Originally Posted by: Slipin LizardNick, Christopher has given you a wealth of information to get you going... diatonic scales are a broad subject, and will likely lead you into further investigation of how to learn and play different scales in your solos.hey how u doin slip.question,if he´s playing the cmj scale,would it be wise to play the second degree of the cmj,Dorian?
It can be a bit over-whelming to start, and you may feel you're putting you're creativity on hold as you try to "catch up". To avoid this, I'd strongly recommend that you take each new concept that you learn and put it to use as soon as you learn it. This is what really helped me. I was stuck in a "pentatonic rut" for the longest time. When I started learning diatonic scales, initially I was just learning the patterns, but didn't know how to use them. I started creating my own little melodies as Christopher is suggesting, even if it was just using a couple of new notes in one position. The act of using the new scale creatively really seemed to cement the sound of the scale in my mind, and pretty soon I was finding myself coming up with new riffs & ideas, and then finding that I was playing a diatonic scale (usually a major or minor, I got into modes later).
So as you go through all that stuff, stop, go back to your own music, and see if you can use what you've just learned. There's never a moment when you get a "green light"... you're done, and you can now solo. Instead, you'll find that you're always learning new things; even as you come up with "finished" solos for your own music, you'll be discovering new ways of approaching solos that will shape your playing. Have fun!
