https://banjobenclark.com/lessons/improvising-with-target-notes-red-haired-boy-guitar-intermediate
Tab is great, until it’s not. In this lesson we talk about using our ears to identify target notes on the guitar, then build solos and truly improvise!
Great lesson! Just what I needed. I’ve been trying to break away from tabs to be able to come up with my own arrangements, but I was struggling. Hopefully putting this into practice will help!
Also that Gallagher with those EJ22s sounds awesome!
I was at the Athens Cabin Camp and after our guitar sessions, I went home and tried this target note method- even before this lesson dropped.
I found a simple recording of John Hardy played by Ledbelly. He played the intro with about as simple a melody as I’ve ever heard. I listened many times before I even picked up the guitar. Then it was easy to transfer the melody to the fretboard without any tab. And knowing the G Maj scale was helpful.
Hands-down the best lesson ever! I totally believe that the brain-to-hand connection is through the voice. Thanks for this!
Mr G
This was an aha !! For me Ben. Thanks soon much!
You were the first one I heard to explicitly explain the connection…many thanks.
Ben, I like the direction you are going with recent lessons (ear training, scales, improvisation through vocalization and target notes). Tabs are great but I recall your advice on many of your early lessons: To learn the song (via tab) then memorize to the point where you’re able to play without the crutch. When these two methods are combined in a learning format, it is powerful., and the goal is to be able to jam expressively at whatever speed or level you’re at - ergo, target notes. You’re a great teacher!
It’s a cornerstone of my teaching lessons. “Play what you sing. Sing what you play…” I think I got it from a jazz cat somewhere, who sang his solo while he played it on his guitar, Ala George Benson.
I know I’m not alone in feeling like this lesson was built specifically for me, but I still feel like this lesson was created specifically for me. Thank you.
I assume this would be the case, but would the idea of target notes also apply to hymns that are built nearly entirely out of eighth notes?
Great question, and yes. Can you think of an example? We could use it as a case study in our next Forum Hangout.
When the Roll is Called Up Yonder is one…
I was thinking of “His Way With Thee” and “Still Sweeter Every Day”. The hard thing in coming across with the hymns, though, is that the melody is so engrained in my mind that it’s very hard to break it out into target notes.
Well then you don’t need the target notes 
The point of boiling down into target notes is to simplify a melody that you don’t have a grasp on. If you know the melody that well, then slow it down enough to find it on your instrument. But also, keep in mind that we don’t have to play EACH and EVERY melody note to create a solo.