Basically chords are scales and vice versa.

IMHO the best way to learn it is to jam along with some songs - or just put on a random chord progression, record it, let it play in circles and just improvise over it. It might be difficult in the beginning, but with time you will develop your own feel for it and you´ll be able to improvise over chord progressions whithout knowing the chords.

For the beginning it might be usefull to experiment on the guitar a bit and get to know the fretboard better.

as you might know, every chord can be played i several ways:

Letz take C major for example:

e--
b--
g-0 <-- G(fifth)
d-2 <-- E(major third)
a-3 <-- C(root)
E--

then u can thake the root and play it one octave higher (first inversion - sixth-chord):

e--
b-1
g-0
d-2
a--
E--


and here´s the 2nd inversion where u put the third one octave higher (fourth/sixth chord):

e-0
b-1
g-0
d--
a--
E--

all those are the same chord: C major - but they all sound a bit different. you can play this along the whole fretboard - go and experiment a bit - look where on the fretboard you can find E, Em, E7, Em7, etc... and get familliar with it. then you´ll at the same time have all the notes you can play over these chords for CHORDS ARE SCALES AND VICE VERSA :)
You can also play notes that are NOT in the cords themselves, but you´d better not rest on them - they are to be played in between (runns, etc)

-=[Azrael]=-

[Edited by Azrael on 03-14-2002 at 07:50 AM]