Put it this way.

This is easy to do -

This is really ****ing hard to do -

can anyone give me some tips on soloing? Ive been learning some scales and i cant do much with them. I have some licks but im just not satisfied with my progress. I dont consider myself a beginner, I can play texas flood by stevie ray vaughan and other songs on that level of difficulty; just to give you an idea of my skill level. Im just having a hard time when it comes to coming up with my own stuff. It would be greatly appreciated if someone can offer some advice. I was listening to mark knopfler and i think he helped me realize my problem. My playing lacks melody.

Texas flood is one of the hardest songs of all time to play wtf are you talking about. Its a 10 minute fast blues solo....... Just try and sound a fifth as good as stevie.

i cant play the entire song. only parts of it. the parts i know really arent that hard. but i know it gets a lot harder. The technical/mechanical side of guitar playing is the easy part, well not really, its very hard; but the creative side is what is really hard.

I didnt mean to come off as a dick. I just meant that some of the song perceived as easy are not, and are all about your dynamics/feel not hitting hte correct notes.

Its not about the notes you play, its the way you play em.

I have to disagree with this a little. I would say its 100% about the notes you hit and 100% about the way its played. If you play the perfect notes without feeling, then its one dimensional and sounds lacking. Then if you play all the wrong notes with all feeling, well it just will sound mangled and awkward to most people for almost every genre of music. You gotta do both.

I don't worry about scales when playing, I just know which note to press and play to get the sound that I want and then I play from the gut. To get there, you need to have some musicality like an ability to come up with the melodies you want to play and then just a lot of practice so that you know by instinct how and where to find the sounds you want. If you're smart, read some theory, but I definetly think you can get far by just playing - a lot.

So, I'd say just pop on your favourite songs and try to solo on top of them. Have fun with it :)

edit :

And don't forget there are tons of instruction videos on youtubes! You can probably pick up a lot of stuff there, like how to shred, blues licks or gypsy jazz chords.

i spent years studying scales and boxes

these days i throw all caution to the wind, and play whatever note i feel like playing

Yes, this is the trademark sound of Carlos Santana. The Dorian mode has a very minor 7th/jazzy feel, while the minor VI is a bit darker, mixed with the blues scale you have that b5th blue tone thrown in . . . very effective.

** I should add that usually the VI is approached as a minor pentatonic