Originally Posted by: decpestThank you! That's just what I needed, something simple. I still have some problems with moving, say 2 to 5 frets above the blues scale. I'm also having trouble with arpeggios. I have the chords cold in all forms and even 9ths and 13ths but playing while not holding the chord structure is confusing and seeing the scales around it is getting me nuts. Don't know if I am being very clear here. I think my problem is putting something that's not random together in my scattered brain. :o

It's helped me a lot in the past to actually buy (or draw) some neck templates that show the entire fretboard, and then map out all the notes in a given key for whatever scale I'm trying to learn. As you get more and more familiar with the neck, you will have an easier time learning new scales, chords and arpeggios, because you can relate them to something you already know.

For example, the jazz (or "melodic") minor scale is a major scale with one note (the third note-or the "mi" of the doe, ray, mi scale) flatted. I was so familiar with the major scale patterns that I didn't need to map it by the time I learned jazz minor.

Anyway, if you map out your scales, it will help you visualize the notes better, and find all the various routes up and down the neck, so that you can get comfortable with shifting positions from any string with ease, and keep playing in the next pattern.

You can make lots of copies of the scale, so you can mark it up. For example, you can find a chord that you like among the notes of the scale, and circle it so you can easily pick it out at a glance. Then you can move each note of the chord up or down to it's next position, and circle that chord form. Do this until you've covered the whole neck (within reason), and you'll have a voicing for each note of the scale. There are books that do it for you, but I think you learn it better if you draw your own neck charts.

One of the most important things to get into your head and hands is how the chords, scales and arpeggios relate to each other. This will help you to do that.

Perhaps it's equally powerful when you really become aware of each note's place in the chord. So when you work on them, make sure you spend a bit of your time asking yourself to name all the notes by root and number. That gives you the root, 3rd, 5th, and 7th. Once you have all those, you can start adding the extensions; 9th, 11th, and 13th. When you've been doing that for a while, it will be second nature, and it will really help you create more intentional, logical solos.

You can devote seven of the scale maps to color coding the root, 3rd, 5th and seventh of a given chord; only one chord on each copy. So the root might be black, or circled; the third red, or with a sqaure around it, the 5th green, or with a triangle around it, and the 7th brown, or with a star around it.

The kicker is once you've done this to the notes of the chord, you are going to find all the places each note occurs whether in the same or a different octave. So for C major, all the Cs on the entire neck are black, all the Es are red, etc. If this is daunting, that's good; it means you will get a huge benefit from it, because it will get you to the place where you can name any note on the fretboard with ease, and know what relationship it has to a given chord. Just take your time and don't get discouraged; the rewards are huge, and if you spend even a few minutes a day doing it, you'll notice real progress in a matter of weeks, or even days.

Having said all that, don't be impatient with yourself. Chunk this stuff down as much as you need. It's easy to get overwhelmed, but it's all easy stuff if you don't take it too fast; it's just got to be memorized, and programed into muscle memory. But if you start feeling overwhelmed, take a smaller chunk, because you won't remember anything if your brain's overloaded and stressed.

At first, you might want to start with an easy key like C, and learn a couple of scale patterns, say starting at the 5th fret and then starting at the seventh. Then you could try shifting between them. Work on making it sound smooth. Try changing the string you make the shift on so you get comfortable doing it from each string, and get the patterns locked in to the point where the line begins to have a nice flow to it; no hesitation. Also try changing directions in random places until you come up with some nice riffs. That's where it gets really fun. You want to make it musical and entertaining for yourself. Always work against boredom; make it a game, and make some pleasing melodies asap.

If you do the above for a week, then work on connecting the seventh fret pattern to the eight or tenth for a week, and so on, you'll have covered the neck by the end of a month, and be a whole lot closer to your "aha" moment! Just make sure that you spend a few minutes drilling the previous weeks' exercises so you don't forget them by the time you get to the end of the month! Then repeat the whole process, and it will really start to sink in.

After you've done that for a while, and have all the patterns under your fingers, and are comfortable shifting between adjacent ones, it's time to take it to the next level. Start finding all the arpeggios that go with each scale, (you've got your own maps of them now). Spend a couple months in similar fashion, with all the arpeggios. Once you get them under your fingers, you can start connecting them with the scale notes that are between them. That really goes a long way toward mastery of the neck.

I know I got carried away, and that's a lot of work and a lot to take in, but if you do it, I can vitually gaurantee massive progress within a few months! Just start by drawing one scale. That already engages your brain in a different way than just playing and struggling to visualize the patterns. Plus, you can do it with fewer mistakes if you play the scale while using the charts as training wheels until the pattern is part of you. That's important, because if you practice with a lot of mistakes, you end up having to spend almost as long re-programing your body and brain to correct the mistakes as you did learning the whole subject in the first place.

I hope that helps more than it hurts! You've got exciting times ahead if you take it at your own pace and stick to it!