If you’re into tapping or if you’ve got monster hands,
you know, four notes per string. Like with the tapping
thing, you can do five notes. But just look at the scale.
You want to try to visualize the whole scale all over
the neck. One way to start to tackle that is to do
these exercises that I show in “Pentatonic Passages”,
which is just simply — and it’s not about speed; it’s
more about visualization. Playing the pentatonic scale,
three notes per string, horizontally across the neck like…
Now that’s the root position. So you also want to learn the
first version of that or the major pentatonic. And then the
next inversion. Next one. And then…
So you would want to learn like all the different inversions;
learn three notes per string horizontally and then pick up
my DVD, “Pentatonic Passages”, and see what things I’ve
covered and see how you can apply it to what you’re doing.
And just because I repeated a note, that doesn’t mean that
every time you play horizontal like that you would have to
repeat a note. Because you can sequence things in such a way…
Check this out; we’ve all heard this lick, right? As far as
the four note per string thing, I mean, what I think of more,
really, is trying to visualize four notes per string and then
making something musical with it. But you don’t necessarily
have to play four notes consecutively.
Let’s take what’s commonly thought of as the Locrian pattern,
that’s three notes per string, across the neck. Then we’re
also seeing the Ionian pattern, three notes per string across
the neck. We’re seeing those two patterns together, which
kind of creates a four note per string type visualization,
as it were.
Well, again, just like with the pentatonic scale, getting
into like sequencing and making melodies and nice music.
And not only that, I mean, you can play the scale, four
notes per string so you can see more of — you can start
to, in your mind’s eye, see the fret board in a different
way and put yourself in a different spot on the guitar
neck by practicing your scales that way, four notes per string.
