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You can always chuck in the b5 as a passing note to the minor pentatonic to juice it up if you like. And you can chuck in a b3 and an aug5 as passing notes to the major pentatonic.
One very important point for beginners: don’t think that when people say “scale” they intend you to run up and down the rungs in order, like writing a book with the letters in alphabetical order, that’d be pretty meaningless. They are suggesting you use those notes that are contained within the scale.
I will always maintain that the best way, or at least, the most musical way, to improvise is to try and play what’s in your head, not what’s in your fingers. Ok, your fingers might stumble across a new motif that you like the sound of and want to incorporate - that’s cool - but if you just copy what everyone else does you’ll sound like everyone else. And the deeper you plough that rut, the harder it will be to escape it.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
so the first thing we had to do was work out where the notes on a guitar was which to be fair it’s a very very simple thing to do.
once we started playing chords we knew what notes were in those chords because we started off by learning where the notes on a guitar was and could see the notes in those chords.
Stick a couple of chords down on a looper.
Hum / Sing something short and simple over the top
Work out to play on guitar what you sung
I like this approach as it begins to connect your mind to the music you hear, rather than using scales and licks to drive what you play.
It worked a bit. But not enough to keep me at it for long enough to actually make a difference.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Then understand how others use it. There are some licks and phrases in there that are common vocabulary in many songs.
For blues-based guitar-driven music, this is the 20% that will get you 80% there. you'll be able to sit with a jam band and take some leads.
When you're there, you'll also have a better feel of what you want to focus on next. We'll be here ready to make suggestions.
How do I manage that?
I am currently poor at learning stuff by ear. Sat listening to Run to you on the radio. I can play it, but to work out the riff would take so long, I'd just give up.
But the OP is time-poor, recognises that he's motivated by "wins" to keep him interested, and just wants to not be left holding his proverbial if someone throws him a solo at a jam night. And an awful lot of people who happily rip out guitar solos in a typical rock/pop/blues setting haven't gone through any of the things in this thread that are being presented as the route to achieving what he wants. I mean people are household names as lead guitar players who couldn't show you every Bb on the instrument without thinking or play you back any melody you played to them straight away without looking around for it.
Yet to read this thread you'd think it was mandatory. I find it a bit odd - have we all forgotten what it was like at the very beginning, and the fucking earth shaking revolution it was to find the box and be able to use it straight away?
also, to the OP, just spend time with the instrument. play and try things out, join a band.
Just out of interest, how do you learn the things that you *can* play?
As a starting point, you can step through one note at a time. Memorise the note in your head, then find it by 'hunting' for it on the guitar.
Once you get used to memorising and finding individual notes, you can start to increase the number of notes you can memorise, then locate them on the guitar. Then try to memorise phrases and longer sequences.
Some people might be able to sing the notes, but I'm not able to sing notes in pitch. So I focus on hearing and memorising things in my head and going directly to translating that to the guitar.
I think the processes of hearing music in your head is called audiation.
Edit. It occurs to me that Run To You might not be a good one to start with, because you'll need a capo on the 2nd fret to play along with the original.
> (or Shift + .) for faster
The simple answer is "one note at a time". Its sounds patronising, but it's how to learn everything, ultimately. It's just that once you've done it enough, the time it takes will start to get very short for anything that's within your comfort zone.
I'd start with incredibly simple stuff that you know inherently - nursery rhymes are a great start because they have simple melodies that are pretty much baked into all of us. Just take the first 3 notes and find them on the fretboard. You'll find there are actually several different places to play the same thing.
If you're playing it in C, the notes would be E, D, C. That can be played all on the B string:
-------------
--5--3--1--
-------------
-------------
-------------
-------------
or on the B and G:
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--5---------
------7--5--
-------------
-------------
-------------
or a different way on the B and G:
-------------
--5---------
------7--5--
-------------
-------------
-------------
Or higher up the neck, using the D and/or A strings, e.g.
or a different way on the B and G:
---------------
---------------
--9--7-------
--------10---
---------------
---------------
Part of this process is familiarising yourself (ears, fingers and brain, both conscious and subconscious) with how sounds translate into notes and shapes on the fretboard. Then this will help you work out how best to play whatever notes you need in a way that allows you to flow between different passages of a solo, and eventually create your own from those same constituent parts.
When you want to move to "real" songs, something like Oasis solos are a great starting point because they're all easy and very melodic, and again are pretty ingrained into anyone existing in the UK for the last 30 years. Live Forever and Don't Look Back in Anger are great examples.
These days it's also much easier than it used to be - you can use apps to slow things down (TempoSlow, Transcribe, most DAWs), isolate guitar lines from the rest of the song (Moises, Fadr), etc etc.
But in the nicest way (and somewhat unfortunately!) there are no shortcuts. This is something you have to put the time into to make the connections within your brain.
So if you want to solo over the verse progression of under the bridge use C# minor pentatonic
For Purple Rain use Gm pentatonic etc
The being able to hum something and then instantly play it is a by product of knowing what you are doing interval wise and again it's quite an easy trick to learn.
Then I realised I could move the major pentatonic up three frets to sound minor or bluesy, later discovering that the 'three frets up' shape was called the minor pentatonic. Which is the same idea but the other way around
That came from copying solos by ear from the likes of Paul Kossoff. Lesley West, Hendrix, Clapton etc.
I spotted these patterns they were using. So learning the solos came first and I worked out the boxes myself. I didn't know they were called pentatonics at the time.
Then I started to add in extra notes. The idea of adding the 4 and b7 to the major pentatonic must have come from copying Jeff Beck, because I called it my 'Jeff Beck' scale. I didn't realise it was called the Mixolydian mode until much later.
Similar thing with adding the 2 and the 6 to the minor pentatonics, which I called my Peter Frampton scale, because I got the idea from him. Only to later discover that the proper name for it was the Dorian mode.
Perhaps there should be and old fart trigger warning to my post, because I was learning this stuff from the early 1970s. There wasn't much info then, and it was necessary to work things out for yourself.
Mostly it's on YouTube, listen through a few times then find a tab on ultimate guitar and try playing it.
If it's easy (some basic chords) play it through. Then print the tab out as a reminder. While I will remember most of it, it's unlikely I'll remember all of a song.
If it's tricky, play along to the music until I can't. Then play through very slowly working out where to stick my fingers. Then try a chunk slowly without stalling. Repeat until I can play it all at the same tempo as the record
So do I.
Neither are happening with a one month old new in the family. Not for a while anyway
Hence looking for something to work on