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.
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!
Hey I really appreciate the information. I am slowly begining to understand how scales and notes fit over chord progressions. It's exciting but it is very overwhelming too at the same time. Man, I just feel like I suck most of the time because it's taken me a long time to figure this stuff out. It's hard to understand sometimes but I am slowly understanding it more and more now.
Anyways thanks for all the help Chris and slip. I really appreciate it. I am going to load up the lessons Chris suggested.
Oh yeah, I recorded those chord progressions with my band. The singer is taking them home and is going to put vocals on them. Would it be safe to load them up and maybe get some suggestions afterwards? They are just rough drafts and we did them in 1 take. I did a little lead part in one of them and would like to maybe get a professional opinion on it.
One more thing. The chord progression of Bm, G and A like I talked about earlier. I play them as Barre Chords. Man they hurt my hand SO MUCH after a little while. My hand gets in so much pain. I can make them sound really pretty for about a minute but then they start hurting really bad and the sound of the chords really sound crappy afterwards the longer I play. I am worried about it because one day when we are playing a show I don't want to suffer so much in front of people. Any suggestions?
