Your guitar fretboard is a strange and wonderous place… and the longer I play the more I realize that each of us eventually develops our own mental model of it that helps us navigate around it.
There are many ways to visualize, navigate, and understand the guitar fretboard… and if your aim is to one day “completely master the fretboard” then you owe it to yourself to be familiar with as many different approaches as possible. And here is one you may not have been exposed to.
As an extra side benefit, looking at the fretboard in different ways often helps to get you out of soloing ruts too. When you picture the fretboard differently, your fingers and ideas go in different places. So even if you feel like you know this already… think about actually applying it and working with it.
It’s deceptively simple and it’s easy to overlook how helpful it can be. So take some time and enjoy.
Also, I mention my Soloing Without Scales course in this video – if you’re interested in more like this I encourage you to check it out. In many ways this is the core idea behind that entire course.
Enjoy and I’ll talk to you soon:
84 replies to "Roots And Octaves – Another Way To Look At Your Fretboard"
Absolutely amazing Griff I really love they way you teach!!
Light bulb switched on. Can’t wait to try it out.
This is awesome! Exactly the kind of thing I’ve been looking for. Thank you!
Great as usual Griff !!
Never replied before so not sure how this works. I’ve been an acoustic finger picking guitarist since the ‘60s(yep I’m that old) and just started learning electric guitar technique via your videos and courses. The root/octave visualization is absolutely what I have been using, as a natural outgrowth of my knowledge of theory in general (pianist and choir director) and my personal thought processes (professional engineering consultant). Your lesson validated « my » way of seeing the fretboard. I’m going to focus on perfecting that approach. I can play the boxes, but that visualization doesn’t click for me nearly as much as root/octave. Much obliged for the validation!!
👍
Love the Roots and Octaves however how do you know what pattern to play when you get there and is there a difference between major and minor pattern?
Its the same pentatonic pattern note repeated as box one it just looks different because you have started it from the next string or octave up and so will cross the the B string at a different part of the sequence. The 5 “boxes” are just that position of 3`fret ..2,2,2,3,3 shifted down . And the major minor pentatonic perspective sound depends on relative ear starting point within the sequence . So C major and Amin pent same 5 notes but one starts/targets on the C other starts on A so sound different because against different perspective /focus . Ear tricks!
I’ve owned 90+% of your DVD’s for many years and am ashamed to say I still haven’t opened them LOL!
But just watching your video encourages me to do so went I fat the chance. I’m sitting home 7 days after open heart surgery and, as soon as I can go downstairs to my office/music room and can hold a guitar again, I’m going to use your “Soloing W/O Scales” program ASAP!
I had my mitral valve repaired it took about two weeks to get back to playing but very carefully and use your heart pillow good luck it will be back my friend
Nice one Griff – always get an idea or three (!) from your lessons. Root notes and octaves make sense to me in a way “boxes” don’t. Happy New Year to you and yours – and keep up the good work.
Griff, great stuff and I think really helps learn the notes on the fretboard especially if you speak out loud all the notes you are playing. At least the first time at that position. Keep’em coming!!
Hey Griff! Happy New Year, and excellent video as usual. This connected some dots for me. Thank you so much!
Jeff
This lesson resonated well and is one I am certain most people can remember. I certainly will. I have declared 2021 my year of the guitar. We are off to a great start.
good stuff…………..as always
The other thing this lesson helps do, Griff, is learn all the notes on the fretboard. It’s easy to know notes on fifth and sixth string, but for me memorizing on all places on the board is tough. But if I’m doing it this way, playing music and spotting roots all over, it really starts filling in where all the notes are.
Enjoyed that.
Griff
Thanks for this powerful yet simple concept.
So simple but so powerful. Thanks so much.
And this type of thinking is good for anything you know, too. I was playing around with a modal scale earlier and thinking ….yeah. I like how you took the 4-note solo stuff and dropped it in. I wish I could blaze through my boxes like you do, I can’t even reliably remember box 3 and 4. Going to keep working….
One way I found to learn boxes 3 and 4 is to play in the key of A and descend from box 1 at the fifth fret. You go through box 5, then 4 and you finally end up at box 3 when you get to the open position. That means you’ll play box 3 (in the key of A) in the open position and up one box, you’re at box 4. I was surprised what I can do with box 3 in the open position of the fretboad in the key of A.
Also for box 3, just to get started, play only the first two notes on the first string of box 3 by thinking of it as an extension of box 2. This is about the same idea as learning the top of box 2 by thinking of it as an ascending extension of box 1, you’re in “4-note sole” territory. Just add another note up two frets on the high E string and you played a note in box 3.
Good advice Griff, Thanks!
5/20/19
Thanks griff, have the course soloing without scales and it helped quite a bit. One other thing, you got some air play on blues ville on sat radio this weekend. Sounded great and glad to see your new compilation get noticed. Enjoy your day.
I tried to purchase this lesson but your order page and PayPal got me caught-up in a ” loop to nowhere” and I tired of writing my info. over and over so… maybe next time. 🙁
Great again Griff. Learn something every time I listen to you. Thanks.
Wonderful tips Griff. I learnt that from you sometime back. Now I am moving with ease after practicing 3 weeks on the boxes. My next step is hoping to apply my muscle memory without looking at the fret board and do the soling with the 5 easy blues notes DVD I bought from you. Thanks.
Thanks Griff, Love your teaching
Griff, I learnt this octave method from you some time or was it, some years ago. And along with the boxes, I was all over the fret board in no time at all. It also enabled me to solo blind (seeing the fret board with eyes closed) it was a great feeling the first time I visualised and played my guitar with eyes closed. NOW, I do it all the time thanks to this octave method and of course, the boxes. Friends and family are amazed when I play blind without fluffing notes or chords and its all credit to Griff and his tutoring skills. Cheers, Ray (UK).
You got me to understand boxes and octaves together, thanks!
That’s great Griff,
I always have a struggle trying to memorize the next scale up the frets from where I’m at….usualy the beat whips me out to stay in the beginning mode. I’ll try it and see if that throws me out of the rut.
Jeff
Hey I think I get it Are you saying play scales but don’t get trapped into staying in one octave I also found the CAGED system good for the major and relative minor scales I much prefer the penatonics
I can honestly say this video helped with a better understanding and control of the fret board. That is progress for me.One could just practice that way even without looking at the book, until you develop enough speed.I’d like to see a video on arpeggios please, if possible.Thanks .
Great explanation of octaves. I’ve seen several of your videos refer to touching or going through the B string. I Understand that going from
The G to the B string is the only time the interval changes from 2.5 steps to 2 steps. Can you explain why this is? Why not just keep it at 2.5 and have a C string and an F string instead of a B string and another E?
Jakyru
Im not Griff however the best way for you to find an answer to your ? is tune your guitar that way and see what happens. chords and scales just wont work any more
Fantastic info Griff I know where your head is LOL 5 notes and the universe is at your fingertips. try not to get lost. Here’s one for the house pattern, a blue note is on the third string 1 position toward the nut of the guitar’ (I call that the balcony) a blue note is also one fret toward the bridge on the first string (I call that the porch) of the house pattern.
I wonder if you read this stuff. if there is a hall of fame for guitar teachers you belong in it.
Your enthusiasm for this way of looking at the fret board and for teaching it shines through.
Griff , thanks again for a very informative video . You explain the fret board in a way that no other teacher could . Take care , and have a great Memorial day . Mike Z.
What I knew already but maybe I didn’t understand it 100%,but now you helped reinstate it fully in my musical brain. This is a light bulb video and I’m going to keep it stashed in a special file…we are so fortunate to have you give us this treasure of knowledge,. Thank you Griff!
I actually use these concepts more than the traditional boxes but amazing how they all intertwine…thanks for insight…later.
cowboy
Thank you for the lesson.
You inspire me.
Cheers Griff
For the lesson every time I get a video from you
My knowledge and playing grows thanks 😎🎶
Griff I really like the run you are doing at 8:12 on the roots and octaves lesson. Ive tried to slow it down to get a handle on what your doing but I’m not getting it. Sounds cool and I’d like to practice it. Can you give me a quick tab on that?
Thanks
Great lesson Griff. Thanks for sharing these different ideas of the octaves. And how to use them in the different pentatonic positions. Very helpful lesson.
This was a very helpful lesson.It help me understand the fret board that I am having such a hard time remembering.thanks a lot you are the best.
Thanks for the video. I always appreciate any help you wish to share. Even if there is a night I don’t pick up my guitar these videos give me much food for thought for the next day. Thanks again
I am 72 and been trying to play guitar sence 14. Have 6 yrs formal exp and have played in several bands. These lessons have made me understand things i could never figure out before. Tks griff, your stuff is trully priceless
This is great. Thank you:)
Ditto!
57 yrs old, feel like I just opened Pandora box. Great lesson !!! Thanks Griff.
I enjoy your emails but as a beginner you are to fast with your examples on the key boards.
Thanks griff, very simple…but powerful.WLB
I enjoyed this very much, I believe this will help me more!thank you!
Hey Griff,
Great lesson and true to the word. I have learned the 5 Boxes in Am and other keys. I also purchased some time ago Soloing Without Scales and thus the Fret Board how to find the Notes on your Guitar which I practice every day as at my age 69 memory needs repetition on the guitar. You are right as I have drifted around the Fret board all the time and created great sounds on my different guitars. It is amazing that when I pick up a different guitar and do a warm up I find totally different sounds between my Strat , Tele Epiphone Dot 335 and my other guitars. It seems that I am inventing sounds and eventually music when looking for the Root but on a specific guitar, is this normal?. Great lesson as always.
Michael-Sydney -Australia -May 2016
“Oh Magoo, you’ve done it again!” Thanks again and again and again.
Dear Griff.
I have a collection of cheap wannabe guitars. Variety being the spice of life,i choose to spread what little doe i have. My recent acquisition is a 3/4 nylon and i replaced the top (E,A,D) strings with some old heavy strings from my electric. Love the sound. I know its a cheap guitar so the intonation is gonna be wrong. But…..
When tuning open to 5th fret
E …. A +25% A … D +30% D … G +10% G … B B … e +5% e … A +5%
So, being an Nylon acoustic, i average it out. I’ve done the net searches and see that filing the bone or adding can help. I was wondering on your take on this as (like this lesson) your expertise is, and has always been, of great value.
Many thanks from downunder.
This was another of those videos that turns on a light bulb over my head. Ive been noodling around for years up and down the neck and never really figured out why i could connect those runs up and down the neck. This flipped the switch! Thanks again Griff. Keep on chooglin.
Hi Gav, Like what you say, interesting concept. Me too from Downunder Sydney.
Michael -Sydney-Australia May 2016
Thanks you just reaffirmed something that I have thought for years now as to how it works. BY showing how to connect the octaves together really explained a lot about the guitar neck and playing for sure. Good Job Griff thanks for clearing up something that I have thought for years but was not real sure of with the octaves. Ol Tom from Huntsville, Alabama
thanks, window just flew open, going for mu guitar now to have some fun
Holy cow! I’ve been doing this for a very long time, since I had so much trouble getting boxes 3 and 5 down. I thought I was crazy. Fact is, I might be, but at least I’ll have company.
Thanks for breaking down octaves. I will be stealing it.
Very good Cliff. You have really broken down, what can be, a complex theory subject into a demo that is succinct and easy to understand. Great job! Thanks
Another great view to look at the subject of getting to grip with the fret board. You can always be relied on making your lessons convey the details without making them sound like lectures / lecturing. In is in part because of your approach that I prefer going on line and finding your material and purchasing the courses rather than actually sitting down with a tutor and feel inadequate or awkward trying to overcome a mental blip to understanding something. Great job Griff. I tell my friends and family about you and each new course that I come across.
You always have great little ditties great lesson man thanks a lot God bless your day
Nice lesson, Griff! I love OCTAVES! When I heard first heard Wes Montgomery play (in octaves) I thought it was one of the coolest guitar sounds I ever heard. Lots of ways to use ’em… and learn the fretboard! Thanks!
thanks. Now I better understand what I was doing. great lesson.
Thanks, Griff. I knew how to find the octaves this way, but you made me realize that I could use that knowledge in new ways.
I would love to see some videos about playing in open e. I’ve been trying to learn some Dave Mason
This in my opinion is the second best video lesson you have done. The first was about a month or so ago on counting of all the various different kinds of notes. This is a great lesson as I know I do not use octaves enough but I assure you that I will from now on. You get so busy remembering the scales and getting them down and using them that you sometimes omit some other good things you could be doing, and the thing is I love going from octave to octave but I do not do it enough. Very good lesson.
Thanks Griff,very helpful Len.
Thanks Griff, I love thinking out of the box so to speak.
I think I gravitate to this style more than others, just didn’t know I was, but you just made it crystal clear.
This video was like being informed of novel way of looking at fretboard. I like it as it is helpful . As matter of fact I have tried this method for Indian classical method of eqiuvalent scales of various kind.I leArnt playing scales all over the board from there in beginning. Thanks for such a lesson and trainiNg .
Some more good stuff.:-) Thanks
Thanks Griff, Use to think I was a hack when it came to knowing the fretboard. That short video restored my faith that after 47yrs I really know my way around my guitar in a variety of ways. It was like hey,I use that. And I do that, etc. Thanks again. Gonna grab that axe right now!
I used to think of this as a “cheat” to “fake” my way around the fretboard… for years. It took all those years to realize that there’s no such thing as a “cheating” or “faking” ways around the fretboard. In fact, it’s essential to learning it. I used to feel like I didn’t know my way around the board because I was “cheating” so, I kept banging my head against the “wall of theory and scales, blocks, positions, etc..”. The problem with theory is it takes too much thinking and causes me to doubt myself, on-the-fly. “Cheating”, however turned into “knowing” and is a more reliable way, for me, to improvise.
To me… theory is best suited for rythm and “cheating” is best for soloing but they are starting to overlap now that I have realized that “cheating” is knowledge.
Thanks Griff.
Thanks!
Learning a little each day. Do you know good websites to look up chords for songs? I’d like to play Melissa and whipping post by the,Allman Bros.
In the google box type in guitar chords melissa press enter and you will have a bunch of sites to choose from
I must have seen the other video because this is already in my visualization of fretboard.
But… Again, you always seem to bring these lessons to thier simplest definition with some practice exercises. THANK YOU!!!
Regarding the CAGED system, it is still somewhat confusing to me. It is time you took a stab at explaining it …… PLEASE!!!
Drew, e-me and I’ll send you a couple videos which will clear up the basic CAGED System for you. marklcenter@iname.com
Great lesson as always Griff. I was a little familiar with this approach, but you’ve put it in layman’s terms. It opens up so many different opinions.
I have seen this one before and it is a good way to pratice finding roots . I do agree that the lower part of the guitar is like dead real estate . it is not used very much in a sence that if in a band situation that low end is for the bass . You would walking all over it. the four note solo is really something that freddy King or BB King would use add a note to it and it coulb be called Griffs house pattern . There are just so many guitarists out there that teach if You surf around and believe Me they are all basically the same just with diffrent approches . Thats pretty much the idea to find our approach that we like . I would like to say that I like Griff, if I didnt I wouldnt bother commenting.
I always that You tend to use the A for a starting point .
Thanks. This is neat stuff. I have been trying to learn to play guitar for about a year and always find your tips and videos informative.
Doh… The garage door has once again opened to reveal new sunny roads ahead, but driving the car using controls with which I’m so familiar! Was too fixed thinking, locking known licks into certain boxes/strings. Great stuff mate!
Neat!!! Thanks, Griff.