Oh ya, that's what all players aim for I think. I saw mark knopfler live and was just blown away by how fluent his playing was.

Yeah its almost discouraging at times watching people play on a whole different level.

Definitely. It just makes you think "what am I doing?" But you gotta remember that it's not a contest. There are plenty of guitar players that I like more than players who are more technical.

I'm actually glad you made this thread cause it inspired me to go back and refresh my memory a little on some things. I havent been playing all that much lately and I've gotten stale in a few areas. Plus I get bored just playing by myself with nobody to pick rythym whenver I discover something new or just want to jam.

I stumbled across this just now, and thought you might like this. These are the kind of people that just make me sick, and want to quit playing altogether. This dude is just shredding this acoustic on his solo's. The two guys singing suck ass, and should persue another line of work if this is what they do for a living. Ignore them butchering the song with their vocals, and try an focus on just the dude farthest to the right sitting down playing. Its like he's not even trying.

You can't go wrong the pentatonics but getting into the jazz funk stuff , mixolydian , lydian and harmonic minor

Lately I've been working on internalizing and really being able to apply the modes of the harmonic minor. I can use in harmonic minor itself pretty well when called for, but hearing and effortlessly being able to apply, say the Locrian #6 isn't quite as natural and doesn't come up as much, but it's an interesting sound. The trick is hearing when to use that sound and then be able to apply it when needed without thought. That's the goal for any scale. To be able to have that sound at your disposal.

I use the major scale and it's modes pretty regularly, chromatic runs, major/minor pentatonic, blues scale, etc. It really depends on the song and the genre.

In terms of thought process, I really refer everything back to the major scale. What's #'d or flatted relative to the major scale? Dorian is b3, b7. Lydian is #4. Harmonic Minor is b3, b6. For me it's easier to remember, and utlimately it gets closer to hearing each note relative to what it's played over. What does a b3 sound like, for instance? In the end it's about playing melodies and phrases, not scales. Scales are the frame of reference to build off of, imho.

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps97f5bac3.jpg

stay classy.

Definitely a lot of major7s, in the II IV I progression

Today the http://www.musicbanter.com/games-lis...litz-game.html brings us back to the time of Bloozcrooz and Blastingas - both guitar-music connoisseurs and great posters in their day.

As for me, all I know about scales is that I have a set in the bathroom. (By PM, negotiations are currently underway to sell this joke to Trollheart.)