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OK, first I feel like I’m always apologizing for the length of my post, but there was so much in your post that I want to touch upon a lot of it.
Barbara, I was laughing as I read your comments not out of jest or making fun of you or thinking it was funny but because I understand completely where you’re coming from. I’m years into this and I cannot play improv well or comfortably. I often can’t understand the relationship between the notes or scale as they were taught, and the background music. I haven’t really studied the fretboard enough to know where all the notes that could be played are located. That’s on me, because at my age, I simply see confusion. I laughed to at you becoming mentally exhausted from the effort. in order to have a clear understanding of the correlation between where specific notes are on the fret board, it might make it easier. However, I’m gonna suggest something simpler. I use this quite often. If I have to practice improv.
I simply stick to the Pentatonic scale for whatever key the lesson is in or the background music and simply play different notes along that scale. Don’t worry about what’s been taught so much in the lesson just stick with the pentatonic for now.
Another way to practice improv is to choose a note on the E string and decide on whether you want to do a major or a minor pentatonic scale. Then go to YouTube and search for whatever note you’ve chosen and type in that note and major or minor, and then type in”backing track” after the key for your scale. Many backing tracks will pop up you can pick and choose whichever ones you want, and then, depending on whether major or minor, start with either your pinky or your index and just use the pentatonic against the backing track that you found skip around do notes whatever sounds good you know it might be playing the same note over and over just a combination of notes but just have fun with it close your eyes even if you can just start to feel it. I actually find this very enjoyable sometimes and I often zone out as I’m doing it because it just starts to sound so good and can be very relaxing.
OK, now lastly, I’m gonna comment on perfection. As you know TAC teaches progress, not perfection. In fact, you can never reach perfection. No one can. You can strive towards it, but that does suck the fun out of things. Just relax have fun know that you’re gonna make mistakes. Learn to laugh at yourself. Also, we’re taught to practice in small segments. You practice for 10 minutes. You mark something complete you can continue But do not spend an hour or two hours on something because it becomes unproductive and you will probably take two steps forward and three steps back. You will continually be frustrated. Trust what’s taught and what so many others before you have been taught and have learned from that if you break something down into small segments you will actually be more productive and you will to continue to improve and move forward. Stagnancy is our enemy. We can’t get caught up in perfecting something. This is why so many lessons cycle through every few months because their benchmarks for you to look back at your previous benchmark and to see how far you’ve come since then. On a typical day I will pick up the guitar multiple times for 10 minutes and play something and put the guitar back down. And then I might come back to it later I might play the same thing, but more often than not. It’s something different just by doing that you’re increasing your skills.