This chapter will introduce you to improvisation, and many of the subsequent chapters will build upon the information presented here. As a primer for soloing, you will first learn about the theory that informs it. You will then begin to apply music theory to licks, riffs, and eventually to a twelve-bar blues. You will notice that the term “motif” is used to describe many of the improvisational snippets found here. This is because solos are often based on symmetrical kernels of ideas from which you create a solo. Often this involves some use of theme and variation.