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Posted by: Blister Apr 21 2011, 11:23 PM

I consider myself between beginner & intermediate. I understand musical notation and know my major scale shapes & chords. Nearly every lesson at GMC shows the fretboard with the name of the scale & notes shown on the fretboard identified with that scale. My question is what exercises or ideas can be used to take advantage of this particular tool?

Gary

(I hope this isn't a stupid question! )

Posted by: Sollesnes Apr 21 2011, 11:26 PM

Learning your scales, and use them for improvisation or songwriting (more specifically over the given backing track)

Posted by: Jerry Arcidiacono Apr 21 2011, 11:43 PM

Sollesnes is right! Usually it's also the scale(s) the instructor is using on that lesson. It's a quick tool to start to improvise.

Posted by: Bogdan Radovic Apr 22 2011, 09:29 PM

You should definitely think about the theory behind the lessons. Those fretboard images show the scales and their notes on fretboard which are used to play the presented solo in the lesson. To get most out of each lesson - learn the solo and then try to improvise your own solo by using the similar licks learned and scale that was used for composing the lesson. Goal of each lesson is to show you how you can utilize those scales/techniques in your own improvisation.

Posted by: Blister Apr 23 2011, 04:01 AM

Thank you so much Sollesnes, Jerry & Bogdan. This will help in my studies. I guess it's time to start practicing with some improvisation!

Gary

Posted by: thefireball Apr 23 2011, 04:16 AM

Bogdan has an excellent point! I didn't think of that before! This topic benefited me too!

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Apr 23 2011, 02:35 PM

Those would be notes used in the lesson. If you wanna go one step further, you can experiment with those patterns, find some cool licks and use the licks from the lesson like Bogdan suggested.

If you are familiar with notes, major scale shapes and chords, good thing to practice is analyzing the note names, and seeing where are the strong notes of the chords from the lesson. Then try to build your melodies around those strong notes.

Posted by: Blister Apr 25 2011, 02:19 AM

Thanks Fireball. I appreciate you saying that as I did feel it might be a dumb question.



Thanks Ivan. All of these are the types of ideas I was looking for!

Thanks. This does help me tremendously!

Gary

Posted by: thefireball Apr 25 2011, 02:56 AM

Sure thing...Bl-Blister...feels funny calling you that. as it may be for some to call me Fireball.

Posted by: Blister Apr 28 2011, 01:16 AM

Haha! I answer to most anything . But I usually put my first name at the bottom of my posts.

Gary

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Apr 29 2011, 02:45 PM

Glad to help mate. Cheers

Posted by: thefireball Apr 29 2011, 04:45 PM

Oh yes, I forgot about that...Gary.

Posted by: Bogdan Radovic Apr 30 2011, 05:46 PM

Let us know how it works. My advice would be to find a most simple guitar lead lesson that uses only one scale. For example major scale.
Then learn the lesson note for note. After you do that, analyze the backing track to see which chords are being played and see which notes are being used in the original lesson over those chords. Especially pay attention to places where chord changes occur. Next step is to improvise your own solo using the same scale. Feel free to go wild and experiment. Try to play your version of the solo found in the lesson. Try to incorporate similar licks/phrases and melodies. Improvisation is fun and it will only come with practice.