I took the class last spring.

It seems to me that your method is fine especially in that you are aware of the chord tones at the same time.

I'm aware of three main choices for improv.

Key center soloing (one key or scale that fits over a series of chords)

Chord scale theory (one scale per chord, the Berklee way of looking at things)

Chord tone playing (targeting chord tones, arpeggios, chromatics,enclosures etc.)

It's probably a good idea to practice all three of those approaches. Ultimately you absorb all these ideas and then get to the point were you don't think of them anymore. It all just eventually becomes your music vocabulary.


Frank

Some tunes from me and my collaborator: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvGqM6ktMW5ltTnyit1KWPg/videos


Band-in-a-Box Ultrapak 2019, Windows 11, Reaper, Behringer u-phoria UMC404HD, Kali LP-8