Hello @iplay Welcome to the Community Tom.
How long? What is your experience? Level of play?
You are playing many different sorts of scales and asking questions about how to use a scale to make music.
My unwavering response has been and continues to be, reduce things to their simplest form, get rid of the multiple parameters that can cause confusion and musical paralysis. Focus on one scale only, one scale and one scale pattern. If you want bluesy-influenced sounds go for the minor pentatonic. If you want melodic sounds go for the major scale. Pattern 1 (E-shape) of either.
Bluesy pentatonic stuff: First Steps in Blues Improvisation using Minor Pentatonic Scale Pattern 1
Melodic major scale stuff …
Creating melodic lead guitar lines using the G major scale Pattern 1
Play this mp3 backing track. Limit your options initially. Keeping things tightly in focus will help - fewer options can force creativity out of you.
Play some short, improvised lines over the top, use free-play exploration on the notes available to you. Listen for the quality of each note over the
chord, and especially listen to the first and last notes of any phrase you play. Do they sound good / not so good? A good note is just one place above or below a ‘bad’ note so be prepared to move your finger one step away if your ears guide it.
Find the opportunities to pick / hammer-on / flick-off / slide.
1st string only – frets 2, 3 & 5
When comfortable, move onto the next string.
2nd string – frets 3 & 5
Pause here and explore what you can do with this pair of strings together.
Continue.
3rd string – frets 2, 4 & 5
When comfortable, explore what you can do with 2nd and 3rd strings together.
For inspiration, try starting with a short phrase, say the words rhythmically, clap the rhythm, play the rhythm on a muted guitar string to train your picking hand, turn that rhythm into an improvised melody using notes from the scale.
Use anything you want as a short statement or melodic line. Use repetition to make the statement several times, maybe using slightly different notes, altering the emphasis on certain syllables by making the note shorter or longer.
Look outside, sunshine is calling me
Look outsiiiide, sunshiiiiine is calling meeee
Then attempt the call-and-response technique – your statement, repeated a few times, is met with a reply that has a different rhythm feel and notes making up its melody.
Look outside, sunshine is calling me
Look outsiiiide, sunshiiiiine is calling meeee … Hey, hey, why don’t you come out to play?