Putting chords, scales, and licks together

[Phil H]

Hi all,

I’ve been learning guitar for about 4 years. I’m comfortable playing a good variety of chord variations in most positions on the neck, I’m comfortable with the Pentatonic, Blues, and Major scales. I can play along with other instruments, and my timing is fair. I’ve also learnt a few licks and tricks, many thanks to this great website.

The problem is: when I’m playing chords, I can’t seem to get my brain to leap out of chords to a root note to play some scales and get back in time to know what chord I should be playing. If I’m playing scales, I can’t seem to identify the right point to switch to a chord because I’m so consumed with playing the scales correctly. And even if I manage to get it right, in scales my brain only thinks scales and I can’t identify where or when to play licks, spending most of my time trying to identify where the nearest root note is to get to, to return to playing chords. If I try to combine them all over a backing track, my brain starts imploding!

Maybe this is common at this stage of playing, but I’d like know if anyone has any techniques to help ‘mesh’ chords, scales, and licks together…

Thanks in advance,
Phil

[Martin W]

Hi I would start by learning some call and response arrangements where the call would be the chord and the response a lick , the latest lesson demonstrates this as well as a ton of others on the site , I personally love this style of playing, and the simple ideas you can get from it always work the best , fantastic timing exercise as well , hope this helps , happy picking.

Martin

[Billy]

Brian covers this in subject in many lessons where he plays rhythm and lead, pull up the weekly lesson tab and have a look for the lessons which will suit you.

..Billy..

[charjo]

Phil,
Rather than trying to keep scales and chords in separate compartments, I try to be familiar with what intervals are in the chord I’m playing (whether it’s a C, A, G, E, D shape) and what the intervals around the chord are. If you understand what intervals are in the natural minor, major, myxolydian etc. you can find the appropriate intervals around the chord tones. Working on arpeggios of the chord shapes can help you learn the intervals of the chord tones.
John

[sunjamr]

Yeh, Charjo said it right. When you get lost, just jump back into an arpeggio. Also consider this: A bad note is only a bad note if you don’t resolve it. Moving up or down one note will resolve it. So, develop the skill of quickly moving up or down one note, then no one will know you didn’t do it on purpose. Also, from what you say, it is possible that your lick library is not large enough. Why do you even play scales at all? Why not just one lick after another?

Sunjamr Steve

[Phil H]

Thanks everyone for the great feedback – some valuable advice here. I’ll work on Call and Response playing, and concentrating on the scale shapes under the chords I’m playing. I hadn’t heard of Intervals (I’m mostly self-taught…) so I’ll do some research. Sunjamr, great tip about finishing in an arpeggio of the target chord if I get lost. All notes in an arpeggio will resolve, correct? Not just the root note?
Cheers.

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