Looking to Get More Progressive

Hi,

I've been playing guitar for about 5-7 years... can't remember haha. But I'm heavily into Bands like Scar Symmetry, Meshuggah etc etc...

But have fallen in love with Kaipa and similar sounds... I'm looking to get more influenced. I'm a self taught guitarist thats been heavily into metal, looking to expand. Can anyone send me in the right directions to get into playing/writing/jamming jazz fusion. I love per Nilssons playing, and have since discovered Eric Johnson etc etc.

This may be a dooshey question, but where do I start to get that kind of smoothness in soloing, improvising, composing etc.

I'm not into the fast as anything playing;unless its done right, more into the smoothness, and building from there. Not just pick and hope shred.

If anyone can push me into the right direction; for guitar, and similar bands/recommend bands in that genre.

Thanks,

I think the best solution is actually to wait a while. Get to know a lot of jazz fusion and prog rock! Once you can comfortably say that you've heard most of the classic albums, you'll have learned so much more than I can possibly tell you.

Listen, practice, play along with stuff on your stereo. 

I'm a big fan of Eric Johnson, too.  Hope to see him here before too long.  The Electromagnets are in the house.

Yeah I like speed, I mean of coarse for the right moments. But speed is only good if its smooth, I like to think of it like... there are 'arpeggios' and 'sweeps' in my opinion and arpeggios are incorporated into solos and songs and those who do them understand them inside out, whereas sweeps are used by people who only know 1 - 3 'patterns' usually consisting of the three string or five string shapes and have no idea how to use them except for in a triplet (I think that's the right word?) or 3/4 timing.

I'm somewhere between these to types myself, I'm self taught, learnt from tabs, and have missed a lot of the more important theory side of things, and am currently going back and learning it all and mainly learning how to use arpeggios through listening to Holdsworth (abstractly), MacAlpine, Moore, Vai, Nilsson and just reticently Johnson (all of previous mentioned have been discovered within the last 4-5 months) and I always thought people like Vai (as in... song with mainly solos) to be massive w**kers, but know see them intelligent w**kers haha, the somewhat good kind... I hadn't really herd much except for stuff like children of Bodom - a band which... got old very fast for me, but back a few years was right into and they basically are the sweepers in my opinion (though could defiantly be wrong) but after discovering Scar Symmetry and hearing Per's playing I was overwhelmed by the inventivness and composition of the solos and songs.

The idea of (I've been reading some lessons on jazz...) having 'neutral' guitar... i.e knowing when to sit back and when to jump in and have found that I have always been that sort of musician, but now much more consciously.

My goal as a guitarist is to have fun, but also compose some music that speaks for me haha, sounds corny but its true. But I like the idea of neutral sound (I love the half-whole scale for metal ;) and playing with neutral to ... what's the word for... going from a neutral sounding scale to major/minor or something? Anyway... playing with that, making the transition to a chorus etc from neutral scale to a non neutral giving it more bearing... anyway could be wayy off, and I've been dribbling on.

;) I am enjoying this community, as been surrounded by 'if its not metal I don't like it' and 'if it is I don't like it...' it's nice to see more people who like music for music.

:)

thanks again.