E# is F and B# is C : ) over 2 down 2 is the same as well as down 3 more and back 2

Well, since some may find this of interest, as it happens, I’ll add it here.

A friend is always looking for “stuff” he can then transfer via him - to his very young son that loves guitar. He’s already in some “advanced” class at the local “music school” - if wondering why in the world would I be looking at this stuff. However, when I was a kid, wow - this stuff, advice, curriculum did not exist.

I remember when the first fretboard roadmaps book got published, “mine” : ) hahhh, was better (self publishing didn’t exist then - and “who’d” care anyway, I thought - now, everyone’s got one! : )

Anyway, this popped up (my lovely Ai!) and I’ve done all of this - all these snippets of “advice” he maps out. Learning the EF, BC and “Octave” “shapes” - can in a pinch of a beer buzz solo “save you” : ) Only if I am playing an insane amount of hours a day, can I just point to any fret and just know/read it as the Note (he refers to play “Battleship” - a game analogy).

So, anyway, it’s a long single page which I prefer myself and does a longish “framing” but pretty condensed for what’s there.

  • I shortened this now, IRL - to just insist folks (students?) just buy a Bass and “Practice Pad” with drum sticks and learn to “read” drum Notation (heavy rhythm studies)… and they will advance quite fast if do. “Doing it” - explains itself and never hear any regrets. See, say, do.

As this fellow comments you do NOT need ANY of this, to “learn guitar” - it has to do with where, how far you want to go. If one wants to speak fluent “gatnek” guitar neck : ) this is a way unless have an eidetic memory. Once you do it, you wonder why you waited. Like kids that sit there and bend their neck to see the fretboard! OMG what a pain in the neck that is! But, once you break that bad habbit and just see with your fingers - life is much easier and painless.

The other thing that brought me to this sight (you’ll never get a “hit” on it, if searched the general topic) - was the good history lesson he gives on Gibson Standard Les Pauls, and does a nice “comp” with the Tribute and the “Chambering” done, when and how.

This buddy of mine is plugged into a music world niche : ) where many of the “almost famous” fall victim of what’s “good” and why : ) He showed me a “Special” that was “modded” to model a NOS 50’s - when he could just buy one of those used or an alternative. But he is/was (?) : ) convinced this guy had the “right” guitar. (Not unfairly priced, but I don’t know his work and made no sense… TLTR : ) lol! )

His Dad had a “real” 1950’s LP Standard - he would “rent” out to other session players for individual tracks to play in studio. Possibly, I’ll guess, the NOS stuff Gibson put out killed that income for him - finally sold it. (Can’t take it with you : ) so to speak - I’m amazed all the non-brand named guitars he did leave for his son… it is all just wood : ) hahhh - that decal adds allot of cost.

Anyway - I had the time, so hahhh, derUgo! As I say.

I’m at the stage in my guitar playing where, after 40 years, I know what I know and I should probably make the best of that rather than trying to learn new things. I never learnt the fretboard, didn’t take lessons and didn’t know it would be helpful, and I watch the occasional video about it but it doesn’t ever get me far. Would I be a better guitar player if I had been born in a generation that had such ready access to 100s of online tutors telling me to learn CAGED and the fretboard and for this special offer of $97 you can learn all my secrets about the pentatonic scale? I doubt it! But I quite like the idea of the Battleship fretboard game, if only to keep my brain ticking over.

I’ve realised in recent times that musically I don’t think in guitar, I think in piano. And if piano is my first language, then bass is my second language. When it comes to the fretboard, bass comes far more naturally to me than guitar- maybe I’m just lazy and want to play one note at a time. I’ve played bass at gigs where I haven’t heard the song before because someone else in the band only wrote it that week and wants to try it out, just tell me the key and I’ll follow the changes. Not sure I could do that with any other instrument.

Some interesting articles on here- not sure about the ‘best’ playlists, all so subjective, but always interested to seek out what other people think is good and why.

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It’s interesting to read your comment. I think we are, as far as is possible, from the same circumstance.

My background is likely impossible to explain - so, don’t attempt that, or much anymore - it’s not really important or relevant. Well, other than framing context for “this”.

  • I only posted this stuff since think I observed folks, whom, if see it may ID a benefit of it.

Me, as one whom then pushed himself into and through theory in an undefined effort - turns out, to prove to myself I was not nuts that how I was being “taught”, so to speak - was “wrong” - entirely, arguably, but how I see it.

I went through full western theory and then european (you UK folks have another standard and slight language shift in Notation idiom, I found in the Boot with my Spanner next to my bag-o-chips et alia : ) - Edinburgh Univ, online.)

Anyway, the real world, as much as it hates to admit it engages some masterful folks that speak, 3rd dot on the neck and you really do want them in your studios playing on your track : )

Anyway, if I was rich and famous, I am sure I could sell, then, an interesting book of what I think and believe is of value or was for me.

One of the best “lectures” I ever read, so to speak, was BB Kings personal websight, which for some reason, after he passed removed it - him speaking in chunks (chunking it out, is the best way, like eating an elephant, one bite vs whole, at a time…) anyway - about his musical path.

If I can do it justice and condense it ? at all, as one may know the Guitar can be or is in standard tuning of a single key. Retune it and it’s quite simplified. So, learn “that”, and 3 chord shapes max, with “fragments” and you’re done - for what he did.

  • Got $5 a night to bang a rhythm out to whatever song was popular then, and all night (which is what he made in a week working in a field in the hot sun for 5 days $1/day). Easy motivation, decision, aptitude and passion - no, tv, internet, books or radio - so, a diddley bo, or bang box guitar as I call it.

He said, … I don’t recommend my path since all I did was make up my own language for what already exists… (or similar words). It’s a math instrument and so call it what you like! : ) but, 1+1=2, uno und uno is duo : ) hahh… uNo lol!

All of “theory” class (es) esp Edinburgh was “explaining” what was done. In reality, it is not, arguably a class to learn anything (nothing) - else. You’ll learn how to read Standard Notation, and that’s it.

I have, lectured at least two, Juliard Trained Pianist in what I “do”, one, when teaching her son Guitar and another, with whom I had to play 5 songs every Sunday with (how I put the guitar chords to her piano music and it worked - she just never could wrap her mind around).

They both could sight read to the Keys (piano ivories) and memorized entire works of music to play back like a recording, but live, but, as they said, NO other importance was given to any of their curriculum.

  • So, one could ask…, could they even “play” their instrument, the Piano? Really? Actually, just “play it”? - No.

However, “standard notation” and scale “language” is all we have as a standard idomatic language vs 3rd Dot on the neck.

So, learning that there is truly only ONE chord that exists, but it moves around, like on a key board an A-chord is the same as C-chord, et alia 7 others, same three fingers moving frozen in “shape” in a linear fashion. To tell a “kid” you gotta long road ahead with all you have to learn, vs one 7 note scale, that moves and one chord is a very different approach - “leadership management” 101 : ) hahhh… could not resist that. (First comments to a class, as if “winners, or fools” greatly effects what happens next, grade school psychology 101.)

  • Same for music.
    Me, from day one, never wanted to learn to “play a song” vs the instrument itself. Sure, we use familiar melodies to learn the instrument, but for me, and no one was listening - not the song.

I had no money for records or a a radio and etc. and just wanted to bang on that box alone, happy and maybe others that might hear me, would “value” that in me - they did. Oh, that’s an in for a ~ 12yo, ± etc. age.

If, as I tell “students” - on that rare occasion, to get a 4 string bass and learn it - Triads (same neck as guitar, or even “violin” arguably) and a practice pad/sticks and learn to *sight read, drum Notation - they often connect all the dots on their own, for the Guitar - I did. But, that is just me I guess : ) and who cares, really.

It’s kind of like anything, really - I grew up where Mom baking a cake, from a box was “magic”. Then I asked he one day - whats in the box? - I don’t know she said, paying to much money for that box of flower and backing soda/powder. When I showed her how many cakes $5 could buy if simply mixed that on her own - she was like “oh… my…” - why Mom liked have me around I guess : ) ?

Same for Guitar, or any instrument.

On a guitar or bass or even violin : ) you are only one note away from being “correct”. And if get used to - reorienting - yourself - will sound like a passing tone. I even remember a buddy saying that, wow, you slipped into that 8th, 3rd, dominant 7th as if meant it and then realized you did. Right? You did? Didn’t you? : ) hahh… maybe, maybe not. But, if listen to the noodling track with “cold ears” - yeah, it did. And those “happy accidents” of silence, and etc. is why I love doing lo-fi, 1st pass 1 takes.

  • I did them so much, sooo much - one year I had someone call me a liar : ) hahhh… and did, in real time while on Facebook with them, just that - using that present conversation, while in it online - wrote, recorded and uploaded a “song” in was like 20 minutes ± .
  • However, they did say like, “wow…”, no - crickets hahh! o m g.

Yes, those are all real. And, if I spend a week on them, they only get worse!! lol! haahah… so - there’s that too. So, to speak.

Yes, me too! - I know what I know and am as good as I will be - yet, seek faster creative paths to more freely translate what’s in my head, musically.

When I was a teen, or early 20’s there was soooooooo much music in my head, that I could not “get out”… now I can, but, don’t have those tracks playing like that to then core-dump out. I don’t know why - but, how it seems to be, for now.

However, I’ve had periods when I could not write fast enough all the stuff in there - and not like the stuff during the early years. However, I really am my worst critic.

I’ll end with - I walked into a room which had a track playing and asked, “wow, who’s that…” then realized it was me. Same happened when fishing through old cassette tape where I’d go into a “state” of mind an just play for 3 hours non-stop… I was like, huhhh… and I thought I sucked? wow… then, why did evenyong want me in their band (then)?

So - I’m glad you find it fun to discuss. I, apparently do - if of a meaningful nature in a conversation like this. I love hearing what you, others think.

But, it was how it was when I was like 14yo, working illegally in an old mafia bar, washing dishes to buy my first “real” guitar and all the old, likely famous ? jazz musicians saying, “shut up and play, don’t worry about the music”… I was a fortunate one in that regard I’ve been told.

  • Sorry to go on to much, but it is our “thanks giving” break now and I had the time : ) so, this being how I have fun, indulged a bit. (I’ll proof it after I post it if to many typos since I write in flow of thought as if “speaking”. It may be easier if “read/heard” that way when reading my stuff I am told : ) ).