HOW to VISUALIZE the FRETBOARD like a PRO/LEGEND

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]And if all you learn is and you don't have an understanding of the guitar, you have an understanding of gravity. Right? What I've always done and now what I try to suggest other people do it was understand that that's part of a much larger scale that goes all the way across the neck. So it's not just well that's G pentatonic.

[00:00:24]So you can or it's really I'm playing sort of a major pentatonic but And I can go C C.

[00:00:46]Um, see. So, whatever you learn is the tip of the iceberg. dive underwater and find the rest of the iceberg and you can rip me off in more fundamental ways. And I mean this what you see here is all the notes of um a C major scale all at once from one end of the guitar to the other.

[00:01:10]And that's basically how I see scales. I see them from the lowest note to the highest note. Um, I don't have a different name for a different scale that starts on any one of these notes, which there is. You can practically name any scale, come up with a different name from any note that you can start on. But for me, for the way my music is, it didn't really help. It was kind of a hindrance really. So, I abbreviated it to these symbols. And this first one, which is which means really like a D minor with a natural six to me. So that's what this is. And like I said, when I see scales, I see them the whole guitar neck like that. So it's just up to me to um to uh juggle the notes around and improvise and make melodies out of them.

[00:02:00]I think a good way to begin practicing scales basically is to try playing more than three notes on a string just so you can break away from playing in a pattern. The biggest problem guitarists have is their understanding of how basic music theory works on the instrument.

[00:02:17]Now, because they don't have a solid foundation, when they try and build a skyscraper that could be learning how to play like their favorite artist, they can't spot patterns in their plane that will help them sound like them. Right?

[00:02:29]If you want to jam or just improvise or maybe create songs, you won't be able to because you don't know how to make your own core progressions. If you want to analyze a song and steal ideas from it and make it your own thing, you can't because you don't know how music works on a foundational level, right? Then the skyscraper collapses and you're in a plateau. A beginner hell, intermediate hell, whatever you want to call it. Now, any normal human being would go on YouTube or Google and search, what's the next step? And then this comes up.

[00:02:58]Unlock the fretboard with one simple trick. Do this one guitar hack and you will understand everything about guitar.

[00:03:05]Use the cage system and you will unlock the fretboard. You'll sound like Hrix with the cage system.

[00:03:12]Use the free two system. If you don't know how to learn pentatonics across the fretboard like the pros, then use the free two system or buy my $100 course on the free two system and you'll unlock this tiny bit of the fretboard. Right?

[00:03:25]You'll see stuff come out like that. And I've been there, you know, I've invested in courses and after doing all of that, you realize that most of these people are just full of [ __ ] You have all of these ideas, which is good. It's always good to increase knowledge, right? But you will never know how to put it all together to make it into something tangible. So, in this video, I aim to make everything cohesive and make sense.

[00:03:47]People always ask me my live streams, how do I fly up and down the neck like that? How do I play like Kendricks? How do this is the idea behind it. This is what John Mayer talks about. This is what Alan Holdsworth talks about. Rest in peace. And this is I I think it should be the standard. It should really be the standard because there's so much crap out there. So, if you like this video, please leave a comment. Make this video blow up. Um, yeah, I might look different in the video. Don't worry about that. Just listen for the information. So, like, comment, subscribe. I hope you enjoy the video.

[00:04:20]And check the description out if you want to learn how to be like Jimmyi Hendris. Peace.

[00:04:34]Okay. So, what is an interval? An interval is just the distance between two notes. Now, there's two basic intervals that you need to learn. One's called a tone, and the other is called a semmit tone. A tone is when you go up or down by two notes, or two frets, I should say. And a semmitone is when you go up or down by one fret. So, if I put my first finger on the third fret of the E string and play that, let me change my pickup position. If I go up by a tone, I'm going up by two frets. So, I'm going up to the fifth fret. Third fret to fifth fret. 3 plus 2 is five.

[00:05:10]If I go down by a tone, then I'm going back two frets. So, I go from the third fret to the first fret.

[00:05:19]Now if I go up by a semmit tone then I'm going up by one fret third fret to fourth fret and if I go down by semmit tone third fret to second fret.

[00:05:32]So these are the two basic intervals that you need to learn because this will teach us how to make the major scale which is the next thing you're going to learn.

[00:05:42]Now before we learn how to make the major scale let's just define what a scale is. A scale is a succession of notes arranged in a specific order of intervals from its root note to its octave. Now, I know that was a lot to take in. So, we'll break it down and we'll just show it in a practical way.

[00:05:59]Our root note just means the starting note. In our case, I'm going to say our star note is the E string, low E string.

[00:06:07]So, you can just play that. Let's start off with the E string.

[00:06:12]Okay. from that E note, which is technically here, just behind the note.

[00:06:18]Let's go up by a tone. So, we'll count zero, first fret, then second fret.

[00:06:26]0 + 2 is two. So, a tone is up two frets.

[00:06:30]Okay. From there, let's go up a tone again.

[00:06:35]Second fret to fourth fret. From here, let's go up a semmit tone. Fourth fret to fifth fret.

[00:06:42]Let's go up a tone again.

[00:06:45]A tone again.

[00:06:48]Let's go up one more tone.

[00:06:51]And then a semmit tone.

[00:06:56]Cool. So here we've just played a succession of notes arranged in a specific order of intervals. Now what was the order of intervals we've just done? It's easy to remember. Just lock this in your head. is tone tone semmit tone tone tone tone semmit tone tone tone semmit tone tone tone tone semmit tone very catchy. So from the E note the open E string we did tone tone semmit tone tone tone tone semmit tone and this gives us something called the major scale. So what is the octave in this? Because a scale is a succession of notes arranged in a specific order of intervals from its root note to its octave. Our root note was E.

[00:07:45]A specific order of intervals was tone tone semmit tone tone tone semmit tone.

[00:07:51]And the octave is just the E note but played at a higher pitch. So that would be the 12th fret of the E string. This is an E note and the open E string is obviously an E note.

[00:08:04]Same thing. So I'll say it again. The root note is your starting point. The E string a specific order of intervals was tone tone semmitone tone tone semmit tone. And then the octave was the same note, our root note but played higher up in pitch.

[00:08:21]So that is the major scale. And you can put this anywhere on the guitar as long as you know the formula. The formula is tone tone semmit tone tone to tone semmit tone. Let's say we're on the second fret of the E string. From there our F sharp note we can do tone tone semmit tone tone to tone semmit tone. So play tone tone semmit tone tone tone tone semmit tone.

[00:08:48]This will be called an F sharp major scale because our root note is F sharp and our order of intervals the formula is tone tone semmit tone tone to tone semmit tone. Let's say we started on the third fret of the E string.

[00:09:02]Yeah, this is a G note. So from here, if we do tone, tone semmit tone tone tone semmit tone.

[00:09:10]This would be called a G major scale because we're starting on G and the form that we're doing is tone tone semmitone tone tone semmit tone. So you can see as the root note gives you the name of the scale or chord you're playing. Yeah. So in our case, if we're starting on G, the name is going to be G. And then the formula you apply afterwards. In our case, tone semmit tone. This will give you what type of scale or chord it is.

[00:09:36]So, for now, we only know the major scale, but this is going to show us how to build other scales. So, let's do one more. Let's say we're on the fifth fret of the high E string. This is a A note.

[00:09:49]So from here if we do tone tone semmitone tone tone tone semmit tone this will be called an a major scale because we're starting on a and applying the formula tone tone semmit tone tone to tone semmit tone. Yeah. So that is how you construct a major scale. Tone tone semmitone tonto tone semmit tone and a scale is just a succession of notes arranged in a specific order of intervals from its root note to its octave. So yeah that's the major scale.

[00:10:17]This is the most important skill you're going to learn. And now we're going to learn how to unlock the fretboard using it.

[00:10:29]Before I show how to unlock the fretboard, I think it'd be important to say how I see chords and scales. The most important note for me is the runo cuz you're obviously going to need to know where to start playing on the guitar. After that, it's just the pattern. This is why when I was showing the diagrams, I didn't say this is A, this is B, this is C sharp and so on. I just said, okay, here's your root note, here's the pattern that follows after it. So when I'm thinking scales and chords, I'm just thinking root note and then what pattern should I apply after that? Cool. So when it comes to unlocking the fretboard, the truth is the fretboards already unlocked, bro.

[00:11:04]It's just your perception of it. Some people see the fretboard through the lens of the cage system. Some people see the fretboard through the lens of some guitar hack they found online. Some people see the fretboard as the pentatonic skills. It just depends on how you see it. Yeah. And that can either sabotage you or make you the best player in the world. So, I'm going to show you how you should see the fretboard. This is my method. And yeah, I think everyone should see it like this. So, we want to see the fretboard through the lens of the major scale.

[00:11:34]Similar to a piano, when you look at a piano, all of the white keys are just the C major scale laid out for you. You want to see that, but on the guitar. So, in our case, we're going to do it in the key of A. We'll start on an A note because I think that'll be easier to show on the guitar.

[00:11:51]So, our A note is going to be on the fifth fret of the low E string. And if we were to do an A major scale from here, tone, tone, semmit tone, tone, tone, semmit tone, it would look like this.

[00:12:04]Lovely stuff. Now, I don't want you to see as a then tone to tone seven tone tone to tone same tone then a again. Now, we're going to call our A the number one. So, we got one and then we're going to apply numbers to the rest of the notes. So, we've got 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Yeah. But just keep in your head this is still a and this formula is still tone to tone semmit tone tone to tone semmit tone.

[00:12:32]Now when we get to eight which is the octave because one and eight are the same note. We just call eight one again.

[00:12:40]So we'll do 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. So after seven we're not saying eight. We're just calling it one again. So it restarts from there.

[00:12:57]Cool. So, how do we unlock the fretboard with this new knowledge? Basically, if one's on the 17th fret of the E string, and we know seven is one fret behind one, a semmit tone down, then the pattern should stay consistent when we go down to the fifth fret of the E string. That's one again. So, behind that should be seven.

[00:13:24]same note.

[00:13:26]If we know up here that six is two frets behind seven, then it should be the same down here.

[00:13:33]Six should be two frets behind seven.

[00:13:37]If we know up there, then that six that five is two frets behind six.

[00:13:43]Then down here should be the same thing.

[00:13:46]Yeah. So, we can fill out this part of the fretboard and say this is 1 7 6 5 and it should sound the same to what we're playing an octave higher.

[00:14:03]They sound the same. Now, here's a little challenge. I want you to play 1 2 3 4 starting from the fifth fret of the low E string. But instead of playing four on the 10th fret of the E string, I want you to find out where this note four is on the A string.

[00:14:23]So you're going to do 1 2 3, but play four on the A string rather than the 10th fret of the E string. Pause the video and try and figure it out. You're finding this note on the A string. Pause here.

[00:14:41]Okay, I'll assume you didn't pause. What I do is play that note on the 10th fret of the E string and then compare it to the notes on the A string. So, I could play it here. Does this sound like it?

[00:14:53]That does not sound like it. Does this sound like it?

[00:14:58]No. Does the fourth fret of the A string sound like it?

[00:15:05]No. Does the fifth fret of the A string sound like it?

[00:15:12]Yes, they sound identical. So I can say that the fifth fret of the A string is also the number four, which we know is on the 10th fret of the E string.

[00:15:26]If this is four, then we can compare it to our E string. We know three is behind four.

[00:15:32]We know two is two frets behind three.

[00:15:35]And we know one, which is our A note, the keys A, is two frets behind two. So we could say that's the open A string.

[00:15:44]Since it's the key of A, we know that's correct because A is obviously one.

[00:15:53]Yeah. Now, if I use the same logic of just comparing the E string to the notes that we have on the A string, I can fill out the whole A string. If four is on the fifth of the A string, I know five is two frets above, six is two frets above, seven is two frets above, and then eight or one again is one fret above, which is also an A note. Then I could do the same thing here from the one 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 I can't go up. I don't have any more frets, but you get the picture. So here is a diagram of us filling out the E and A string. And all I want you to do is just see that it's all symmetrical. If one is here, then two is going to be two frets above one. If three is here, then four is going to be a semmit tone above three. If seven is here, then one is going to be a semmit tone above seven.

[00:16:50]If five is here, then six is two frets above five. It's all symmetrical. It's all a pattern. Don't get overwhelmed by it. Just see that it's just 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 repeating itself across the fretboard.

[00:17:04]That's it. So yeah, just take a moment and look at that.

[00:17:18]Okay, nice. So with all of this, you want to be able to get good at spine patterns. If one is here, then two is here. If seven is here, then five is here. If three is here, then six is above three. If two is here, then five is above two, and so on. This will help you navigate the fretboard easier, more fluently, and just help you be able to build skills and chords way easier. Now, let's move on to the D string. If we're starting from the open A string, which we know is one, the key is A, A string is going to be one. If we know that four is above one, then we can say that the open D string is four.

[00:17:58]If we know that that note is four, then from there we could say two frets above four is five. Second fret, then we know six is here. And if we know six is here, then seven's here. And then if we know seven's here, then one's going to be on the seventh fret of the D string.

[00:18:18]And if we use the same logic of comparing the intervals on the E and A string to the D string, we can easily fill out the D string.

[00:18:34]Yeah, easy enough. So if one is on the seventh fret of the D string, we know four is above one. So we can say the seventh fret of the G string is also is also four.

[00:18:51]And if we use the same logic again, we can say that I don't know the sixth fret of the G string is three.

[00:18:58]And then two frets behind that is two.

[00:19:00]And then two frets behind that is one.

[00:19:02]And then one fret behind that is seven.

[00:19:06]But we could also do it the other way and fill it out as we've done before.

[00:19:15]and so on. So right now, just look at this image and just see how symmetrical it is. Every pattern stays consistent.

[00:19:22]If seven's here, then one's always going to be above seven. If four's here, then one's always going to be below four and so on. Just have a look at that and make sense of it. I don't expect you to just shred away and just understand how to play through it, but you just need to understand it first. Nice. Let's move on to the B string. So if we know that one is on the second fret of the G string, then four is also above one. So four is going to be on the second fret of the B string.

[00:19:52]Now let's play the four on the B string.

[00:19:55]And the four, which we know is the open D string, they don't sound the same.

[00:20:08]Now, this is because there's one rule that you just have to keep in mind when you're doing all of this. When we're moving towards the B string, everything moves up by one fret. So, normally one four is above one. But since we're moving towards the B string, we have to move it up by one fret. So, four is going to be on the third fret of the B string. Now, now knowing this, we can fill out the B string to make it look like this.

[00:20:40]The pad still remain consistent horizontally. It's just when you're going down towards the B string vertically.

[00:20:47]Three is going to be behind four. Two is going to be two frets behind three and so on. And then you can just do the same thing but going upwards.

[00:20:58]Nice. And now for the E string, we've already done the E string. Well, low E and the high E string is literally the same string. So, it's going to be the same pattern as the other E string. So, we can fill that out quite easily.

[00:21:13]So, yeah, just take a look at this image and just see how it's all symmetrical except for the B string and make some sense of it.

[00:21:37]This is just seeing the guitar field in major scale. I like to call it dietonic vision cuz it sounds cool. But dietonic just means major scale. Now, this is the equivalent of how a pianist will see a piano. If they were in the key of C, they would see all of the white notes on the piano laid out for them. They don't have to memorize scale shapes or this hack or this system or whatever. They just see all of the keys laid out for them for them to play. And it's really easy to play cuz it's not hard to see, right? This is how you want to see the guitar. The guitar is symmetrical. So, in a way, it's similar to piano. The patterns don't change once you're in the key. But after that, you want to see it all laid out for you on the fboard easily like we've just done. So, how do we get to a point where we can just see like this without any trouble? Enter pentatonics.

[00:22:32]What is a pentatonic scale? A pentatonic scale is a five note scale that comes from the major scale. As I said earlier in this video, everything scales and chords come from the major scale. Now you know how to build a major scale from scratch across one string and you know how to use that to kind of map out the rest of the fretboard. Let's narrow it down to one tiny shape that we can actually play. So the shape's going to start on the fifth fret of the low E string.

[00:22:59]And it's going to be the fifth fret, seventh fret, ninth fret of the E string.

[00:23:05]Do that with your first finger, second finger, and pinky. If you're having difficulty doing that, then just put your thumb lower down at the back of the fretboard. Not like this or not like that and not over like that. Just have it nice and low and behind your middle finger. So pull your thumb behind the seventh fret.

[00:23:24]So we've got that. And then it's going to be five, seven, 9 on the A string and then six and seven on the D string.

[00:23:37]For the last two notes, usual first and second finger.

[00:23:41]Cool. So this is the shape we're going to use. So the pentatonic scale is a five note scale. Pentagon five sides pentatonic. What two numbers should we remove to make the pentatonic scale?

[00:23:54]Later on you'll know like the theory behind why we remove these two numbers.

[00:23:58]But for now it's just four and seven.

[00:24:02]They don't sound really nice together.

[00:24:07]So when we remove four and seven, we're left with the numbers 1 2 3 5 6.

[00:24:15]So now we know two formulas. You can see the major scale as 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. That's the formula for a major scale. And the formula for major pentatonic, which is the scale we're doing now, major pentatonic is 1 2 3 5 6 1 2 3 5 6.

[00:24:36]Have a little play around with this little scale shape and see what you can make out of it. I'll strum an A chord.

[00:24:42]Yeah, I'll do like 10 seconds.

[00:25:16]So that's the major pentatonic scale. So in our case, a major pentatonic. The sty note we're on is a fifth fret of the low E string. That gives our whatever we're playing its name. And then the formula we are playing afterwards is 1 2 3 5 6 which is the formula for the major pentatonic. So we have a and the type of scale is major pentatonic.

[00:25:42]Nice. So this is just the first shape which starts with our first finger.

[00:25:50]The way I play usually is first finger, then I'll like hammer on to the seventh fret or the next note with my third finger. Then slide to the next note with my third finger as well, like that.

[00:26:05]And then I'll play the five with my first finger on the seventh fret of the A string. Then hammer on to the six with my third finger on the ninth of the A string.

[00:26:16]When you put it all together, you've got that motion.

[00:26:22]Now, there's two more shapes that we have to learn. As a guitarist, a lot of the time, we're not used to Stein on different fingers. So, the other two shapes will allow us to travel in different directions on the fretboard.

[00:26:35]For now, you can see Stein on your first finger as something that allows you to travel the right direction this way.

[00:26:47]So now we're going to s our middle finger. We're going to play one, which is the fifth fret of the low E string, our A note. And then we're going to play two with our pinky on the seventh fret of the E string.

[00:26:59]Now, we've run out of fingers. So, how are we going to play three? You're not allowed to slide to number three. You have to figure out where three is on the A string.

[00:27:09]You can play three as a reference point and try and find it. So, pause the video here and do that.

[00:27:21]Okay, I'll assume you didn't pause. What I would do is play three and then I'll see which note on the A string sounds like three. I would sing, but my guitar is in a different tuning.

[00:27:31]So, when I pitch it up to sound like standard tuning, it will sound like I'm out of tune, so I won't sing. But, I'll play three and then I'll play each note on the A string. Let's say the second fret.

[00:27:45]That doesn't sound like F. What about the third fret of the A string?

[00:27:50]Nah. What about the fourth fret of the A string?

[00:27:57]These notes sound identical. So I know that on the fourth fret of the A string, that's playing my three.

[00:28:09]So I can start my middle finger on the fifth fret of the E string. Then pinky on the seventh fret. And then play three on the fourth fret of the A string. Then I can play five on the seventh fret of the A string. And now if I use the same logic we did earlier. Over here I can see that six is above three. So over here six should be above three. So fourth fret of the D string.

[00:28:37]And then I can play the octave which would be the seventh fret of the D string.

[00:28:46]So middle finger, pinky, first finger, pinky, first finger, pinky.

[00:28:53]This is called middle position. And you can see it as something that lets you travel vertically going down the middle.

[00:29:01]Nice. So the last position is going to be the left position. This lets you travel to the left, obviously to the left, to the left. So, we'll start our pinky on the fifth fret of the low E string. And now you've run out fingers.

[00:29:16]You can't play two on the seventh fret of the E string. So, you need to find two on the A string. Pause the video here. Have a go. And yeah, we'll carry on after.

[00:29:31]Okay. I'll assume you didn't pause. Two is on the seventh fret of the E string.

[00:29:36]So, we'll compare it to the notes on the A string. Does the first fret of the A string sound like two?

[00:29:43]No. Does the second fret of the A string sound like two?

[00:29:52]They both sound like the same. So, we can say that the second fret of the A string is also our two within the key.

[00:30:03]If two's here, we know that F is two frets above it. We figured out that F is on the fourth fret of the A string.

[00:30:12]And over here, if I use the same logic that we did last time, I know five is above two. So over here, five should be a above two on the second fret of the D string.

[00:30:24]If five's here, then six is two frets above it.

[00:30:28]And then I know that one is above five.

[00:30:31]So I can put five I can put one on the second fret of the G string.

[00:30:39]And the fingers I'm using is pinky, first finger, third finger, first finger, third finger, first finger.

[00:30:48]I think a good rule of thumb is if the notes like one fret away, then just use your first and second finger. If it's two frets away, then first and third finger. And if it's three frets away, then first finger and pinky.

[00:31:03]Cool. So now we have three positions.

[00:31:05]We've got right position, we've got middle position, we've got left position.

[00:31:13]Each position lets us go in a different direction on the fretboard. So the next next that the next task we want to do is get fluent in navigating these three positions horizontally. So something like this but we can just shift between them with ease. How do we do this? I'll give you two examples that you can mess with and then I'll strum some chords while you kind of mess around with that. So the principle behind all of it is I'm just using slides to get in between each position. So let's start on the fifth fret of the low E string.

[00:31:53]I'll hammer on to the seventh fret, then slide to the ninth fret.

[00:31:59]Make sure your hammer on is strong. And then I'll play the five, which is on the seventh fret of the A string, and then hammer on to the ninth fret of the A string.

[00:32:08]So we've got this motion.

[00:32:12]And I'm just picking once per string.

[00:32:17]So this is right position.

[00:32:20]And then I'll put my first finger on the seventh fret of the D string. And you can slide that down to the fourth fret.

[00:32:28]So now we're sliding into that middle position that I was talking about.

[00:32:35]Then pinky on the seventh fret of the A string.

[00:32:39]pull off to the fourth fret and then pinky on the seventh fret of the E string. Pull off to the fifth fret.

[00:32:56]Your middle finger should be on the fifth fret.

[00:33:00]So that little phase is slide pulloff. pull off.

[00:33:09]And when you put it all together, so I use a lot of legato in my playing the slide, simonss, and pull-offs to play a little faster than, you know, picking each note individually.

[00:33:35]I can if I want to, but I like the smoother type of sound. So, that's how I'm moving in between these shapes. I'm using hammer ons, pull-offs, and slides.

[00:33:44]Let's do middle position into left position. We can start our middle finger, hammer on to the seventh fret with our pinky.

[00:33:52]Then, first finger on the fourth fret of the A string, hammer on to the seventh fret with our pinky, and then first finger on the fourth fret of the D string.

[00:34:04]and slide that down to the second fret.

[00:34:08]Then third finger on the fourth fret of the A string. Pull off to the second fret.

[00:34:14]And then pinky on the fifth fret of the E string.

[00:34:18]So now we went from middle into left position.

[00:34:29]If I have fun with it and just use the principle of using slides to get into each position, I could, I don't know, do something like this.

[00:34:57]All right. I'm not doing anything complicated. I'm just using slides to get into each shape that I want to go into. You don't have to use slides. You can literally just jump about if you want like go from left to right position.

[00:35:10]Yeah. But just see the principles behind it. You don't have to copy everything.

[00:35:15]I'm doing note for note. Just understand the concept or consent concept or principle that I'm teaching. So this use slides to get to each shape and then with your fingers. I know I said pinky goes into the left direction, right is index finger and so on. But you could start left position with your first finger, right? Just do whatever's convenient for you at the time. You don't have to use those specific fingers, but do whatever's most efficient. What I'll do now is just strum a nice little chord progression. And all I want you to do is practice taking these three positions and just playing through them. You can pick the notes, hammer runs, slides, pull-offs, whatever you want to do. Just practice going through them like I did earlier.

[00:36:08]Yeah, something like that. I'll just start playing, have fun with it, and then we'll move on to the next part.

[00:36:18]Heat. Heat.

[00:37:08]Heat. Heat.

[00:37:32]Heat. Heat.

[00:38:13]Nice. So, now we're going to learn how to stack shapes. You don't have to memorize a thousand scale shapes and code encyclopedias or anything. You just need to know how a chord or scale is constructed and then how you can copy and paste it and put it somewhere else.

[00:38:28]So let's start right position.

[00:38:32]We've got 1 2 3 5 6 and then our octave is on the seventh fret of the D string.

[00:38:43]Yeah. So from here, if I know that from my root note on the fifth fret of the E string, I can do this little shape that looks like a drumstick. From the octave on the D string, I can copy and paste it and do the same shape, right? I'm not memorizing notes. I'm not memorizing scale shapes. I just know that, okay, if this works here and the guitar's a panbased instrument that's symmetrical, bro, I can just copy and paste that shape and put it there.

[00:39:20]Yeah. And I'm just taking that same little thing I showed you earlier. First finger, hammer on, slide, hammer on.

[00:39:29]First finger, hammer on, slide, hammer on.

[00:39:34]and just doing that across the two shapes because if it works for one shape, surely it will work for the shape we're copying onto the octave.

[00:39:44]So let's say we're here standing on the seventh fret of the D string. And we've just done right position major pentatonic. The octave would be on the ninth fret of the B string. And then from there we can do the same shape.

[00:40:01]And if I play it all together, [ __ ] And if we play it all together, it sounds one key because we forgot the rule with the B string. So when we get towards the B string, our root note or I should say octave is not going to be on the ninth fret of the B string, but we'll have to move it up by one fret. So be on the 10th of the B string.

[00:40:36]And then we'll just put the shape there.

[00:40:43]So we've just stacked right position in three different octaves. And it was easy, right? You didn't have to memorize any scale shapes. You just knew, okay, I can take this one shape and put it here and put it here because the pans are consistent until the B string's involved.

[00:41:03]Cool. So far, we know right positions this. But when we reach the octave, which is the seventh fret of the D string, let's start with our middle finger and then do our middle position, which looks like this on the diagram.

[00:41:20]I'm sure you know what's wrong with this. We need to move it up by one fret now that two of our notes are on the B string.

[00:41:30]So those two notes, the six and the one will be on the seventh fret and the 10th fret.

[00:41:40]To play these, I'm using my middle finger to start hammer with my pinky, then first finger, pinky, then first finger, pinky.

[00:41:53]So you can see this has right position into middle position. Let's do middle into left. So if we start with our middle finger on the fifth fret of the E string, we can hammer on with our pinky.

[00:42:06]Then first finger hammer on to pinky.

[00:42:08]From fourth fret to seventh fret, then fourth fret, seventh fret of the D string. Now we're on our pinky. Left position looks like this down there.

[00:42:20]Let's copy and paste it over here on the octave.

[00:42:28]And again the B string symbol. So any notes we have on the B string. And after the B string, we move up by one fret. So sign on our pinky. That's one. Two is on the fourth fret of the G string. Hammer on to three, which is the sixth fret of the G string.

[00:42:46]And now five won't be on the fourth fret of the B string, but it's going to be on the fifth fret of the B string.

[00:42:53]hammer on the six on the seventh fret of the B string and then our octave will be on the fifth fret of the E string.

[00:43:06]And then when we play it all together, we've got this.

[00:43:18]The next shape is going to be a weird one, but I thought it'd be a fun one to do so you get the hang of it. We're going to start with middle position.

[00:43:26]Yeah. But when we get to the six, we're going to slide up to the one, which is the seventh fret of the D string.

[00:43:33]So, middle finger on the fifth fret of the E string, hammer on with your pinky.

[00:43:37]Then first finger, hammer on with your pinky to the seventh fret of the A string. Then first finger on the fourth fret of the D string. Slide up to the seventh fret of the D string. Yeah.

[00:43:51]And then from here, since we're on our first finger, you can do right position.

[00:44:00]So you can make interesting shapes like that. And the more bizarre or fun it is, you can I don't know map out more of the fretboard that way. So you're now thinking in terms of horizontally rather than vertically all the time.

[00:44:17]Okay. The last shape we're going to do is left into middle. So left position looks like this.

[00:44:26]And middle position looks like this.

[00:44:30]When we get to the octave of the left position from here, we're going to do middle. So, we'll copy and paste this shape over here.

[00:44:43]Again, you know what's wrong? The B strings involved. So, the first two notes are fine. If we put our middle finger on the second fret of the G string, then hammer on to the fourth fret of our pinky of the G string.

[00:44:56]And then from there, we're going to move our feet up by one third. So the second fret of the B string. And then our five is on the fifth fret of the B string.

[00:45:04]Hammer on with your pinky.

[00:45:06]And then our six is going to be on the second fret of the E string. And then one on the fifth fret of the E string.

[00:45:16]So I've got this little shape.

[00:45:21]And alto together would sound like this.

[00:45:26]which is a very common shape and you probably know it.

[00:45:34]Nice. So now we've got I'd say three shapes. We got the first one which was right into middle.

[00:45:44]We got the second one which was middle into left.

[00:45:50]And we got the last one which was left into middle.

[00:45:57]When we put them all together, we've got this on the diagram.

[00:46:02]So, I'm just going to add a few more notes to the diagram. So, we have some complete shapes. These are normally taught as the five pentatonic shapes.

[00:46:09]I've just shown you three so far. We'll get the other two down, but vertically speaking, these are what the first three shapes would look like. This will be shape one.

[00:46:21]This will be shape two.

[00:46:24]And this will be shape three.

[00:46:32]Now we're going to practice playing through them so we can get these shapes into our muscle memory and then we'll turn it into a whole major scale at the end. So the first shape is shape one and we'll say that starts on the six which is on the second fret of the low E string.

[00:46:56]If you've been playing guitar for a while, you might know it as minor pentatonic. You can see minor pentatonic as just starting on the six of our key, but just call it shape one. This is what shape one looks like. So, to get better at knowing where all of my intervals are within a key, what I would do is take one shape, let's say shape one, because we're there, and practice targeting specific intervals within that shape. For example, I would practice targeting the root note number one within that shape only. I can see one on the fifth fret of the low E string. I can see it on the second fret of the G string. And I can see it on the fifth fret of the high E string. So, what I'll do is ask my friend to strum some chords or just get a backing track in a major or something and while that backing track is playing, I'll play around with the scale and practice targeting one through that shape. So, what I'll do is play some chords and show how I would practice it.

[00:48:01]Heat. Heat.

[00:49:00]Lovely. So, I'm not playing anything advanced in that. All I'm thinking is here's shape one, and here are where my ones reside within shape one. Let me just practice targeting those intervals.

[00:49:15]So, what I'll do is play that chord progression again, and I just want you to practice targeting one over it.

[00:49:25]Oh, Heat. Heat.

[00:50:25]Nice.

[00:50:28]Let's do two more intervals. I won't do an example cuz you know what to do now.

[00:50:32]But the next two intervals I want you to practice targeting are three and five.

[00:50:37]Right? The same thing you did for the one, but do it for three and five as well. So we can see that three is on the fourth fret of the A string. It's also on the second fret of the B string. So that's where your threes reside. And five is on the second fret of the D string. And it's also on the fifth fret of the B string.

[00:50:59]So practicing practicing practice targeting five as well. Yeah, I'll play the same chord progression. practice starts in F five and add one if you want, but those are the three notes you want to emphasize.

[00:51:32]Heat.

[00:51:46]Heat.

[00:52:36]Heat. Heat.

[00:53:10]Nice one. So the reason I say practice targeting three and five is because if you get good at targeting five then from five you know it's easy to get to one again or six or four because six and four are like next to five and if you get good at targeting three then you'll get good at targeting two and four because two and four are next to three and so on. You don't need to practice it in you don't practice in you don't need to practice targeting each individual interval in the pentatonic but I mean it's good if you can but if you can get good at targeting one three and five you'll find your way around a lot easier than just knowing where one is. Okay. So once I'm good with shape one and it's all muscle memory and I could do with my eyes closed. I'll add in shape two.

[00:53:55]Shape two look like this.

[00:54:02]and I'll just connect to shape one.

[00:54:11]So, here's an example of me connecting it all together. Again, I'll use slides.

[00:54:15]You don't have to, but I would use slides to kind of navigate through each shape. Right? I'll play a different core progression this time. And the numbers I'll be targeting are let's say six, three, and five.

[00:54:51]Heat.

[00:55:14]Heat.

[00:55:28]Heat. Heat.

[00:55:41]Heat. Heat.

[00:55:51]Heat. Heat.

[00:56:12]Again, nothing complicated. I'm just playing through the notes. I'm just keeping awareness of where my although I said six, three, and five, right? So, my sixes are the second fret of the E string, the fourth fret of the D string, the second fret of the high E string, and the seventh fret of the B string.

[00:56:46]Those are where my sixes are. And then my fives will be the second fret of the D string, the fifth fret of the B string, and the seventh fret of the A string.

[00:56:58]And then my freeze would be on the fourth fret of the A string, the sixth fret of the G string, and the second fret of the B string.

[00:57:12]I'm just keeping awareness of those intervals as I'm playing through these two shapes. Then I'll do the same thing for shape three. Right, shape three looks like this.

[00:57:23]I'll add shape three to the mix and practice targeting my intervals through each shape. Again, I'm not doing anything fancy, or at least I'm not trying to. I'm just using slides to get through each shape. And yeah, and even when I'm not using slides, I'm just keeping that awareness. I know shape one's here, shape is here, so I can easily bounce from shape one into a shape three.

[00:57:49]Something like that. So, here's a chord progression, and I'll just play through it, and then you have to play through it. Heat. Heat.

[00:58:23]Heat. Heat.

[00:58:57]Heat. Heat.

[00:59:34]Your turn.

[01:00:01]Heat. Heat.

[01:00:14]Heat.

[01:00:18]Heat.

[01:00:25]Heat. Heat. N.

[01:01:05]Heat. Heat.

[01:01:16]Nice. So, you can go on YouTube and just type in a major backing track and you'll find plenty of backing tracks in a major that you can practice over. Earlier, I said that if you start on the six, that's minor pentatonic. The six within this key would be an F sharp. So, you go on YouTube and type in F# minor pentatonic.

[01:01:37]Earlier I said that the six is the minor pentatonic. If you start from there, in our case, six is F#. So you could go on YouTube and type in F# minor backing track and you'd have a whole load of backing tracks that you can play along to. So yeah, um minor and major pentatonic are the same shapes. They're just starting from different points.

[01:01:57]Major pentatonic would start from one so it sounds happy. minor pentatonic starts from six, so it sounds sad, but still the same shapes. You're just changing where you start. Cool. Let's add in shape four. If we use the same logic we did earlier with all the intervals and stuff, shape four would look like this.

[01:02:24]Again, I'm just thinking if this is three, I know five is three frets above three. If this is six, I know one is three frets above six. If this is two, I know three is two frets above three and so on. That's how I'm figuring out these shapes as I'm going along.

[01:02:43]And then when I've figured it out and I build the shape, now it's just a big shape in my head. Of course, if you ask me what are the intervals that go into it, I could tell you, but at that point, it's just one big shape I can play along to.

[01:02:57]So with this, I'd do the same thing. I'd put on a backing track and just practice going through shape four and targeting specific intervals within that. And then I'll add in shape five. Shape five is the next shape that starts on the 12th fret of the E string. Looks like this.

[01:03:20]And yeah, same process as before. So all together you've got five shapes. Shape one, shape two, shape three, shape four, shape five.

[01:03:27]And after shape five, it repeats. So you have shape one again. As you can see on the diagram, they're both the same thing. Now we know all of the five shapes. We'll have one more jam. Again, I'll just do an example so you can see what I'm doing. Nothing complicated. I'm just using slides to go in and out of each shape. But after that, you'll have a turn at playing through it. And yeah, that's how I would practice the pentatonics. You want to get really good at this and just know pentatonics inside out. So, without further ado, let's let's do this.

[01:04:17]Oh, Heat.

[01:05:04]Heat.

[01:05:10]Heat.

[01:05:24]Heat.

[01:06:00]your turn. So just pick an interval in your head. If you want to just have fun with it and play by ear and see what comes out, then do that also. That's a good skill to have. But if you want to pick an interval or more than one interval and practice targeting them over this chord progression, then do that. The chords I'm playing are just a then C sharp minor then D and then F sharp minor.

[01:06:28]No.

[01:06:31]B minor.

[01:06:35]And then for the chorus, I'm just doing D, E, F sharp minor, then E, then D, then E, then A.

[01:06:50]One, two, three, four.

[01:07:17]One, two, three.

[01:08:07]Heat.

[01:08:24]Heat.

[01:10:10]Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat.

[01:10:15]Heat. Heat.

[01:11:08]All right, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is there's only one last step. We only have to add two more numbers to make it dietonic. Those numbers are the numbers removed, which were four and seven. Yeah, I'll show you how to do that in a second. The bad news is this is just the first step, bro. So, after you've got all of this done, there's much more to learn, but it'll make understanding everything musical a lot more easier, right? So, let's get to adding these two numbers. Let's look at shape one pentatonic. We add six. 1 2 3 5 6 1 2 3 5 6 1.

[01:11:45]The two numbers we removed were four and seven. But these are easy to add back in. Seven is always one fret behind one.

[01:11:53]So, that'll be on the third fret. No, fourth fret of the E string.

[01:11:58]And four is always one fret above three.

[01:12:01]So whenever you're on three, just think four is right next to it. Fifth fret of the A string.

[01:12:12]Yeah.

[01:12:18]So when you add these two numbers in, you're just playing the major scale and you have a full fretboard that you can improvise with. So to practice this, I'll do the same thing we've been doing in the last 30 minutes or so. I'll take shape one, but this time I'll add the numbers seven and four to it. So it looks something like this.

[01:12:38]And then as I'm practicing, I'll practice just adding these numbers in.

[01:12:42]And yeah, I'll make a good sound with them. And then I'll do the same thing with shape two. And it will look like this. Shape three, same thing. And I'll add them all together until my whole fretboard looks like what we had at the start, which was all the numbers together. You can see pentatonic as like a framework, a scaffolding and then adding numbers four and seven would be I don't know adding a window or some wood or something to add some more structure to it. So once you've got this done, you've got two ways to see the fretboard. You can see it through the pentatonic perspective.

[01:13:13]We call this pentatonic vision and you've got the dietonic perspective which is just the major scale dietonic vision. Uh yeah, I can do an example of me just playing through it dietonically.

[01:13:24]I'll just strum some chords and show you how it would look when you've got it down. And then all you have to do is practice the same thing. Just take one shape, maybe two, and add the numbers four and seven within that. So yeah, let's do it.

[01:14:17]Oh, You know, you Heat.

[01:15:05]Heat.

[01:15:32]Okay, I'll play the same chord progression. Just have a go. Maybe just do it with shape one. If you're feeling confident, then do it with all the shapes or maybe two or three shapes.

[01:16:09]Heat. Heat.

[01:16:42]Heat. Heat.

[01:17:16]Heat. Heat.

[01:18:05]Nice. Okay. as a bonus. I mean, it's already in the module anyway, but I I'll add it to this video. There's something called blues vision, and I'm sure you've heard of the blues scale before. Um, sounds something like this.

[01:18:24]I mean, that was a terrible example, but it's the blues scale, bro. So, to make the blues scale, we can call this blues vision, you just add a flat three.

[01:18:34]I got to explain what a flat is now.

[01:18:37]Basically, let's say I'm on three, which would be the fourth fret of the A string. A flat would be me taking this three and going down by one fret.

[01:18:50]So now it's called a flat three because I've taken three and just moved it down one fret.

[01:18:55]Yeah, flat just means go down one fret. Now a sharp is the opposite. Sharp just means go up by one fret. So let's say I'm on four. Yeah. If I go up one fret from four, this is called a sharp four.

[01:19:15]Now, if I went up one fret from three, it wouldn't be called a sharp three because four is one fret above three, right? So, you can't call it a sharp three. Just call it four. If I go up one fret from four, you can call it a sharp four. If I go down one fret from five, it's called a flat five.

[01:19:39]Now, I know sharp four and flat five are the same note. It just depends on which note you manipulate. So, if I'm taking four and sharpening it, then it's a sharp four. But if I'm starting from five, but I'm taking five and flattening it, then it's a flat five. So, in short, flat just means we've taken a note and moved it down by one fret. You might see a flat two, a flat six, a flat 7. We've just taken these notes or numbers I should say or intervals and moved it down by one fret. If you see a sharp, then it's the opposite. You're moving it up by one fret. So the blue scale is just major pentatonic with a flat three.

[01:20:21]So you can add that to your repertoire and have fun with it. Um, that's it. I don't think there's anything else to explain. If you got any questions, let me know. But I think I've covered everything you'd need to know when it comes to understanding the fretboard and how to practice it. Um, yeah. I hope you enjoyed the video. Take care.