Originally Posted by: William MGI struggle with what scale patterns I should play over particular chord patterns. Rather than type a long message a quick video works better.
Soloing, or improvising involves 3 steps.
1. Find the key
2. Target chord tones.
3. Play melodies.
So, you are on step 1: how do you find the key signature of the chord progression you are playing over? In short, you write out all the notes of the chords you are using & see if you can make a scale with them.
In your example you are playing:
D major: d-f#-a
G major: g-b-d
A major: a-c#-e
In most music this is straight forward. Often, the first chord is the root chord & the name of the scale & key signature. So, let's put all those notes in musical alphabetical order starting on d.
d-e-f#-g-a-b-c#-d
The D major scale. :) So, that's the scale that forms the key signature of that group of chords. And this is specifically a 1-4-5 progression, due to the relationship of the notes:
D-1 (I)
G-4 (IV)
A-5 (V)
That's why the D minor scale is going to sound wrong; because your chords are from the D major scale. The easiest way to adjust this is simply move the D minor pattern down 3 frets & play as if you are in B minor. Because B minor is the relative major of D. This means they share the exact same notes. But B minor regards the B note as the root, while the D major regards the D note as the root.
And the result is that you can still use the pentatonic boxes, but play in D major!
That's the answer to this particular situation. But we've only solved step 1! There is still step 2 & 3! :) With that in mind, have a look at these tutorials that will teach you how to improvise.
https://www.guitartricks.com/collection/learning-to-improvise
Hope that helps! Please ask more if necessary & best of success!
