Fretboard Workshop: Move Beyond Pentatonics with Six-Note Scale



Here's a cool guitar lesson from Jimmy Herring, that should help you break up predictable patterns by visualizing scales all over the fretboard.

When I learn a new scale fingering, I like to visualize it on neck-diagram paper. In Fig. 1, you can see how I would break up this scale into five fingerings that cover the whole fretboard. The first fingering starts in the 3rd position with the root on the 5th string. Remember, this scale works over any of the C minor family of chords—everything from a simple C minor triad to something like a Cmin11 or Cm9 are fair game. By learning these fingerings and getting comfortable with them you’ll have some new stuff in your bag of tools.