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The reason I told you that story is to demonstrate that the information I’m going to
share with you today really does have the power to propell you along the path of
fretboard freedom faster than the “average” player who chooses not to learn scales.
This first section may be review for you, or it may be fresh. Either way, it unlocks the
mystery of how to find anything you want on your fretboard.
So for instance, in between D and E, we find D♯, which can also be written as E♭.
♯ = sharp = raising a note by one semitone
♭ = flat = lowering a note by one semitone
♮ = natural = the note is neither flat nor sharp
If you raise a B by one semitone, you get a C, because that distance is a natural
semitone.
Depending on the scale you’re working with, a note might be either sharp or flat. For
instance, in the key of G major we have an F♯ but in the key of G♭ major, the exact
same note or pitch is called a G♭.
There are seven natural notes and five accidental notes in our complete musical
scale (also called the chromatic scale), for a total of 12 notes altogether. That’s why
the 12th fret on the guitar is the repeat, or octave. Each string ascends through 12
notes, fret by fret, and ends up an octave higher on the 12th fret. Try it!
è The reason we’ve gone through all this terminology is that now you
have the key to finding any note name on your fretboard.
Let’s do a quick example. If you want to find an A on your freboard, where would
you look?
A good starting point might be the open A on the fifth string. Well, you could also go
up 12 frets from there, and you’ve got another A. But what about other strings?
Take the open E (6th string). What do we need to move from E to A? Look back at the
last page, and you will see we need 5 semitones to get from E to A. Count ‘em!
E, F, F♯, G, G♯, A. That means that the 6th string, 5th fret, is also an A.
Now, go up 12 frets from there… you’re at the 17th fret, and you have another A!
You can apply this to each string, and find that there are A’s on each string.
Now, the really cool part is that because the fretboard works the way it does, there
are plenty of patterns that repeat themselves. By learning them, we can make our
playing FAR more efficient than my friend in the story I started with.
I have been playing for a long time and could always get by. Now you have given me a lot more tools
and knowledge to bring me to a higher level that seemed to have not been obtainable before. I am
playing more and seem to be getting better. As well as not so frustrated.
~ Bob Lutzkow
So these seven notes are the key to soloing in the key of G major. All we have to do
now is find where those notes are on the fretboard, and then find some convenient
ways we can play them.
At the bottom of this page, you’ll see three diagrams. These three are what I
consider the most important scale patterns to learn first. Are there more? Of course.
But with these three, as you’ll see, you can play anywhere on the fretboard.
The first pattern, on the left, is called the Root 6 “E” Diatonic Minor scale pattern.
Let’s deal with a few of those terms. “Root 6” refers to the fact that the root note -
the anchor note – for this scale pattern, is found on the 6th string.
Diatonic means it is a seven note or seven tone scale (dia = seven, tonic = tone)
Minor means the scale is a minor scale. There are two main flavors in music, major
and minor. Major is brighter, happier sounding. Minor is sadder, more melancholy.
They are two sides of the same coin, and every key has both major and minor scales,
as well as major and minor chords.
At this point, there’s a lot more theory that would be helpful to really understand
how all this fits together, but for now, I’m going to give you the quick explanation. If
you’re interested to know more, I encourage you to checkout the Guitar Scale
Patterns course.
The scale we’re talking about is an E diatonic minor scale, because its root note is an
E (the red notes indicate root notes). The simple explanation for why E diatonic
minor sounds good in the key of G major is that every single note in the scale comes
straight from the G major scale.
Check it out – you can compare this against what’s in the diagrams too:
G Major: G – A – B – C – D – E – F♯ - G
E Minor: E – F♯ - G – A – B – C – D – E
This is so important to grasp! People ask me all the time about the seven modes, but
here’s the simple truth: all seven are simply different starting points for the same
scale. When you use all seven, there’s tons of overlap on each one. When you reduce
it down to three patterns, you get very little overlap, and yet still cover the whole
fretboard. Which equally effective starting point would you rather choose? Learning
seven patterns? Or three?
That’s all we’re doing with the three patterns we’re looking at here, starting the
same series of notes from a different place on the fretboard.
When you boil it down right to the basics, it’s pretty simple, isn’t it?
Just wanted to thank you for a few “new” ideas I picked up from your scale course and
one earthshaking discovery that linked together stuff I’ve been doing for over 40 years
playing around on the guitar.
I’ve come farther in two months now that I understand the patterns than I did in many years of
trying, getting frustrated, and quitting.
You broke down the mysterious fretboard and made learning easy.
At fifty five, a great regret was never learning to play the guitar. Because of you and your
program I am on the way to erasing that regret from my life. This may sound overstated, but I
assure you, it is not.
Tip: Print this cheatsheet and keep it handy for quick reference in your guitar case.
You can use any of these patterns to solo over any song in the key of G major, or E
minor. You can change patterns if you wish, or stay put in just one – the choice is
yours!
When you’re ready to truly understand your fretboard, and take your playing to the
next level, checkout the Guitar Scale Patterns course here:
http://playguitar.com/gsp