DESCRIPTION:
I couldn't resist having a stab at playing some slide in standard tuning over the acoustic guitar for the lesson I posted recently. This improvisation, as is always the case with me, is done by following the changes, not by thinking scales or boxes. It's another good example of how melody magically emerges when you're in that mindset. When you can see the whole fretboard laid out as 'the chord of the moment', you can literally look down and see all the possible paths through them. I've likened it to the old 'joining the dots' games we used to play in the Sunday papers. This is much better, though. In the joining the dots game, you always wound up with the one correct result, and, yes, it was always satisfying to see the picture there when we were done. With this kind of melodic improvisation, though, there are countless correct results. When you're always looking at chord tones, you're always looking at right -- correct -- note choices. 

Not so with scales. With scales, there are always some notes that are not strong, correct notes. When you play non chord tones on strong beats, which is often the case when you're following a scale pattern, you wind up with weak melody lines, unfulfilled lines, unresolved lines. This is usually what my students moan about, without even knowing what the problem is exactly. "I sound amateurish when I solo", I often hear. When I tell them why, they perk up, and when they hear the explanation and realize that there is an easy solution to their amateurishness, they really perk up. The solution, of course, is to stop thinking about scales and start thinking about chords.

So, how do learn to see the whole fretboard as 'the chord' so you can start joining dots? Easy: order my PlaneTalk Package ( https://www.planetalkguitar.com ), because that is the main lesson it teaches. You will learn that there are really only three kinds of chords (not dozens) and you will learn the simple 'trick' to organizing it all in your mind's eye. "B fat Major 7th". Bingo, you're looking at a BbMaj7 fretboard; "Dm9th". Bingo. "Gm7". Bingo. With plenty of practice, naturally.

Convinced? Of course you are. Who want s to sound amateurish? Order PlaneTalk here - https://www.planetalkguitar.com