Quote:
I guess l have two immediate goals
1) Really harden some basics (rhythm, playing in time, chord-voicings, and some basic leads) so I can go to a jam, or find others to play with. I have almost zero experience in this area.
2) In the context of the first goal, be able to both practice and combine chord voicings *and* melodic patterns, so I'm both learning *and* playing something at home that sounds musically complete. There are countless examples, but one that springs immediately to mind is the opening few bars to 'Wind Cries Mary' (Hendrix).
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Hi Boo...
I would consider extending your listening and seeking out a few transcriptions or working out how the kind of thing you like works.
You seem to be hinting towards a rhythm and fill style that is often attributed to Curtis Mayfield but mainly associated with Hendrix. Many players have hints of this stuff also including of course SRV and Vai etc and it is worth checking out how this works. It also appears in country styles and there are similar kinds of things in a lot of soul players like croppers sliding sixths that outline chords with fills and such. It is a kind of hybrid lead and rhythm effect I suppose...
This 'style' involves a fair few hammer-on to chord tones...many are characteristic and can be heard in hendrix stuff like little wing, castles, etc.
So...what you may want to do is to try and associate pentatonic or major and minor scales and modes etc to chords. Primarily though they are pentatonic moves.
Wind crys mary, if you consider it in E (hendrix tuned to Eb remember), sounds pretty "bluesy" but is primarily major in character...
you might then seek to work out fills associated with the chord/s and practice "boxes" and such that weave around a chord. These may not necessarily fit normal ideas of "boxes" and I applaud you working not only across the strings in box formations but along the strings in a more linear style...
--(7)-----------------------------------------------9--12-------------------------------
---9---------------------------------9--(10)--12------------------------------------------
---9-------------------------9--11----------------------------------------------------
---9-----------------9--11------------------------------------------------------------
---7-----7-(9)-11----------------------------------------------------------------------
---0-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E chord...e major pentatonic*/major working from the "A shape" barre chord
* I added the 2nd/9 and 4th tones from the major scale in brackets.
-----7~~~-----------------------------------------------12s---9p8p7------------------------
-----7-h-9---------------9~~~~------9-h-10-p-9----12s---9p8p7-----------9---s12~~
---------------9~~~----11-p-9--------9~~~~~----------------------9--------9----s13~~
---------------9-h-11-------------11----------------------------------------9h11--11---------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-0-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The above is a bit of improv using this technique "style", see if you can see how these notes relate to the chord form, mainly working "in front of" the A shaped chord (i suppose G in the caged system) and touches of the E shape at the 12th fret in the end. Once you get a feel for these things, you will be able to move seemlessly between 'positions' with slides and hammer moves that outline the basic chord shapes.
Now, if you get the idea down over a few chord "shapes" you can extend the ideas over sequences of chords. So, again in Wind crys mary sequence of E-B-A an improv in that style might include moves such as these...
--7~~-----------------------5~~-5~~~~------------------------------------
--7h9--7~~7~~--7~-----5h7--5~~~--5~~5~~-----------------------------------
---------6h8-6------6~--------------6~~-4h6-4~~------4~~~-----------------------
--------------------9-------------------------------------7----4-h-6-------------------
----------------------------0~~~~------------------------------------------------------
--7(thumb)------------------------------------------------0~~~-----------------------
B major.....................A major...............................E major.....
the B and A major chords are working off of the E shaped barre forms on the 7th and fifth fret...the e chord is kind of working out of the C shaped chord if that makes sense.
You are basically hammering on or pulling off from or to chord tones to create fills and holding partial two note chords and suspensions (like sus 4s and sixths) keeping the chord shape in mind.
In many ways you are playing in an almost 'jazz like' mind set thinking of each chord individually, but to do it well, you also have to keep a sense of "voice leading" as well.
You might be able to see that in that last line of mine, the "lower voice" moves down the d string (in a linear kind of way) from the notes B (9th fret), A (7th fret) to hammer on to the G# (4 to 6 fret). The result should sound not like a bunch of disconnected fills per chord, but some kind of melodic sense
through the sequence of chords.
There are a lot of notes that are part of the chord that are held over (~~) with the fills...this gives that characteristic lead/rhythm effect that fills out the sound and makes it sound more rhythm like than 'lead' or hybrid fills, rather than heres a chord, here is a fill.
It gets easier as you get more 'moves' in your vocabulary, can picture the chord forms and the notes in a key that effectively hammer on to chord tones and the like.
It is a beautiful style in itself...but you can take it even further by learning some harmonized scales along the neck, so thirds (you can see that in the last notes of the first example in my playing) and sixths and 4ths (you can see that also in the first example on the e and b strings) 4ths are something I like myself and you can see you can even include little chromatic moves such as the 9-8-7 pull off thing pretty easily to add colour without having to learn fancy scales and such.
These things can sound bluesy or kind of country...notice that it is the "feel" and "articulation" that hendrix or the soul guys put on things rather than it being "major pentatonic" that creates the bluesy sound, not the choice of 'notes'. It is a common misconception that major pentatonic sounds "country" and minor "bluesy" but songs like Wind Crys mary and the Soul stuff shows that this is not correct really and there are lots of shades in between.
If you can get hold of some transcriptions you will be able to get some more moves that way and soon be able to make your own if you keep the chords in mind. The more chord shapes and fragments you know, the easier and better things will sound...
I hope that some of this makes sense as I think this is kind of the direction you are thinking of, certainly a 'style' or technique I use a lot and can change the way you 'think'. For instance, once you start to see chord forms, chord tones and the appropiate notes around them, you will be seeing them even with single line solos, be looking for voice leading and melodic line and outlining the harmony...and this all makes for great solos and avoids meandering about with notes from a simple "box".
