Blues scales

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by aK_bAsh7

Nothing wrong with learning scales but be careful -- leaning on scales for soloing can easily become a trap that inhibits your musicality. You don't want your musical choices to be overly dictated by visual patterns that happen to fall comfortably under your fingers. Learn Dom7th arpeggios and copy lines from Blues masters, the best of whom tend to phrase like vocalists. In fact, imitating vocalists is excellent practice!

I'm sort of in your camp.

I do think that a person's learning preference comes into this too however. I couldn't tell you what notes I'm playing on guitar, or what scales or whatever. But I can make up lead breaks for all the songs I sing. And I steal licks and fills all the time by ear from records.

I love hearing what a player is doing, their signature licks and style and then copying them and bringing that into my own playing. I'd hate reading a book of scales, it just wouldn't work for me at all. But there are plenty of folks who would find that my approach, a preference for learning by ear, just wouldn't be right for them.

Luckily, the resources to match our own learning styles are readily available for us all.