How about melodies? just melodies. All kinds, less scales, less arps, less chops, melodies. Learn some but mostly create them. What you play on stage is what you practice. I remember more than one player that loved to play as fast as possible and never played a melody. It's funny that a person can play fast as lightning on changes and not know melodies to tunes. So, what is one actually playing then? More and more I hear free music as improvised melodies or melodic ideas. If you listen to Ornette everything he plays is melodic. The other thing is having good time and making it swing. I'd rather hear someone play one scale and make it swing than someone who plays a million notes with no feel. Swinging and time are a never ending thing to get right. All of my favorite Blues players have killer timing. It's in the timing. It's memorable. Seems like when someone wants to learn they want to learn scales, which is fine, but what, where and how to use those scales is a different animal. A scale is just a scale. A melody is never ending. Where does the melody go? How do you resolve it? How long do you incorporate it? Is it time to link some melodies? this kind of thing is interesting to me. So long story short..if you are in school, if you are taking lessons, if you want to work on some things, seems like melodies and melodic playing are over looked and have good solid time. Again, I'm on this journey too, no teacher, no student. Never ending creative process. Just some things to remember and try. Can't hurt. So if you practice melodies when you get to the gig you'll have plenty to play. Cause more than likely you know the scales you know the information. Sing melodies and play them. While your playing sing in your head what you're doing. This will get you closer to what you actually hear. We all do it just trying to do it more and all the time is a life long goal.
Best, JC
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