I am not a beginner and understand music theory to a reasonable extent but your method has me lost ! You say that the 5 pentatonic box patterns are not the way to learn the scales and instead ask us to learn scale fragments around the root ! OK so far but then you go on about joining box 1 to box 5 etc ! So what is it? Do we ignore the 5 box shapes or what. ? YOU HAVE ME TOTALLY LOST ! Also how does showing us minor chord forms on page 22 fit into your method as this just involves moving chords up and down the neck ?
Ken
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It’s difficult to know how far to go with explanations. If I put too much info then it will please some and not others – too little and it’s the same problem. Check out the reviews on most of the books on Amazon and you’ll see that problem.
I try to solve that in two ways. First I make it clear in the description that the book is for intermediate guitarists – secondly I offer these question and answers for anybody to ask something if they’re not following. It’s really the best I can do. The problem I guess is what does intermediate mean? There are varying levels of opinions on that so it’s a bit difficult. What I think you should already know is just a guess, we all learn differently.
I have another book in the pipeline which kind of follows on from this one with workouts and exercises, a bit more advanced, and maybe next year I’ll write a beginner one.
There will always be things that cause confusion, I had the same problem for a good few years with my playing. A teacher friend of mine always used to say “you have to learn the notes on the fretboard” – I just couldn’t see how that could have possibly helped with my problem so didn’t try hard bothering. When I finally did do it, everything changed – it’s one of those things that you just can’t fully appreciate until you do it.
Learning all of the notes takes a lot of time, that’s why I say stick to one key only until you start to get light bulb moments, it’s difficult to learn all of the notes but quite easy to learn just one … the note “A” for example.
I know you are still not getting it and that’s OK, not everyone will, but don’t give up asking until you get it. Give me some idea of where you’re at or even send me a recording or video if you can. If I can pinpoint the main area that you are struggling with then I’ll hopefully be able to answer. If it’s something that needs a long explanation then it might not warrant a new book – I can just write a new article here on the website, it all helps.
