Stuck in a rut...

I feel like I have been in a rut lately. I know everyone goes through them but I have a question.

For those guitarists there that can just pick up a guitar and play over any music playing like the wrote it.

If you where talking to the beginner intermediate guitarist. what would you suggest as tips to determining scale notes etc.

Anything at all would help me out.

Know the notes on the fretboard.

If you know what notes are where, when you are trying to noodle around, if you want to play something specific, you can find it.

i know where the notes are... i know the pentatonic minor and major scale up and down the whole neck.

I also the the major and minor scale in the first position.

I just wonder for instance... lets say you hear a song and want to determin the scale and key

do you play the first third fifth note or just jam around the neck eliminating bad notes...

When you say 'determine' that sounds to me like you are guessing. My advice would be, don't guess, know. Learn all the scales and what notes and chords fit where.

Hi to all,

Believing all mentioned above is useful let me just say that something I do to find out the key of a chord progression is I look for a scale containing all the notes contained in the chord progression, if I find one,..bingo! If not, apparently there is more than one key within the chord progression. In this case I divide the chords in groups matching each group with the corresponding scale. The following example is a six chord progression in which I found two keys: G Major and E major.
Ex.:

Chord progression: G D Em A B E


G = G,B,D
D = D,F#,A
Em = E,G,B
A = A,C#,E
B = B,D#,F#
E = E,G#,B

G Major Scale: G,A,B,C,D,E,F#
E Major Scale: E,F#,G#,A,B,C#,D#

G D Em -- G Major Scale
A B E -- E Major scale

Note: Other scales may work as well.

Hi !
what somboby told me ages ago is what i will tell you !
two things .:
1 if in a rut ...learn somthing new.
2 and lastly and really important is this "Analize" all what you already know , and get in deep as you can and i promise you, you will come out the other end a 1000000000000000x a better player. and guess what ???? yeh thats it go back and do it all again its fantastic there are no limits .
one word more . make shure that you use whatever you learn as soon as possible, so yhat you fully understand what its uses are and how it sounds like in different scenarios.

good luck
tony