stuck in a rut

I guess this is a technique thing than n e thing else but anyways...Lately during my usual warm ups and exercises I've been moving into scales major and minor. I've definitely noticed a increase in my picking and fingering speed practicing scales, but while a was watching a Joe Satch vid. he shared some tips for improving on playing and one of the things he said was to work up the entire fretboard and not get stuck in a standard pattern of notes or time. I feel that he is exactly right on! I feel limited by learning just the standard 2 octave scales. So I was wondering If anyone had some exercises, tips, or tricks to get to know the fretboard in its entiredy. Oh and here's the video of Satch I was talking about Thanks! this

Try taking a look at the caged shapes for major scales / the five pentatonic positions or maybe the modal shapes - all cover the whole fret board although you're playing basically the same notes in different positions.

You might also think about looking at 3 octave scales which will again open up the fretboard for you. Once you start using the shapes that link together, you can build your own runs across multiple shapes to get from fret 3 to 15 in half a second!

:D

Edit: Meant to also say that you can do quite alot in one position as well - with practice you should be able to make music in one box position... don't rely on covering vast areas of fretboard... either approach can sound great, or boring...

learn like 1 more box shape, the one that is higher than the one you know. and try to move between the two shapes as u play. then add another then another.

also look at this site http://www.power-chord.com/gaff/mapper/


u can make things like this http://www.power-chord.com/cgi-sys/...fcole/custom.pl