The British Steelies Society

I never practised scales and was embarrassed to say so.. Until now..Buddy Emmons says “ I can’t relate to the harmonic base theory ’n all that, because my idea of improvisation is this little collection of clichés that I’ve put in the back of my memory, from all of my years of listening”

I think that this one statement debunks the theory that you must be able to play and understand scales to be able to improvise. Understand chords and structure, YES.. and have a good memory..
Grace notes, embellishments and complimentary phrases around the melody are more important factors to improvisation than scales..in my opinion; Along with a smattering of licks learned from others in the past and adapted to suit the particular present use.
Above all is the ability to know/sense ahead of time what's coming next, and be in time and in tune.

Click THIS link to go to the section I've quoted:-->
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flXaj4GWam8&t=88

Hated scales my whole life since being made to play them at school and never touched them since, until pedal steel came along. Now I’m totally hooked and practice them every day. It’s a great way of catching up and transferring previous knowledge onto a new instrument. I find the trick is to have a ‘Mary Poppins’ moment and find the spoonful of sugar that makes them fun. I play over a drone and not necessarily just up and down the scale but more randomly picking out little tunes and licks. Piano players have it easy as there’s only one way to play each note whereas on steel there are loads of different options. It’s also good fun trying out different modes. For instance, only yesterday someone pointed out that the Simpsons theme is in Lydian Dominant. Who would have thought......
Cheers
Calum