FINALLY a breakthrough!

[jim_n_virginia]

After 15 years of accompanying myself singing with a guitar (ie; strumming) and throwing in a little self taught fingerpicking here and there, I had finally felt the need to grow musically and so embarked on a quest of some sorts to understand scales, improvisation and soloing.

I have been studying for months scales and while I could do then all (or most) somehow I still couldn't quite put it all together. I just could seem to understand the big picture and finally today it comes to me when I was practicing with my music partner.

We were trying to figure out some instrumentals for our Christmas Eve show we are doing and she was just laying out some chords to familiar Christmas songs and as usual I was going up and down the scales and....well it just sounded like I was going up and down the scales. She tells me to figure out the notes to the songs we are doing and so I started to organically plink out notes for "God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman" and I noticed that while I plinked out the notes it was still lacking. So I threw in a few tripletts and hammer on's/off.

Now keep in mind that I have been doing pentatonic, minor and major scales for hours the last few months in my music class. So it was only natural for me to mix in the scales (in this case the C scale) while I plinked out the notes to the song.

AND THEN IT HIT ME! This is what is missing for me! I asked her to fingerpick another familiar song and again I could find the melodic notes easy enough but my fingers were so trained to do scales that I filled in, in between the melody wherever I could when it felt natural. Even my pard said MAN, where did THAT come from! Now add other ornamentals like hammer on's/off's, turnarounds, doublestops etc!

I don't know WHY this concept never occurred to me before. I still have a long way to go gain the profiency that I want on guitar (AND mandolin) but GOD I feels good to know that I have had a musical breakthrough and the shrouded puzzle that is called music to me just came a LITTLE bit clearer!

cheers!

[Fngrstyl]

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!!

[Ninjato]

The pentatonics will fit into a lot of songs while some others it doesn't quite fit and the major/minor diatonic scales will fit better. Many rock and blues based songs will work great w/ the pentatonic scales. Try "Sweet Home Alabama" playing the Em pentatonic over top. Then you'll also see the same Em pentatonic will fit over the chords for Neil Young's "Down By the River" or the Grateful Dead's version of "Me & My Uncle".

[freestyle]

SRV also used the Em pentatonic scale. Grats on the breakthru Dude!!! It's nice to have it all come together like that. You should be proud of yourself. I am proud of you. WTG