So one thing I don't understand is how improvisation works ( on the guitar ). I mean I know the pentatonic scale and I can come up with random licks when listening to a backing track. But when it comes to a 7 note scale i am completely lost. I can't memorize all the patterns ( like on the pentatonic scale ) and therefore i cannot use it. So my question really is: what does it really mean to know a scale? Does it mean that you remembered all the patterns and you can visualize them all over the neck? Does it mean that you know all the notes on the fretboard and the ones in the scale? Do you have to think about the patterns constantly ( which btw I can't imagine and I don't think that's how scales should be approached )? How are there so many players that just don't think about a single shape on the neck and yet they are "magically" in key ?

Hello. So lately i have been in a "band" and we have been playing acdc's "back in black". So we thought we were really doing it when one day a man came in the repetition room (probably tired and annoyed of hearing us play bad and off time) and he started explaining how we were doing everything wrong. Me and the other guitarist weren't listening to the drummer's tempo and obviosly the song wasn't played on time.So when I got home that night I wanted to practice the song again, but this time to actually practice is it with the rythm ( aka with the drums played on youtube ). But I still can't get it quite right and I've been raging at myself for messing up. I can't really keep a tempo with my foot taping the floor while playing the song. So if anyone has some kind of exercise or whatever for fixing this and for practicing songs with rythm please awnser the post. Thanks!