Hello Lee,
I just wanted to let you know I posted an Amazon review on your Pentatonic Scale Fluency book. It’s great. An awesome book. Again, you talk to the reader as though you are sitting there. It’s like being in a private lesson. Not sure how you do it, but I learned a lot from this book as I did your Theory book. I have learned more from you in your books than I have from other instructors on these methods. Your teaching approach has the reader comfortable & paying attention as to want to continue, keep going (what’s next?). Incredible! With this book, you have me thinking outside the “box” so-to-speak & flowing the fretboard as a whole more naturally. As a result, and w/ a lot of practice of course, I’m seeing more on flowing into other keys / root notes continuing the scales. With this, it’s helping me work the fretboard better by knowing more of where the notes are w/out having to pause & think 1st. Again, with lots of practice, by using your approach & methods is helping me take it to another level which is what I was looking for. Thank you again for another fantastic read!
Hi JK
Wow, what can I say. Thank you so much for the kind words I really appreciate it and very glad to hear it’s helping. I sometimes worry that my writing style is a little bit less than formal but I think it just stems from the fact that I had all the same struggles, so I try to write from a place that would have worked for me at those times.
There’s a lot more in the pipleine, including more free stuff on the website – I’m just struggling to catch up since the lockdown blues!
In the meantime, any questions, feel free to ask away.
Thanks again
Lee
Hello Lee, Sir
I’m french and stuying the guitar by myself (electric and folk) for almost a year.
(I studied the violin in a conservatoire a long, long, long time ago, in a far, far away galaxy (named childhood)… and later the piano as a complement).
I spent the first month learning the fretboard notes, the octaves – in fact to understand how the fretboard notes are displayed along.
Then followed the chords and scales studies etc… and then the course (Mel Bay method) which is perfect to me.
And of course the daily routine work for my fingers etc…
Wishing to play mainly rock/blues and the like, I’ve been training my minor pentatonic scales for a few weeks – classical way : 5 positions (it’s ok with them) and their connections with 2 books.
For the moment position 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 (this last one is quite disturbing, requiring intense concentration).
By chance, I’ve just bought your book Pentatonic Scale Fluency.
I began to read the first pages and found the text absolutely honest and realistic – sometimes it made me smile (thinking about people who believe that there might be miracles in musical instrument studying i.e playing like a god in a few weeks or months…).
I’ve just trained the 3 patterns on pages 14 and 15 in every way, up and down, in random order (not difficult to me – thanks to my previous hard training)..
The method of splitting up patterns in fragments is absolutely pure genius – I’ve found it easier to practice, easier to memorize, easier to play.
For the first time, I’m moving my fingers in such a range on the fretboard from fret 2 to 11, quite a performance (I’m not talking of riffs or solos when playing for fun).
So a very, very big thank you for your book – I’m looking forward to doing the exercices following ; I’m just quite sure they will bring me great pleasure and satisfaction.
My guitar training time is 4 to 6 hrs a day.
Thanks again
Frederic
Thanks Frederic. Sounds like you’ve got a good practice schedule going there.
For the positions you are struggling with i would say just play along to backing tracks and use them as much as possible, also try to learn and memorise some licks, figure out how they are related to the pentatonic scales and then practise them in different keys. This will definitely help you with rock and blues.
Also, don’t get too hung up on every detail. I can usually figure out things around the fretboard fairly quickly but if I don’t use a particular scale pattern much then I don’t necessarily have the ability to play it instantly – it doesn’t matter, we don’t need to master every permutation – just having the ability to figure things out reasonably quickly is more than enough to create good music.
Hello Lee
I’m intensively working on the exercises 1 to 6 combining Box 2 to each of them in every possible way.
It becomes more natural day after day (with the metronome for the moment – I will add the backing tracks a bit later when I’m more fluent).
Doing these exercises in different keys in not a problem, I’m used to doing it from the beginning of my pentatonic training – particularly to get my left wrist, hand and fingers more flexible.
My question is : Why is it useful or necessary to memorize licks ? I don’t figure out where the interest could be.
I added a comment on your book on Amz…Fr (in french) – I think it deserves being studied by beginners because the method is rather easy to work out and the good results are immediate. In fact not frustrating at all.
Frederic
Licks are useful because they give you ideas. The more of them you know, the more ideas you will get and find different ways to use a scale. You don’t need to play them exact – just experiment with them. Eventually your own style will develop from a mixture of everything you practise and memorise. Besides that, sometimes it’s OK to throw in a few cliche licks. The bottom line is we all learn from each other.
Hi Lee- I couldn’t agree, with JK, more ! Your pentatonic fluency book is fantastic. It helped me out of a rut . Much appreciated. I’d like to start learning how to mix the major and minor, for Blues. Do you have any material on the topic?
Thanks again
Rob