Mastering Position Shifts
Now that you have a good understanding of the mode system and ways to use them, let’s look at more ways to apply them to the fingerboard. The method we’ve used to apply the modes has two limitations. First, playing the scale in only one position limits the player to just over a two octave range, whereas, most guitars have almost twice that. Second, with only one way to play each scale, it’s often difficult to change scales during a solo.
So far, we’ve used each pattern for a specific group of modes. In this lesson, we’ll learn to play all of the modes across the whole fingerboard by connecting the patterns from the other lessons. This not only gives us more than one way to play each scale, but also helps us to use the entire fingerboard and take advantage of the guitar’s entire pitch range. The concept is this. If we find all of the notes of any mode everywhere on the fingerboard, all three patterns will appear somewhere on the neck. Pictured below are all of the notes for all of the modes in the key of C. Below that, the three scale patterns have been identified.
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Linking Patterns
Regardless of which mode we play, the three patterns always link together the same way. Pattern #1 is always the same number of frets from pattern #2. Pattern #2 is always the same number of frets from pattern #3. And, pattern #3 is always the same number of frets back to pattern #1. The connection from pattern #1 to pattern #2 is pictured below. To link them, look at the note on the sixth string which would be played by your 4th finger. Now, look at the note on the sixth string, two frets up from there (toward the guitar body). Put your first finger on that note and play pattern #2 from that note. Placed this way, these patterns have all the same notes, allowing us to use all of the notes from both patterns to improvise.
These patterns link together the same way, regardless of which fret a pattern starts on. If pattern #1 starts on the 5th fret (as pictured above), pattern #2 will always start on the 10th in order to produce the same notes. It’s possible to work backwards from pattern #2 to pattern #1. Just reverse the process. After a while, linking these patterns should become natural and automatic.
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Next, we’ll link pattern #2 to pattern #3. To move from pattern #2 to pattern #3, just slide up two frets and change patterns. Played in these positions, pattern #2 and pattern #3 share some notes making it easy to move back and fourth between the two.
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Below, pattern #3 links back to pattern #1 from 4th finger to first, up two frets in the same way as pattern #1 connected to pattern #2. Practice moving from pattern to pattern both directions. This way, we are able to use the entire range of notes on the fingerboard with only three patterns.
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Playing in More Than One Position Once the placement of each pattern, relative to one another is understood, playing all of the modes across the fingerboard is just a matter of finding the correct starting point and plugging the other two patterns in around it. In the examples that follow, all of the modes are laid out across the fingerboard using the same three patterns. Each mode uses the note A as it’s root, but playing the modes from any root is just a matter of sliding the patterns to the position relative to the new root.
Linking patterns is the first step toward complete fretboard visualization. If, after practicing the pattern connections, the logic doesn’t seem clear, review the previous section.
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