[Live Stone]

Originally Posted by StickMan

Personally, I wouldn't "improvise" at all. Sit down and work something out beforehand. Work at it long enough and you can develop a selection of licks that work at various places throughout the changes, but you shouldn't be trying to marry theory and technique when playing it live.

You'd be surprised at how far you can get with the right pentatonic, even in jazz format. So I'd take your teacher's advice on that. What you should do, however, is to look at how you can augment the pentatonic with some extra chord tones thrown in to keep it sounding "jazzy".

I couldn't disagree with you more. Working it out beforehand is simply mechanical. Improvisation is the artful part of playing the guitar. It is where you marry theory and technique and combine it with the spiritual and emotional aspects of playing it live. Pentatonic scales can only take you so far and then they can be not in sync with certain chords that are not in Key, used a lot in Jazz pieces. If I couldn't improvise and create music on the fly I would quit playing. If I couldn't get past pentatonic and modal scales I would quit playing. My teacher and mentor Kirk has brought my playing skills to much higher levels using his methods. I don't intend to move backward in my playing.

Danny