Question:
Another question for those of you that have lots of experience playing guitar:
Do you generally use lead sheets or chord charts and figure out your own solos or embellishments or kind of personalize songs to your own style OR use tab? Or, a combination of all?
I'm asking because I am trying to take my playing to the next level. I've played for years and lead my worship team, but primarily strum rhythm and switch to fingerpicking to do special little improvised types of things. However, I am just figuring little melodies out of the fingerpicking pattern within the chord I'm playing. I do not read tab proficiently, but read music proficiently. However, it seems that there is a great resource here in tablature so I'm trying to learn to read it. Just curious if this is how most of you do it. Also, is the tablature primarily for interludes and riffs in between the singing? Or, does one usually play the moving parts while the other guitars keep rhythm?
Answer:
I usually use different variation of the chords being played in the songs that I could improvise with. And play different modes and penatonics scales and such.
Answer:
I try to become fluent in as many "musical languages" as I can. Really, all the resources out there will be presented in different ways, so best thing to do is learn how to read all of it. Tab, standard notation, lead sheets, fake book pages, whatever.
Answer:
I use sheet music, tabs, and lead sheets, but I generally just prefer using my ear for most songs.
Answer:
I don't rely on anything but my own God-given musical intuition.
If I know the chord progression then I'll have an idea in my head of what to play for leads and solos and such.
Paper materials get in the way.
Answer:
I think being able to read a lot of different forms is a beneficial skill to have/acquire.
I read lead sheets better than I read straight-up sheet music, which I read better (faster anyway) than tabulature. I generally don't play off tab if there's a way I can avoid it.
And, somewhat like Dave, I rely a lot on "this feels like the way the song should sound." Practice singing it (or humming it) and then playing it, no paper involved...
Nate
Answer:
in what i do im usually only required to read sheet music
but some of my friends want me to do a jazz combo with them so i will be reading charts for that
Answer:
Sheet music.