Hi, r1p32.
I'm the chord tone guy.
Melody
loves Chord Tones ... that's just a simple fact of music. If you analyze any great (memorable) melody, you'll find it underpinned by chord tones. That's
why it sounds so good. Other notes do come into play, but as lower ranked "go-between" notes that could easily not be there and not affect the overall melody.
If you like the melodic approach, then I recommend that you make sure you can always see the chord that is in play on the
whole fretboard. Its tones will be your strongest notes. So if the chord is A9, you'll be seeing the 1-2-3-5-b7; if it's a minor, 1-b3-5. The bigger the chord, the more tones. This is especially relevant when playing music other than the blues/rock genre where you
can noodle away on a pentatonic pattern and start to make music. But, once you start playing tunes with more complex chord progressions, you need to do something else: follow the chords. Use each chord's tones as the main notes of the melody
during that chord. Otherwise, you'll be hitting bum notes all night.
This kind of approach has nothing to do with scales. You need never know what scale/mode you're dipping into, the chord has already crytallized it.
It's easier than it sounds, you just need to look at it differently, how to see the whole fretboard as the chord. That way, every time the chord changes, you see your fretboard as that chord.
That's the melodic approach, telling a story with your improv/solo, always on track with the chord progression, always knowing what you're playing; in control.
My book
PlaneTalk teaches a good way of doing all that.
