There is a lot here in this lesson and as suspected you are more ambitious than I am which is great.
What I picked up on is "focus on what you hear". I think I understand what he is saying. For instance if I am told we are going to be doing a 12 bar blues - A D E. Once we get going I will know the chords by ear and what notes might sound best for me to come in with. And I just stick to pentatonic btw. But it's timing and knowing what to play when, and being creative with those 5 notes (and you may not play all 5 of course) and this takes practice, and skill and patience. I am not that good at it. I like to throw in some notes cautiously, hit some chords, have a drink and relax. So what I am saying is that I not that creative. But a trick I learned from a local teacher - his name is Scott Medford and you can find him on Youtube - is to learn a bunch of licks. That way I am not trying to make something up on the fly. These will always work and I am having a good time.
I know you want to be more creative than that and I really applaude you. Good luck with it.
I like this. Learning more licks is a great idea. Now that you say that, I do see those players doing their runs using varoius licks. What I have found is that it usually sounds good if I consciously emphasize what sounds right. Even if I hit clearly wrong notes, I can use them almost as contrast and quickly move on to the root note(s.)
You captured the essence of my question. Going even further, I was referring to getting out of the scale boxes. I know how notes are all over the fretboard. I am in a course now so I can learn all the notes in context of any given key. There are only 24 chords- 12 major and 12 minor (circle of 5th's.) He has us learning one group (4 notes) per week. We will see how it goes.
My goal is to be able to solo over any chord progression and sound musical- not like I am practicing a scale. I sound ok- especially blues. I can play fast (as in 160 bom) accurately, up and down the neck, skip positions- back and forth and literlaly blindfolded. I sometimes play in the dark to challenge myself and develop my ear. The problem is, if you come back 10 minutes later- I am basically repeating what I did in the previous 10 minutes! Also, if chords are mixed in that are not in that key, likely not blues, my weaknesses start to really shine.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge- much appreciated.
Rock on!
