Practice between chords chops and fills help

[papabear075]

Curious if anyone has any suggestions on how to practice chord chops > fills > chord chops. How do you find the right notes to play?

[billhay4]

There are a number of approaches to fills and any will work.
You can play notes in the scale of the key.
You can play notes in the pentatonic scale of the key.
You can play arpeggios, that is the three main notes of the chord you are on. You can link these to the notes of the next chord.
You can play snippits of the melody of the piece.
In all of these cases, listen to what you play and play what sounds best to you.
Hope this helps.
Bill

[papabear075]

Thanks! What’s the best way to work on dexterity? Getting to the notes and back to the chop while keeping a good rhythm...

[AlanN]

Take a song you're very familiar with, such as She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain. Find a key you can sing/play it in (I use G) and sing and play it S-L-O-W-L-Y. Keeping a good rhythm, add lines and fills in between the vocals.

Works wonders.

[UsuallyPickin]

AlanN gives good advice .... When you know a songs chord structure say G D G C D G you can use scales and pieces of scales to lead into chord changes or stay on the same chord .... Rule #1 is to keep it simple... Rule # 2 Is keep off the singers note Rule # 3 Share the space with other instrumentalists too much music at once takes away from the overall tone...... Two tools to use in fill .... double stops and crosspicking ..... You can also practice when you are ready to with streaming stations.... it's easier to be brave with no witnesses.... R/

[Mark Wilson]

Getting to the notes and back to the chop while keeping a good rhythm...

Get a backing track on a loop and practice is way I know. Like Alan says - slowly will get you there the quickest. With the loop use trial and error til you can make it seamless

[ukenukem]

Where I'm at in this journey is about the same place. I am trying to use a fingered chord note to begin and end the "noodling" fill so I have a slide-out/slide-in anchor.

Otherwise the "slow as possible" approach is good as well.