Blog
Understand more, memorize less. This is where I work on Fret Science in public: what's new on the site, what I'm building and measuring, and the ideas behind the method. Updated when I have something worth sharing.
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The Dickey Betts hexatonic scale
Jack Ruch is one of my favorite guitar YouTubers because of his beautifully lyrical phrasing and excellent teaching style. He recently released a tribute to…
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More yummy harmonies: spread thirds
Make beautiful fingerpicked harmonies just like The Beatles did.
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MmmMMmm: easy delicious harmonies with 3rds and 6ths in all seven diatonic modes
This mental model will have you playing beautiful harmonized licks instantly.
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Learn the blues scale across the fretboard in under a minute
If you know the right way of thinking about the penatonic scale, learning the blues scale couldn't be easier.
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The rectangle and the stack: reimagining the pentatonic scale
A new way to visualize and navigate pentatonic scales across the entire fretboard, with 85% less memorization than the CAGED system.
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A hierarchy of notes
Many guitarists learn and memorize diatonic scales, pentatonic scales, and triad arpeggios as three separate concepts, but they are intimately related, and it’s beneficial to learn each as an overlay on the next.
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Break into the box
"The Rectangle" is a handy place to access all seven diatonic modes in a four-fret span on just two strings.
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Hiding in plain sight
The link between pentatonic scales and the diatonic modes has been staring you in the face all along. And it’s both the key to quickly pivoting from one scale to another and an easy way to add color to your pentatonic soloing.
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Learn to go from 3nps to “in-position” scales in 1 minute
If you know 3nps, now you also know your "in-position" scales.
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3nps: One pattern to rule them all
"The modes" are all explained by a simple repeating fretboard pattern that you can learn in minutes.
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Triad geometry
Triad geometry is surprisingly simple. Here's a way to learn all your triads by learning 3 basic shapes and some simple transformation rules.
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The geometry of standard tuning
Understand and visualize the ways that geometric patterns move around the guitar fretboard in standard tuning.
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