Quote Originally Posted by dingusmingus
Navdeep, thanks much for the interesting info! I've seen the Galper videos, and poked around on his website. He's a compelling teacher, to be sure. I've been working through some Bert Ligon materials (the Connecting Chords book, and the Comprehensive Technique book), so what you say about embellishing chord tone lines makes a lot of sense. As I understand it, the Galper book puts a special emphasis on rhythm.

What a great forum!
I feel like there's a million things we can learn to use to play over tunes and it's overwhelming.

So I've tried to simplify--what are some essential things I have to know stone cold that's absolutely hard wired that has to become second nature.

The one thing that's never emphasized that I'm really trying to absolutely nail is viewing the fingerboard as a holding place for musical intervals. How well do we know music as it is applied to our instrument? I just listened to this Julian Lage master class on YT today during lunch, and someone asked him what he's thinking about he's playing. Is he playing what he's hearing in his head? He answered that he plays things he's curious about. To clarify he said "it's my feeling that if you really understand the fretboard enough, that's really key. Where are the notes on your guitar and can you imagine them? Things like that (kind of knowledge ) make me feel free to explore what I'm curious about".

Yes that's so basic. But there it is.