How to learn the notes on the guitar fret board quickly by isolating individual notes Fret board Exercise Part 2

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  How to learn the notes on the guitar fret board quickly by isolating

individual notes

Fret board Exercise Part 2

  This fret board note naming exercise was taught to me by my private teacher in the 90’s who was a former student of Joe Pass. At the time he was studying guitar at GIT and he told me Joe had taught him this fret board note naming exercise in his private lesson. Later on I read about the same exercise in an article from Jazz guitar player magazine. The author of the article was none other than Joe Pass. I found this particular lesson very helpful to me in terms of learning the notes on the guitar fret board quickly.  I highly recommend it to any guitarist who wants total command of the names of notes & where they are located on the neck.

  The last lesson I wrote about was on how tofind the notes on the guitar chromatically. That blog/lesson was great for beginner guitarists. If you want to be at more advanced level you should be able isolate any one note from the chromatic scale and be able to play it all over the neck. For example if  I were to ask a student to play me all the Bb’s all over the neck on each string he should be able to do it without any hesitation. He should be able to play all Bb’s on each string between the 1^st & 12^th fret and repeat the exercise between 12^th & 22 frets.

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Notice some notes have enharmonic names: A note or pitch with 2 different names. Example: B# & C are the same pitch but they both have different note names. This is has to with theory and what key the note comes from. A B# is from the key of C# and B is from the key of C. B is also found in other major keys.

  So on day 1 you would practice all the A’s, A#’s & Ab’s with a metronome. Start with a slow tempo 60bpm and work your way up to 100 or 120bpm. First start with whole notes at 60bpm and say all the A’s on each string between 1^st & 12^th fret. Then move on to the A#’s & Ab’s. Repeat the exercise between 12^th & 22^nd fret. After you’ve accomplished naming the notes in perfect time at different tempos & without stumbling you can move on to half notes & quarter notes. You don’t have to strictly follow the practice schedule above as is. You can stretch it out & tailor it to your liking and learning curves. Move on until you feel you have absorbed the info until you can execute the exercise perfectly. You can turn Day 1: A, A#,Ab, into a weeks or 3 days’ worth of practice. This way you stay on those notes longer & get to know where they are on the neck.  After you feel you know where those notes are placed on the fret board move to the next 3 notes. In 3 months you should be able to name any note on any string or fret with ease & speed.

By: Phil La Viola
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How to learn notes on the fret board Chromatically Part 1 (for beginner guitarists)

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By: Phil La Viola 
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Pentatonic khancepts Book Review

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Pentatonic khanceptsBook Review

   If you are looking to breathe new life into your playing this book is for you. The ideas presented here will definitely add melodic content to your solos and give you a big moat of ideas to choose from. You’re not going to get any major or minor scales from this book. What you will get is what every guitar player starts off with and is most comfortable with playing wise is the Minor pentatonic scale. What you should do is combine these ideas with major scales so it will give you a war chest of ammunition when you’re ready to take your guitar solo. This book is great for jazz, fusion & rock players. I mainly use these ideas over jazz standards.

   

One of my favorite examples is learning to get the C major or C Lydian sound over c major 7^th chord. Rules for Major  7^th chord: use the 2^nd degree   D Minor pent,  3^rd degree E minor pent, 6^th degree A minor pent and the 7^th degree B minor pent. Using the 2^nd, 3rd and 6^th you get all the notes from the C major scale. By using the 3rd, 6th and 7^th you get the C Lydian sound. My preference is to use the 3^rd E minor pent, 6^th A minor pent 7^th B minor Pent over a C major 7^th chord which gives me the C Lydian sound. By using all 3 or 4 of these minor pentatonics will give your improvisation a more modern and melodic sound as you weave in and out of each of them. You will be able to see a pattern within a pattern e.g. A minor pent at the 5^th position moving to E minor 4th position or A minor 5th position moving to B minor 7^th position.

This you tube video will give an idea on how all 3 of these minor pentatonic scales sound individually over C Maj 7. The last segment of the video combines all 3.  This will make your improvising very melodic and exotic sounding.

  

 There are many more ideas that Steve Khan presents in this book that makes it worth your while to check out. There are ideas for minor, dominant & altered dominant chords. My favorite is the 2 5 1 minor pentatonic licks you can come up with.  This book is definitely a buy and if I had to give a rating it would be 10/10. This is a book for the advancing guitarist that will give him or her number of tricks to pull out of your hat when soloing over standards. In my opinion it will free you up from thinking too much about what type mode or scale you’re going to use. It will give your playing a balance between modes and minor pentatonic ideas. 

By: Phil La Viola 
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Pentatonic Khancepts