i want to transcend my playing as it is.

i can sweep, alt pick and tap/legato at or over 16 notes per second, but i like to play chromatic and atonal music, and im thinking to round myself out, i could improve if i could play diatonic.
basically, i know theory and my technique is up to speed.

also, some of youse probably teach or are receiving tuition, so what i would like is some advice on what i could practice, eg. do scale runs or arps in circle of fifths?
shit like that, i dunno, reinforce diatonic method.

thanks in advance.

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I'm the same, all dressed up but with no place to go. I'm fine to play other people's solos, but when it comes to 'improvising' it used to sound very naff: not particularly in time, key or even reference to the music. After trying this kind of improvisation, my abilities are increasing, and it's sounding more musical. Also techniques within the actual lead work are imrpoving, such as tightness in playing the notes at correct speeds. It also allows you to see where you have difficulty if you can't play it freely, within a creative song. I've found lots of areas I have difficulty with but previously ignored, so it's a case of getting them up to scratch etc.

I'd strongly advise to learn the notes of your guitar and to be able to decipher which notes to play based on the tones that make the 'backing'. Get a couple of 'guitar excercises' on guitar pro or something and try to jam over that. Also try to replace other solos/change them a bit, this develops and starts the creativity behind making lead work etc... Mandatory Suicide is a good one to use.

scales, arpeggios - traids and all their inversions, intervals, chromatics, pick hand exercises...

What I try to do every time I pick up my guitar first. Try applying the diatonic scales to improvise over. Sounds like your prob doing alright. I would definitely recommend playing over a backing as defiler recommended. That will help you define what is 'atonal' & 'tonal' and really open up the doors to new ideas.

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I hear ya andras. I alas, am also in this boat. But what do you do when the notes in your backing or rhythm tracks only make up diads and change frequently? This is the thing that kept bugging me about jazz. Switching keys so frequently I could'nt keep up. That's when I said fuck it and started playing more atonal on purpose. Although I still want to make my solos more musical.

im in the same situation, and i cant help u out sry, i need some help myself

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You might find shredaholic helpfull it has some good lessons on there, you may find usefull....

Ozz

Practice your major/minor scales and start writing music in major/minor, harmonic minor/phrygian dominant, etc etc. If you look at some atonal compositions from Schoenberg, and even Slonimsky you can see that you can apply atonal leads over a tonal progression. For example:

e|------11h15p11---------13h17p13---------16h19p16---------18h21p18------|
B|----13--------13-----15--------15-----17--------17-----19--------19----|
G|--12------------12/14------------14/16------------16/18------------18--|
D|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
A|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
E|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
_|
e|--0---------------------------------4----------------------------------|
B|--0---------------------------------4----------------------------------|
G|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
D|--2---------------------------------6----------------------------------|
A|--2---------------------------------6----------------------------------|
E|--0---------------------------------4----------------------------------|
As you can see the rhythm appears to be playing normal powerchords, while the lead is doing something a bit more complicated. The lead is playing atonaly by using something called Quadratonal Arpeggios. They're not dodecaphonic as some might say but they are completely atonal. The progression is Cm, Dm, E, F#. The reason I would play this over powerchords is that powerchords aren't major or minor. They're pretty much just diads. Which makes this kind of lead progression easy to play over a standard powerchord chord-progression. It would be a good idea to resolve this though but I'll leave that up to you.

As for playing diatonically just play around with a scale. Harmonize in thirds and fifths. I would recommend doing an analysis of a song that you know is completely diatonic. You said your pretty familiar with music theory so you should be able to spot patterns in there. Just a hint. If you listen to In Flames' "Dialogue With the Stars" from the Whoracle cd (during the acoustic break), they are using the same chord progression as in Nicolo Paganini's 24th Caprice. I didn't notice at first until listening to the 24th Caprice.

Learn melodic solos.
Steal the licks- I'm serious. They can be good starting points for your own ideas, and it will end up sounding like you anyway.
Lay down backing tracks that consist of open chords. Major, minor, jazz, whatever. Just not diminished or augmented- as you want to get away from that, evidently. Solo over the chords- this is good pracice for changing moders when improvising- you really have to be on the ball- using one scale, two, three etc. and modes. Just try to make your playing catchy first-it's the basis of melody.
Hope that helps-I'm not a real theory buff, hell why are you taking advice from a 14 yr old anyway? cheers mate(s, since a few of you are in this predicament), . Enjoy it, most importantly.

ive made some backing tracks of mainly powerchords and i tried to solo over, or just play scales. didnt sound great, sounded like my usual shit, so i tried some altered chords and sounded diatonic. now im trying to put together diatonic progressions in major keys and doing some sweeps and arps and shit, so i guess it should work eventually, even though it sounds boring.

anyways, thanks for the advice everyone.

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