If your goal is to get to SE, then focus on insight.
I don't really care for noting, personally, so here are some different things that I did.
1) sort of general choiceless awareness, with special attention to the 3C's. This can include things like carefully looking for apparent satisfaction while eating, trying to see how apparently stable/persistent things are actually changing (or at least, my experience of them is changing)
2) actively deconstructing experiences into sets of sensations. (for example, if you think "I feel dizzy" then ask 'what sensations are causing me to think I am dizzy', etc. This can be a recursive process. For 'solid' seeming sensations like you mention you can sometimes 'break them up' by keeping them in the periphery of your attention while you look at other sensations. When you notice that they have dropped out of awareness, realize that the sensation has effectively dissapeared for that period. After doing this a couple times, looking back at the 'solid' sensation may show something less solid. (You could also try to look at how your mind is producing the impression of a solid sensation, the solid sensation is often actually just an 'idea' that the sensation is there and solid, which is periodically refreshed by corresponding moment to moment sensations.)
3) paying attention to sensations or impressions that I would normally automatically filter out (visual errors, watching things 'dissapear' as they leave your sight, etc).
4) Challenging/Penetrating the 'illusion'. You know how when you read a work of fiction, your mind 'lives in' the world of the book, and you aren't really aware of seeing and processing the words on the page? You do the same thing when you walk around and go through your day. You build a mental model from your sensations and primarily live in that, with the actual sensations being treated like the words on the page. Example: Go put your hand against a solid object. Pretend that the solid object is actually non-solid, except for exactly where your hand is. Does the experience seem different?
All of this is stuff you can do off the cushion. The best strategy, I think, is to do formal sits, start them with directed focus on some sort of object (this is concentration, though you might also be trying to notice individual sensations, in which case its a bit of both.). Once you've established some concentration (get into a flow, tranciness, whatever you want to call it), then move into whatever sitting insight practice you want to do (could be noting, could be noticing with attention to the 3C's, whatever), and then after a bit, open your eyes, stand up, and try to hold on to your mindfulness, and keep some of this going. For me, the biggest enhancement to my early practice was when I started paying attention to 'odd visual stuff', as this acted as a frequent reminder to push me back towards an mindful mindset throughout the day.
Oh, and yes, I think that is the beginning of first jhana, at least. By my standards, anyway. I don't promise my standards are 'correct' according to anyone elses standards though