Full transcript of “How I Wish The Fretboard Was Explained To Me As A Beginner”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 I'm about to show you the best way to map out the neck it really is the ultimate the definitive map of the neck in my opinion and I truly wish someone had shown me this earlier on in my guitar playing journey I think it really would have enhanced my playing from an earlier point rather than kind of figuring it out as I got further along in my playing journey I think this would have really enhanced my playing um you know closer to beginner early intermediate stages so if you've been struggling to navigate the fretboard
0:45 in a meaningful way when you're soloing when you're playing lead lines this is definitely the lesson the video for you because I'm gonna break things down in a step by step manner um basically four steps so step one being really simple shapes to create this great map of the neck and I'm surprised honestly I haven't seen any videos out there as why I'm making this that take this specific approach there's some adjacent concepts but this specific approach so we're gonna you know map it with with some simple shapes then we're going to you know go over how you can really bake it into your system so that you have this you know down pat then I'm gonna show you how you can use these shapes
1:31 to improvise create lead lines and then how you can move these shapes all over the neck so that you have them in any scenario so I would say grab your guitar it won't be an exact follow along play with me but I think it'll be helpful for you kind of work through some of the shapes and some of the concepts as we're going over them and there is a downloadable PDF with all of the shapes individually and connected so you can kind of look at them individually and then you can look at them how they really connect across the neck and you can kind of work them out as we're going over it and then of course you can have it for all times alright so let's jump in and just go over the shapes and we're gonna start with shape 1 now we're playing in G major
2:17 which is also E minor so every major scale has a relative minor scale you don't have to do anything with that right now but just keep that in the back of your mind because it will help us when we go over how to you know plug and play in different keys that will be a helpful concept what's nice about this key every open note is involved which also means you know all of the notes on the 12th fret are involved sorry for my poor you know sloppy playing up there but all of the notes on the 12th fret were going to be involved which gives us this great bookmark so I think it's just a great way to visualize things and makes it that much easier to you know transpose them to different keys
3:03 okay all right shape one is basically the very simple pentatonic shape we all learn right away and yes this will be based on simple pentatonic shape so just five notes and that's what's nice about playing them around the neck you can make it sound you know fun and continuous and fresh and new when you're doing solos that are just using five notes alright so here's shape one sounds kind of clunky right wonder just playing it like that right nothing revolutionary there but just have it down recognize that that's a shape we wanna use for eternity okay I'm gonna flash the the tabs right here feel free to pause
3:49 run through it if you're not familiar with this right some of you this might be a refresher you might know this but for others just run through that and tell yourself shape one okay uh here is shade two and you'll see they connect together nicely so there's shade 2 again it's gonna be pointless for me to go 3 5 2 5 2 5 I always think it's kind of funny that videos have that no no read the tabs and do it for yourself pause put that under your fingers there's shape two okay and here is shape three
4:36 again pause the video I don't wanna waste your time by again 5 7 five 7 5 7 pause right look at the tabs play through it on your own that is shape three we're now of course moving to shape four we're gonna have five shapes here there's shape 4 lovely you know what you gotta do pause the video get it under your fingers go up and down two three four five ten times whatever you feel um is appropriate in this moment alright and now shade 5 to bring things up you know together and create this you know full octave
5:25 so there's all five shapes alright pause get that one with your fingers we're going to move beyond the octave so this is shape one just higher up on the neck starting on the 12th fret the reason that's important is there aren't going to be any other keys where that shape is going to be uh you know using open notes right if you're in the key of C it's gonna be up here on the fifth fret so that shape is really important and that's why you want to move it all the way up here and I would say get familiar with Shape 2 you know starting on the 15th fret that's just to bring it higher up on the neck you want to utilize every note
6:11 if you really want to get great at moving up and down the neck you want to use you know the uh you know higher up on the on the fretboard and you can go higher but I think you know you'll be pushing the 17th fret that seems like plenty when you're getting things under your fingers and it'll be easy to move higher up once you have all the shapes under your fingers okay but why not get your you know fingers used to smushing a little bit up here there are the shapes again you have them in the PDF so there's no reason to beat you over the head with what they are what they look like what they sound like what we're gonna do now is go over how to refine that for yourself and get them under your fingers because step three where we figure out how to improvise
6:56 it won't sound good it won't be fluid it won't be what you want it to be what we all want to do when we're soloing if you don't have these shapes under your fingers all right so these shapes do need to be baked in somewhat of course you can play around when you're newer but to really make things sound good to know where you're going to know why you're going in different directions and what notes come next uh not just you know vertically but horizontally it is important to have these shapes under your fingers so all we're gonna do is go from shape to shape to shape alright so I'm always using my phone and computer to record you know guitar and my you know voice and talking to you guys but use a metronome
7:48 if you're a little newer you might need to go through that shape five 10 15 times to really feel comfortable with it alright if you feel comfortable with these shapes you're more of an intermediate but it's about organizing and bringing them together down up and then move on to the next shape
8:44 go up you know past the octave shape 1 again shape 2 again come back down what I would recommend is just set a timer so set a 10 minute timer right if you really want to get great at you know having a map of the neck you need to practice it you need to take your time to really lock it in right think about any you know great musician great athlete anyone who's high level at anything it took a lot of time and repetition to get where to where they are so even if you feel decent with some of your technique your sliding your hammers and stuff like that you want to also have the information kind of the theory so to speak this isn't like intense guitar theory but you wanna have the knowledge you know in your brain and you wanna have the skills under your fingers and bringing those together
9:29 is what's gonna make you sound like a really really phenomenal guitar player so 10 minute timer a metronome that doesn't make you play too fast it's about baking in the shapes not about you speeding around right there will there will be no speeding around if you continue to get lost and you're like wait what note comes next when I'm you know moving up on the G string or up on the B string they're different oh snap right we want to avoid that so get the shapes baked in under your fingers if you feel good with down up you know move up to the next shape down up move up to the next shape what you can do is go down you know with one shape and then move up to the next shape you know when you get to the high e move up to the next shape
10:14 once you you know gone back up this will just help reinforce you know how the shapes connect to each other they all mesh really nicely with one another and you want to have a great understanding um of how that works alright so that you can on your own when you're soloing have an understanding of okay I could play this down here or I can play it up here or I could play it up here based on you know what you're looking to go for the scenario you're in do you wanna have you know higher register notes um do you wanna have something that sounds a little bassier but those are important things where do where do the notes repeat
11:01 um you know things like that are are really important to create the map and then to remind yourself where you're going and again why you're going there so here's what I would do step three you know bring it into your own playing bring it into your own improvisational context is put on a backing track again G major or E minor really quick think about how that works alright so if you have G here think about shape one and I can even show it up here how shape one connects to G as in G major think about how it connects to E if it was E minor
11:51 so look for the root note on the low E and you'll be able to remind yourself okay if I start with the pinky or the ring finger based on your preference I know that that's the shape kind of behind or let me start with my index finger and I'll have the minor equivalent just as like a reminder of you of you know where you need to be alright but let's uh we're getting ahead of ourselves that's kind of helpful for transposing and going into different keys when you first start figuring out a map of the neck what I would do is put on a G major or E minor backing track and build out some small licks for yourself because again this should enhance your own improvisation
12:37 how you want to express yourself when you're soloing if you're not familiar with all the keys you're still newer you're still excuse me all of the shapes you're still newer you're still getting them under your fingers you can still work this so you know 10 minutes to play around with the shapes and practice just the shapes and then set another 10 minute timer to kind of noodle and experiment with lead lines so what I would do is just start with two shapes and connecting them right so if you have a you know a G backing track you know something like that you can play around with a line
13:25 just that just that simple little phrase is connecting shape 1 and shape two and you can keep the backing track going and it's playing and you just use those shapes or that you just use that phrase and as you're using it you're visualizing the larger shapes around that phrase and it's an opportunity to dial in some of those techniques right I'm sliding there's a little vibrato you know to make sure things sound a little bit more flavorful than just right that doesn't sound as flavorful as
14:11 even though it's a simple phrase it's a simple line so that's shape one and shape two you can do it up here right and you can play around with just moving it up an octave maybe you just spend and again this is where you can kind of have some of your own autonomy with the how you experiment maybe you spend the first five minutes going between shape 1 and shape 2 and then maybe you experiment between you know shape 2 and shape three maybe a little bit more um like boxy or clunky than that first one but I'm understanding I'm starting to grasp
14:59 I'm starting to grasp how those shapes now connect right uh maybe you come up with a line and you say I'm gonna practice that in one place and I'm gonna try to rediscover it in another place right interesting so I did shape 1 and shape 2 for that first one and I did shape 3 and shape 4 for that second iteration interesting so so on and so forth small phrases small lines to begin with as you get more you know familiar with the shapes you feel more comfortable connecting two shapes start connecting three shapes
15:45 that was four shapes but you get the idea and you know that was that was the three shapes that I initially said but start building and start building your own lines it's okay if it's you know uh similar to the person you most want to emulate if you love you know Mark Knopfler well your line might sound a little naffler esque but you are creating it yourself from scratch and that's also really important for creative expression so that's where I would take things and remember that's pretty open ended that's a weeks long months long journey so just keep that in mind as well but that is where I would start mapping you know enforcing reinforcing the map while creating your own improvisation
16:31 your own guitar solos start with week 1 two shapes maybe week 1 2 and 3 or two shapes play around with the different shapes week 4 5 6 7 8 okay let me try to get you know three shapes linked together 9 10 11 12 let me try to get four right you can see how it would be a process and we're gonna now alright so just keep that in the bank I'm gonna wrap things up otherwise I'll be really long winded if you have questions or anything you want some clarifications just put them in the comments also let me know if there's anything you want me to explain if you thought this was a helpful explanation put it in the comments and I'll see what I can do and before I move on to step 4 I should also say if you're enjoying this video liking and subscribing to the channel is helpful for me
17:16 even just putting something in the comments like thanks dude all of that's really helpful for pushing the video to other people which is of course helpful for me and again if you found it helpful that's the word of the day helpful if you found it helpful other people will too and we'll have this nice you know guitar playing community of of great guitar players but let's move into step 4 now thank you for giving me the time to plug now it's about transposing it to different keys and as we said or as I said earlier it's simple enough if this is G and you know that all of these shapes are for G major and E minor well if I said hey let's go into the key of C major take a second see if you can do it on your own maybe pause and look for it around the neck and I'll tell you right now that it's up here
18:04 we know that this is C so just like the G major scale just move that up here and now you also know that the fifth shape right is down here and that the second shape is you know one above the the initial you know kind of anchor shape starting on the eighth fret cool and same thing if I said a minor that's the relative minor to C major oh wow now your brain is exploding potentially with guitar knowledge right same thing as but in different keys alright if I said d major take a second
18:51 play around oh here's d so obviously you do need to know the notes on the on the low E and then what's the relative minor B minor so again just that simple trick of putting your finger for that shape one that anchor shape is going to allow you to transpose this really easily and once you have the other shapes you'll have an understanding of how they all connect to each other and so you can move around the neck in every single key because you're jamming with your friends oh this song's in d major guys you know take that second don't freak out oh okay cool here we go and you can move into d major uh you know what I actually like that a little bit more in uh
19:36 in B major uh OK boom pinky on the B alright and now and that you can jump right in with that song create a cool line a cool riff all those things and people go wow that's pretty impressive thanks that you know you're so good at just jumping right in that's a huge skill that we all want to have hey let me just jump right in with this groove and we'll carry on you know and you can feel a little bit more professional more advanced with your playing so I will leave it there there are the four steps basically to mapping the neck using it to solo and moving it around to different keys again if you found it helpful liking subscribing super helpful for me throw a comment in there if you like to and um hopefully it was helpful
20:22 I will see you all on the next one peace
