Melody versus scale-based soloing.

Buco

@Jazzaferri thank you, I never knew there are actual exams strictly designed to measure one's athleticism.

@Chiefbigeasy don't be afraid of rabbit holes, that's what makes the forum so much fun.
Many times I wouldn't even click on a thread because judging by the title it could be a little boring or I might think there's nothing there I haven't heard several times over. Then once I do I'd be amazed by the content I'm reading.

It sounds like you're asking how to practice the artistry. It's gotta be one the hardest questions to answer and one of the hardest things to accomplish on the instrument.
I could only implement a very small amount of licks in my playing so far, probably less than five. The rest is a combination of playing within key of the song scale and by ear.

One thing I used to do that was a lot of fun and where I could sort of surprise myself is I would slow down the song in iReal app to be painfully slow. Now I can hold my place in tune (once I'm familiar with chords) and hit the changes and combine a key scale, few licks and arpeggios.
I would record myself with Audacity and use it's speed up without changing pitch feature to play back what I recorded in performance time. Usually I'd be like "holy $h!t!!! This is me??"
By doing this I could do a decent job even on Giant Steps.
I guess if you were to practice this daily for a few hours over a couple of years, some of it would have to internalize eventually. I still didn't manage to find the time, hopefully I will someday before I'm too old.

nomadgtr

Some aspire to technical mastery as an end in itself, others treat as a means to an end. For the latter its all about having the technical skills necessary to articulate precisely the music in your head. If there is no inner musical voice then all the technical skills in the world won't help you make memorable music. The best advice I can give is to learn all the scales, arpeggios, chord fingerings, tricks, licks, fancy picking, etc. then forget it all and listen to the music in your head. The muscle memory you develop by practicing your technical chops will come in handy when you actually want to create something.

bopster

This is certainly related: I know some of our Djangophiles are familiar with Hal Galper, but some may not be familiar with his thoughts on chord/scale theory as taught by educators for years:

Buco

Yeah Hal is scary convincing with everything he says.

This might be of interest too, from a Syllabus page of his website:
I have, since the earliest days of my teaching career, adopted a corrective approach to teaching. Profoundly affected by a book I read in 1980 “The Art Of Playing The Piano, A Scientific Approach“ by George Kochevitsky, the book proved scientifically that all music is played by ear, i.e., if you can’t hear it you can’t play it. According to Kochevitsky everybody plays exactly they way they hear which means your playing is an exact representation of your state of mind! This approach has enabled me to analyze a musician‘s state of mind by the way they play. The age-old adage “Attitude Is Everything” then has a strict scientific foundation. Most problems with playing have to do with they way you‘re thinking, conceiving and perceiving playing music. When you change the way a person thinks you achieve radical and global change.

The rest is at:
http://www.halgalper.com/study-1-on-1/syllabus/

nomadgtr

Hal operates on a totally different plane than a lot of educators/instructors. He gets it. It's not about playing a bunch of notes, it's about expressing yourself through music.

Jazzaferri

Hal, Kenny Werner and Vic Wooten have been my main resources for music for a number of years.

Each of them bring something different but there is a common thread of creative musicality underlying their thoughts.

As I tell the young ones in Swingsation ....... Let the Song lead the way.....

Chiefbigeasy

Hey Jazzaferri, your definition of "lyrical" soloing probably comes closest to defining in a efficient way, what I'm aiming for. Well said. Terse, lucid prose, as always.

And Buco, that technical trick of slowing everything down enough to be able to find your way around the changes is a great idea. The genius part is then recording it, speeding it up and hearing yourself sound like a monster player. I think it's a great idea, and I've used variations on that ideas using Band-in-a-Box to play through changes very slowly. On the other hand, I'm surprised someone hasn't actually used that trick to release an actual recording, something akin to using those voice modulator programs to make one actually sound like one can sing in key.

On a different point, when I was discussing soloing in ballads, it reminded me of something Miles Davis once said about ballads, but for a completely different reason. He said he had to stop playing them because he loved them too much. He had to move on in order to continue to innovate. And then came "Bitches Brew."

Regarding rabbit holes, take a look back at what one of my old posts has inspired lately. It's the one about the Seduction of Django's Solos. To some extent, I was getting at similar content there before I refined it here looking for how to pursue more "lyrical" soloing. I'm not sure what the new posts are about, though, or what they have to do with the beauty and seduction of those original Django tunes.

Furthermore, as interesting as those rabbit holes might be, I've got limited time for them as far as my playing is concerned. I'm interested in as pared-down and efficient an approach as I can devise to get to my performance goals.

What are my performance goals? Simple--musical magic, of course, for myself, my friends, anyone who wants to listen or who wanders by.