What RU Thinking

[Pete B.]

...If only I had stuck with the lessons my parents had me taking 34 years ago....

Good point.... If had learned what I have learned in the last 2 years of my guitar playing (basically I really got into the Scales & Modes thing), in the first two years of my guitar playing (basically the 9th/10th grade time-zone), I think my life might have been alot different.

I swear sometimes these days I get to a point in a jam where i'm just thinking... What Key are we in again????

[old man down]

For me, since practice and playing are always the same thing, always with a song as the vehicle to set things up, I'm usually thinking that here I am again, the familiar notes are under these fingers, but just yesterday I really liked reaching to that other note which sort of opened a door.

So I think I'll try to get near to that place again, then hit that note to open the door, and visit the room in the darkness. I know there's furniture in the room because I bumped into things last time, but I haven't quite figured out what pieces of furniture are there. But maybe by just feeling around I'll be able to relax in an easy chair if I get my bearings. The rooms of darkness are a little spooky to me so I don't linger long. Maybe I'll take another door out, a door that has a little light coming through the cracks.

Many of the rooms I go to visit now are no longer pitch black, but rather dimly lit, and so I can feel around a little easier. The solos I know by heart occur in extremely bright rooms, there is little uncertainty, and the notes are hit with bravado.

If you play every day you will get an edge to your playing so that yesterday, or even the day before that, still provides enough courage for you to wander around and explore, finding your way with very little to go on.

[broomhead]

I suffer from just having a tough time keeping up.. It seems I always want to get back for a note.

for soloing I look at what key the songs in, what chords are used etc.. someone just mentioned something I've found useful; to know a few licks that you can fall back on. I also like to mimic the vocals w/ a lil embellishment. Maybe it's basic to many but for me the biggest breakthrough came when i knew all the notes of the fretboard like the back of my hand. So, now when im soloing over a progression as a starting point i know where all those notes lay.

As a golfer, you have this mental checklist of things you must ingrain to strike the ball well. But when you get up to hit it you're suppossed to forget about all of them. From what I've been told, great guitarist do the same. They have studied and practiced every mode,scale,appregio and theory there is, but when they solo, they just play.