Consciously by connecting chords. Not so long ago I discovered that I was in fact running scales in the process. But I don't let that get in the way of anything.
This will seem ridiculous, but bear in mind I'm 58 and learning: I put a custom fingerboard marker (the kind you can buy online) on the seventh fret, and I put a strip of fabric tape on the palm side of the neck at that fret also. The tactile and visual way this divides the fingerboard in half (the first octave of it, anyway) has made me feel much more confident breaking out of first position.
What worked best for me was just buckling down and doing the Jimmy Bruno 5 positions in all keys, cycling down in 5ths. Seems like a chore, but it works.
Those videos where people say, "Just find the note, then go this many strings up or down, and this many frets left or right," remind me of that Friends episode where Phoebe tries to teach Joey guitar by forbidding him from touching a guitar until he has learned how to make the chord shapes in his left hand, just in the air. When he has mastered the shapes, then he may pick up a guitar.
I agree that the one-string exercise does not work for this lesson. Too me, the one-string works for training your ear to hear the intervals. It gets you out of playing patterns. We have many tools to use, and need to make use of them in the right application. Nice video Jens. Thank you!
Thanks, Jens, the suggestion which I find most helpful is to learn a song in one position, then expand to the neighboring position, then to the next, and so on. That takes a lot of pressure of of me, not having to know the whole fretboard before starting to learn a song, and it makes learning the fretboard much more fun than just by doing exercises.
I was just messing with this very idea yesterday on my own without Jens so eloquently presenting the big picture and it's super validating to see hear the same philosophy from him. It means I'm not insane to tackle the challenges in the manner that I'm doing it. Thanks again Jens for these invaluable lessons. I wouldn't have even attempted to learn jazz without finding your channel a few years ago. While the journey is slow, I am at least starting to piece it together in a way that kinda/sometimes/usually not/but when it does, man does that dopamine feel good sound like jazz.
Well it's also important to question if one needs to move all over the fretboard to play a good solo. These are very good exercises but has you usually say, they are just that
Some things get 1000x easier to play if you can move around, but besides that, as soon as you know 10 Standards then you will already have the fretboard knowledge to move around, otherwise you won't be able to play the songs. We can't all stay minor pentatonic Box 1 for the entire song 🙂
Playing bass, I learned a great way of learning the fretboard by using zones.....Zone 1 frets 1-5 Zone 2 frets 6-8 Zone 3 freta 8- 12. Play arpeggios on the Cycle 4. Ive added scales to this exercise and it has worked for me.
Jens, another really great and useful lesson. Many thanks! I love your now BS approach like not improvising on 1 string etc . Both Chase Maddox and your good self realign Jazz guitar learning for the better. A great contibution!
This approach seems very pragmatic. I will try out the exercises here. I do think the Mick Goodrich type exercise can be helpful. I practiced a similar exercise from Joe Gore's book for a while. I found that it did help me to land on the right note when jumping around the neck. Of course, it doesn't eliminate the need to practice things in different positions. The Joe Gore version entails playing melodies with big interval leaps on one string.
Segovias major and minor diatonic scales is a thin little exercise book that shows the scales vertically up and down the entire fretboard. A great study book to understand the neck.
@songfulmusicofsongs yes absolutely. However the Segovia studies gets you comfortable physically utilizing the whole neck and can help in smoothing out transitions from one key or mode to another.