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Also play solos from wind instruments. The phrasing is different again to vocal lines and have often been composed in a very different way. There's no shapes to get stuck to with a sax or clarinet.
There's a very good chance it will force you to play in different keys as well. Always useful for a bit of extra knowledge.
https://speakerimpedance.co.uk/?act=two_parallel&page=calculator
I found Green's little solo runs - enthralling' for want of a better word: must have listened to them about a dozen times on the way home. Sat down last night to figure out what was going on, and copy him, and realised technically he's not doing anything complicated at all really, but the feel the man gets into them through the vibrato and delaying a note or notes and leaving you waiting is immense. A real example of Less is More in so many ways.
For me the takeaway from that was to ease off worrying about the technical side of the playing a bit, and try to figure out how to learn to make what I'm trying to play more 'musical' and engaging, if that makes sense.
OP: As an exercise, think of a melody you know well, and see if you can play it from what's in your head, without listening to the track at the same time. This is part of learning to do solos that are not completely based on rehearsed licks and geometric patterns on the fretboard
Another step up at some point could be to listen to some Matt Schofield tutorial videos: He will use a couple of keys related to the main scale and chords, but only as far as sounding a bit jazzier, rather than going full modal Jazz. I know it's not for everyone, just an option.
I'd still say that melodies and phrasing are what works best for most listeners.
Start with frets 0, 5 and 7. The notes on these frets coincide with the root notes of the I, IV and V chords in the Nashville number system which you might already know ? But if not then that’s next after learning the notes on the fretboard. Start with frets 0, 5 and 7.
https://www.facebook.com/benswanwickguitar
Are you really okay with fretting a note and not having a clue what note you’re playing !? We’re not talking unnecessary stuff here, we’re talking “if you don’t know this then what’s the point in playing at all” type stuff.
Anyway, you will have to make your own mind up if you are willing to put in a little effort to learn the basic mechanics of your instrument. Good luck whatever you decide.
https://truefire.com/jazz-guitar-lessons/fingerboard-breakthrough/c210
Don't let the 'jazz' category put you off.
Looking back when I first picked up a guitar there was no tab so you had to learn from sheet music. I remember getting the sheet music for Apache. It had been written in Gm for some reason but I jotted the notes down and worked out where those notes were on the guitar and that's how I progressed forward. Because that was the only way forward with no guitar teacher, no tab, no internet etc it was a simple job to get done first with no distractions.
These days there are too many distractions. Why bother learning the fretboard when Johnny You-tuber can teach you how to play Plug in Baby or whatever just using tab and telling you what fret numbers to use ? The truth is though, that's an easy way forward but it actually hampers you from learning properly.
The Pentatonic scale is another thing. I never started with the pentatonic scale, we weren't taught it at school we were just taught the major and minor scale. For some reason now with guitar the pentatonic scale is thrust upon every beginner and they stay solo'ing in the same box positions playing the same tired licks, and someone has to break them out and show them how to play all over the neck.
I suppose the point I'm trying to make is if they ignored tab, learnt the notes all over the neck and ignored the pentatonic blues box they would be playing all over the neck and staying in key a lot sooner.
And I remember when this was all fields and you could go to the cinema and get 20 fags and a roast dinner for 2 bob etc
After some online reading exactly as Danny has stated, I started trying to learn the notes by string, now I've started mixing in learning different chromatic scales in different positions, and it's opened up a whole new world of possibilities, and I wish I'd thought about it this way sooner rather than using the classic 'this scale in this position works really well over these chords'.
My view is by having the knowledge of the entire fretboard doesn't mean you always have to use it, but it means it's always there if you want to use it.
Getting started at the weekend ...
That seems to be somewhat lacking in perspective. If you removed from history the contribution of musicians who didn't know the notes they were playing, on the premise that if you don't 'then what's the point in playing at all?' you can basically wipe out most popular music as we know it.
The point is that if you're in a rut, or not meeting your creative goals as is the case with the OP, or you want to better understand why the things that sound good to you do so, this stuff is valuable, but to characterise it as table stakes is demonstrably wrong.
He said some of the things he noticed were that PG leaves a lot of the runs 'unresolved', or alternatively, delays the resolution until later than you would expect, which creates the feelings of expectation and building tension that I had actually noticed. The other was that the song is written in 6/8 time, but the solo jumps back and forth between 6/8 and 3/4. Why, and what that results in, I still have no idea whatsoever
- hand drawn diagrams of all the notes on the fret board I refer to while improvising
- practicing playing a single note on all locations on the board: currently just doing all the Fs and Cs
- learning the major and minor triads. That way when I fret a chord I know all the notes under my fingers
despite all of the above i could not tell you what a note on the fretboard is without pausing to work it out. Do feel I’m slowly getting faster at that though
on the original subject: limiting myself to playing a single string, and allowing myself to hit the same note repeatedly have both helped the musicality of my playing. It is still however meandering and lacks intentionality