After being able to play a long stream of chord tones, it becomes a matter of being able to make everything sound musical. For this we need to worry about rhythms, and specifically the phrasing (a phrase is one musical idea, which 90% of the time is 4 measures long) – more information on what a phrase is here.
The first exercise here is actually harder then it sounds, and that is to put three and only three notes into each phrase. The trick here it to use different rhythms each time, if you play 3 sixteenth notes and rest for the rest, this is perfectly fine, but don't do it every time. (note there does not have to be a note on the first beat of the phrase, or even the first measure for that matter.)
Continue doing this exercise using different amounts, such as 4, 5, 6 and 7 notes per phrase. This will force you to think in terms of phrases and really control how you place your notes.
The second group of exercises forces you to control where you put the notes within the measure, to begin play only on beats one and three (this does not mean you have to play on EVERY first and third beat.) Then only beat two and four. Then play only the offbeats.
This exercise can actually be made incredibly complex (try playing only on the third note of every quintuplet, using exactly three notes per phrase). And the more complex you make it the more ability to control your notes you can show.
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