How do I get better from here?

Josh's episode was the best, but he makes up his own scale from pieces of the Blues, I think? I didn't see the whole thing, but I read an article on it some time ago. Quite ingenious of Josh to create a new scale.

Jim, you seem like a seasoned guitarist, and I love reading your posts. That said, I'm afraid the OP is not being helped at all by saying things like

• Don't practice the notes, practice new ways to approach every note.
• always try to be the worst player in the room so that you can learn just by listening.

I think OP nicely asked for guidance and something more actionable.

I think you're right, but maybe I just don't know what to say to guys coming out of the beginner stage and I don't know what resources are out there now. When I was learning it was lessons with a pro, the mel bay guitar book and things like that (I think I used to reference 'a modern method for guitar' but its been 20 years), the odd VHS instructional cassette or sussing it out for yourself! I was fortunate in that I come from a family of great guitar players and that I could read and write music from an early age. I really understood the mechanics of stringed isntruments and the fundamentals of theory from the get go and it was all a matter of building physical skills and deciding what I wanted to do with the instrument, then figuring out how I would go about it... lather, rinse repeat

I play a pile of abbreviated chord inversions no one else usually does because I worked them out myself to get through complicated jazz band charts without changing positions too frequently. I learned all my modes from the back of my complete chord encyclopedia (which was not all that complete). It didn't have fingering suggestions so I based everything on the hand positions I learned from my dad and then would cook up new ways to play them based on violin scales. I applied them by ear for the most part and usually it went pretty well.

I was a self starter and I always believed I could play the hell out of the guitar if I paid attention to better musicians and just applied all my intelligence and industry to it. Never even occurred to me there would be another way to play such an 'anything goes' instrument!

I am probably not the guy to ask even though I used to teach. I will admit I was a mediocre teacher at best... "here's the fundamentals I built my style on, just go home and practice all the time until you can play the damn thing and start to sound like yourself!"