New Guy Tooooooo!

[AllFingers]

Hello,

I am new to Jazz and blues. Previously a strummer and tabs player. I know some of the basic scales. My real weakness is playing lead using scales ie, how to create riffs or just flow over the scales to make good music.

If there are places to go in the Forum, I would appreicate some direction.

[princeplanet]

Hi and welcome. The short answer, and you will hear, see and read this here and elsewhere hundreds of times, is that you pick out your fave lines by ear and change them around in a way you hear in your head. Make these lines your bitch, and they will suggest other lines to go with them in a solo situation. This process takes years, months if you are lucky. Think of chord tones, not scales, know your arps as road maps to the chords, and know several lines for each chord type and let the arps be your guide as to where and how to start them.

Don't ask for the magic book with the magic lines, there isn't one. The whole point is you use your own unique taste in determining who you wanna steal your ideas from, ie, you choose which lines you will make your own. Pick a coupla dozen standards including blues and rhythm changes tunes (again, you choose them) and after memorizing the chords and the melody, work out how to plug your lines into them in a way that is different every time you play them, the more ways you can vary what you know, the better.

The rest just happens....