Understanding The Fretboard
You will have noticed that many of the scales, arpeggios and bass lines you have learned can be played in more than one place on the fretboard. Altogether there are five basic movable fingering positions which cover the whole fretboard when linked up end to end. These fingering positions can be applied to any type of scale or arpeggio.
The most important element to learning these positions is memorizing the positions of the root notes. You have already learned to play the Blues scale in two of these fingering patterns in lesson 2. The following diagrams demonstrate the five basic fingerings for the Blues scale. They are shown here in the key of G but are movable to all 12 keys represented by the notes of the chromatic scale.
Learn to play each fingering one at a time, memorizing the scale degrees and in particular, the positions of the root notes.
Pattern 1
Pattern 2
Pattern 3
Pattern 4
Pattern 5
Here are some sample base lines derived from the new patterns you have just learned. The first of these comes from Pattern 2. Memorize each one and transpose it to several other keys.
This one comes from Pattern 3. Notice the 16th note triplet in the second bar.
Here is a line derived from Pattern 4.
And finally, one from Pattern 5. After this, Pattern 1 repeats an octave higher than it was at the 3rd fret.
