How to improvise over one single chord vamp

Improvising over a simple chord is much more fun than you might think. The simpler the chord is, the more improvisational options are available. Why? Because you have less chord tones to stick with, hence more freedom.

One single minor chord vamp

Let’s use E minor as an example. These are available scales

Except F minor pentatonic, all other scales share the same root, minor third and perfect fifth, i.e. E, G and B. E minor pentatonic is interesting because it has only 5 notes but those are all important notes: root, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th. E minor pentatonic, dorian, melodic minor don’t have avoid notes so any note in those scales can be emphasized without any problem. E minor pentablue, aeolian, Phrygian and harmonic minor have avoid notes. Those notes should be used as passing tones, neighbor tones only. Further more, chromatic notes can be added as passing tones and neighbor tones for more colors.

One single major chord vamp

Let’s use E major as an example. In this case, we can use below scales for improvisation

One single power chord vamp

A power chord doesn’t have the third intervals, therefore we can play any major or minor scale over a power chord and it still fits. So for example, we can use any of above scales over E5 chord