Originally Posted by: SvanholmAfter looking at many many many tutorials on GT, Im a little bit lost when it comes to improvise solo to a baking track.

Often it says you just play around in the scale of the key.

But, when I look at clips on youtube, many uses the whole neck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B9eHwxfmjI
take this one for an example.
How does one play more than one scale and how do I know how to play it so it sounds good to the backingtrack and to the ear.

It would take a whole book to answer this question but here are some tips to get you on track!

1) Learn all of the 7 diatonic modal shapes first! (personally I prefer to learn the shapes with 3 notes per string)

2) Each time you practice techniques, you should do so going through all these shapes and linking up the neck so that you have these shapes memorised and can play them without thinking too much.

3) When you improvise you must always be aware of what chord you are playing over as that chord will indicate which scale shape you might want to choose to use. When the chord changes, slide up or down to the appropriate scale shape depending on what chord you are playing over.

Here's an example in the key of C:

C chord = C Ionian scale fits well over this chord
Dm chord = D Dorian scale fits well over this chord
Em chord = E Phrygian scale fits well over this chord
F chord = F Lydian scale fits well over this chord
G chord = G Mixolydian scale fits well over this chord
Am chord = A Aeolian scale fits well over this chord
Bdim chord = B Locrian scale fits well over this chord

When you take this approach a few things happen:

1) Of course you are in key
2) You highlight some of the best note choices to play over the chord in the backing track
3) Your soloing sounds less like guess work and fits nicely with the backing track

This is NOT a rule but a good place to start!

/Dave