Lecture 49: The Intervallic, Formula-Based Approach To Learning The Fretboard (part 1)

The intervallic, formula-based approach has become my preferred way of learning the guitar neck and visualising scales, chords and arpeggios all over the fretboard. I really cannot praise the merits of this system highly enough, as I feel it allows us to solo in a much more musical, creative and harmonically aware manner.

Learning this system can take a lot of homework, since it requires us to memorise the intervals and formulas of each scale. However, once we start to view the fretboard this way, we can greatly reduce our chances of getting lost mid solo, especially when playing over complex chord changes.

The beauty of this system is that it can reinforce, rather than contradict our existing methods for learning the neck, such as the CAGED or the Three-Note-Per-String systems. Used as a standalone system, it can save us from having to learn and memorise hundreds of scale shapes or resort to relying on muscle memory.