Tomo Fujita Guitar Wisdom

Hello fellow guitarists,

So I’m currently finishing off the dimished triad FTR8, and I know the triads in all three positions and I just don’t know why I can’t make music that “make sense” or it just feels like I’m noodling, I tried to add “emotion” or “feel” to it but i can anticipate the chord change nor feels natural.

Have you guys experienced this before? If so, what took you out of this?I never really learned/remembered any riffs or solos, could learning solos or riffs would give me ideas on soloing?

Thanks

It looks like you're trying to solo over a II, V, I progression in a minor key, in this case the key of C minor. That's real jazz stuff. I had this same problem very recently and discovered that the Harmonic minor scale is the key to soloing over that II, V, part of the II, V, I. Like you, I've never memorized licks or lines or solos and I don't think its the right approach, but thats just my opinion. I'd rather make up my own.
Anyway, what I did was realize that the C minor scale (C aeolian) is the scale that works over the C minor chord, but for the D and G chords you use the C harmonic minor scale. If you know those scales, they're only one note different from each other, then just play around in C minor when you're on the C minor chord, remembering to switch to the harmonic minor scale when you're on the D and G chords. Anything you play will sound right because those scales contain the right notes for those chords, and if you take the time to analyze things you'll start to see that the D diminished, G major, and C minor triads are contained in those scales along with some color tones that make it sound great no matter what you play.
Once you get the hang of switching scales over the right chords then you can really start to get expressive, but at first it was all I could do to just play the correct scale notes up and down and make the switch from natural minor to harmonic minor at the right times. Actually, I had to start just learning those two scales first, because even though I knew them theoretically, I had never really "learned" them.
There's a thread called "soloing approach to Blue Bossa that goes into detail on all this. Blue Bossa is a great tune to learn if you want to know about playing over a II, V, I progression in both major and minor keys.
Good Luck,

Yeah, no one said it was easy. There is a lesson on rhythm somewhere in the foundation stuff that doesn’t require your guitar it’s just a hand clapping type of exercise tomo does a great job with it and it breaks down rhythmic patterns a lot. As far as playing over the cord progressions i use a looper where I can record the cords and have them loop back endlessly while i practice the scales over the cords. It does take time to get the feel of it though. But it does come along. Do you have a looper? They’re the greatest thing for practicing soloing, since you can record whatever progression you want to play over and just have it loop back over and over while you practice your soloing.