Customer Reviews

Fretboard Knowledge for the Contemporary Guitarist

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I've been trying to learn the fretboard (to be able to jam or improvise)for years (scales, keys, notes), but I HATE rote memorization, and so many approaches require LOTS of memorization. This book shows you a VERY simple way, first, to find specific notes on the fretboard (using a "W" formation that locates notes by octaves). Then it shows you how to play the most-used scales (major and minor pentatonic) in the most efficient, easily-remembered way I have ever seen. (It also covers other scales.) I've struggled with the CAGED system using "boxes." Call me slow or stupid, but it never made sense to me, and there was SO much to remember with that approach. With this approach, I find my fingers flying up and down the fretboard, starting with any note, playing in any key. I can go, for example, from the first fret of the 6th string to the 16th fret of the first sting, and back down again, and play around in between, and not take the same "route," with NO problem. It's just plain FUN. And it's easy.
In my opinion, pages 14 and 15 alone are worth the price of entry. I highly recommend this book.

This book is a real find. It shows some of the patterns on the guitar neck that make playing infinitely more enjoyable and easy. Why every guitar teacher doesn't use this book is beyond me. Its like the difference between an analog watch (one with hands) and a digital. With the analog a glance will show the pattern of the time; a digital actually has to be read and interpreted. Same thing with the guitar neck. Know the patterns and start creating your music.

I wished I'd found this book years ago. There are some concepts in here that I've never seen in any other instructional materials that help unlock the fretboard. I won't say there is any magic pill, but the CAGED concepts (part of which is brushed upon with the note location idea in this book) along with the ideas of where the patterns repeat up the neck on different string pairs has really helped me get out of playing within a set pentatonic box or a single scale shape and allowed me to connect these shapes and even flow through them, effortlessly.

If you've learned the major, minor and blues pentatonic scale boxes, and five major scale forms to cover the neck, but have a difficult time moving between different parts of the neck -- I would say that working with this book for a little each day over even a couple of weeks is going to really get you off a plateau and to new levels of playing and understanding.

If you've ever had a problem really applying modes to your playing, there is an approach to playing in any different mode up-and-down the neck that made doing this much easier for me.

I practice each morning for an hour and have spent a lot of time on different pentatonic, major and minor scales and the CAGED system, and I think that all has value. I would consider myself an intermediate player, some of my friends would say I'm advanced. I do play in a local band, I have focused on finger picking/acoustic blues, but I've been asked to play a lot more lead parts in the band, so I've spent more time on scale work, etc. Looking at something in a different way sometimes can be very helpful and if I ever start teaching guitar, I would introduce some of this material fairly early on.