previous note in the scale) and then you slide the finger up to the 9th fret. This action is simultaneous to the picking, and in fact, the real note is E, which falls in beat on the first movement of the bar.
Look at the two sixteenths at the end of the second bar. These two notes are muted, resting the finger on the string without pressing: the effect obtained is percussive, and serves to increase the rhythmic development of the phrase that is still connected to the melodic line of the song. You then restart with the slide.
The final sequence requires a phrase in the pentatonic scale of A minor, that is played in steps, which means that the ascending and descending notes are always in series, using a little trick that requires the ligature of some raised notes, which are D, C and A finals. This little trick allows you to sycopate (cut short) the notes, in order to change the expressive sense of the scale in question. In a series of octaves it is very convenient to use this system, because it gives you the possibility to vary the rhythm of those notes. The syncopation has been used to connect the notes between the first the second bars of every chord.
To sum up, we can therefore verify the presence of the A minor scale, from which the last note played in the first bar of every chord becomes part of the same chord, except for the Fmaj7, where a D is opted (sixth degree on the Fmaj7 chord). These notes, being finals in a section of the phrase, develop a fundamental role to create a "catchy" melodic line. It is good to vary, when possible, the immobility of the chordal notes (which are part of the chord) by inserting notes that are part of that scale. If you notice, the D between the first and the second bar of the Fmaj7 chord is the same as that found between the two bars in G.

Ex #2

In this case we see how a pattern of sixteenths can be transported within the chords, changing some notes. Lets look at the development of the scales. On the chord of Am, pentatonic Am; on the chords of Fmaj7, pentatonic F; on the chord of G, pentatonic G; finally on the last two bars of Am we find both the pentatonic of Dm in the first part, and the Am in the last bar. Pay attention to the bending. A first modal approach in this phase of the improvisation is given by the fact that every chord has a precise scale (the three pentatonics in the first six bars). Of particular interest, the pentatonic of Dm (fingering in Box2) on the chord of Am in the seventh bar, is developed so that other notes aren't created in the same Am chord: if you notice, all the notes used are also contained in the pentatonic scale of Am.