People ask me how I learned to play guitar. I tell them I learned how to play watching other guys play in a bar. It’s a joke but not far from the truth. When I went on to college to study music I studied the string bass with my music theory teacher. I wanted to get in good with him because I wanted to know how scales worked over chord changes. His primary instrument was the bass and I figured this would give me a chance to spend more time with him. So with the bass I started learning how to read from day 1. This meant that I could fake better on guitar but I read better on bass. There is an old joke that if you want to get a guitar player to turn down just put some sheet music in front of him. So I spent a lot of time practicing scales and learning which ones worked over certain chord progressions.
In retrospect I have found that people rarely play a scale flat out in a piece of music, even classical music.

What I am working on now is learning transcriptions of solos by guys like Wes Montgomery and Pat Martino. I study with Wolf Marshall who is probably the most prolific and accurate transcriber of that kind of music. I get a lot of crap from people about this strategy. They say, well you should make up your own improvisations. The question is what do you practice? Practicing scales just doesn’t work. Practicing licks out of context hasn’t worked for me. I find that the only thing that moves me forward is learning these solos note for note.

I now use the transcriptions exclusively as I practice. Many people believe that you have to do the transcribing yourself. I like to borrow Mr. Marshall's ears, which are much better than my own, and devote my practice time to getting these transcriptions under my fingers.

I think it is important to note, when studying Wes Montgomery and George Benson, that these players tend to use a 3 finger style and rarely the use of the 4th finger except when playing octves or passages that lend themselves well to the use of the 4th finger. This gives the player an entirely different rhythmic approach and sound than when one uses the 4th finger extensively.

In approaching these transcriptions many people give up before they get started. I suggest using a looping software like the transcriber or transcribe to slow passages down and loop them for practice in time.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. (Confucius)