Writing your own melodies or coming up with your own improvisations can be a daunting task. I hope these tips will help you in approaching these tasks with confidence.

1. Melodies can be simple. If you are feeling unsure about what notes to play, remember that you don't need to try and come up with some weird and different every time. Just start by using a two notes or even a single note. Once you feel fine with this, start adding more notes into your palette for your solos. Another approach is to start by just playing up and down the scale, then the next time to swap the position of two notes and see how that changes the sound. You can keep doing that until you have a new melody! Some of the best solos come from the simplest ideas.

2. Listen to yourself as you play and try new things. When we are improvising or trying to create melodies we can often form mini habits. As you are listening, try and pick up on any ideas you use often. Once you have realized you have this idea, record it and then try to do something completely different. For example, maybe your melodies/improvisations are always very scalic. Try jumping between notes and see how that changes your melody. Or maybe you always start low then go up; try starting high and then moving down and see how that changes what you do. That way, you can create many new ideas quickly.

3. There is no idea that is a bad idea, only an idea you have not fully developed yet. Try not to discard ideas quickly. Even if you don't like it instantly, try changing where in the melody the idea comes, or vary it slightly. Maybe you played a sixth from C to A and did not like how it sounded, but try doing so in a different part of the melody and see if it works better. By trying ideas we don't like in new places, we might find they're not so bad after all.