Hey Jim - first off, thanks so much for checking out FB live on Friday nights and being a part of it all!! I really appreciate you tuning in!

Here's a GT tutorial that breaks down what I was talking about (re: scales) on the session:

https://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=12764

The Grid-style patterns Lisa teaches in Fundamentals are not completely different patterns, but simply smaller 1 octave versions of one (or more) of the full positional CAGED patterns I was talking about. She teaches the scales "grid" style just to keep things simple at first.

When you first open the Scale Finder in the Toolbox section of the site, it defaults to C major Pattern 1. Take a look at the top 3 strings of this pattern -- it is the exact Grid pattern Lisa teaches. This is great when you are first learning about scales and getting used to them. But, eventually, we'll want to memorize a scale using all 6 strings, all across the fretboard - so that we can get those notes no matter where we happen to be playing on the neck.

Make sense?

Mike

Originally Posted by: jimk8882

Mike,

Wanted to let you know that I am enjoying your Friday night FB live sessions. I am a beginner getting close to finishing the Fundamentals II course. I really appreciate that you make sure that there is something for us beginners in each of your FB sessions. Enen when the material gets beyond my knowledge or skill, these sessions are a good way to get exposed to other concepts and techniques that I haven't learnt yet. After all, awareness is often the first step to learning.

I do have a comment arising from your most recent FB session, Efficient and Focused Practicing, on Nov 27/20. During that session you mentioned that we should include a study of scales in our practice, and in particular, learn and memorize playing scales over the entire neck of the guitar. In my studies to date, the only way I thought this was done was by using the grid-style method taught by Lisa in Fundamentals II, Chapter 2, Intro to the Major Scale. But by watching you, your fingers didn't appear to match up with this style but I wasn't sure what pattern you were doing. This prompted me to ask a question about using the grid-style method over the open-style method to learn scales. Based on your response, I quickly understood that you were speaking of patterns that are different than the grid-style. I have since found these patterns in the Scale Finder in the GT Toolbox and have incorporated this into my practice. So based on this, it makes me wonder why these patterns are not taught in Fundamentals when we were learning about scales. At a miniumum, this teaches us beginners where the notes are on the fretboard which I am sure will be handy when learning more advanced techniques. Anyways, thought I would raise this so it can be considered when it comes time to update the Fundamentals courses. Alternatively, maybe this could be a bonus lesson(s) that could be added to the site?

In the meantime, keep up the good work on the FB sessions.

Jim