Originally Posted by: curcuitrideri have, for some time, tried the do-it-yourself teaching method to learn guitar. I have been successful to a certain degree, but I am having trouble with the free playing, such as pentatonic scales etc. I was raised around a piano with a smoother, flowing music, and am have trouble "hearing" the rythmatic type of music in guitar music. I have learned the scales, but have trouble incorporating them into the any jam sessions.

I hear ya! The answer is to go through the blues section of the core learning system. Anders Morisden teaches these courses and he is absolutely amazing. I always thought my issue was I needed to learn more scales and theory. Watching Anders improvise totally destroyed that theory. He would use one simple pentatonic shape and through clever phrasing put together the most awesome sounding solo. No tricks, so speed, just great phrasing.

In part 1, it's mostly about learning the scale and some blues rythmic stuff. In part 2, he attacks this issue head on. I've been working through it for about a month and I've noticed a significant improvement to my improvised blues solos. What he does is he will introduce a lick and talk about very specific things you can do to give it some variation and "make it your own". He breaks it down wonderfully.