Already had a ah ha moment.
When you look at it from a left/right pattern there is only really those 2 patterns across the whole neck. If you start anywhere on the neck from any given root note the pattern is always the same. It just starts in a different place. The only difference is that you have to add the one fret for the B string. But other than that it's exactly the same. Hope I am explaining this so that it is not confusing.
Thus the importance of knowing the location of the root notes. This will make a huge impact on my phrasing.
Miko is right on the money with this... but I think there is some confusion about how it works and whether or not these 2 shapes are the same as the boxes.
If you play A minor blues (box 1) starting on the 6th string root and going right, you'll play
1 - 4
1 2 3
1 - 3
I'm using fingers to demonstrate the pattern.
If you play A minor blues starting on the 12th fret of the 5th string and going right (box 4) you'll play the exact same pattern:
1 - 4
1 2 3
1 - 3
And no matter what A you use, if you go right and play A minor blues for 1 octave, you get that same pattern. The only hiccup is when you run into the B string, you have to add 1 fret to that string of the pattern.
Now here's the funny part... when I originally made Playing Through The Blues (an old course that was the predecessor to BGU) I actually made a bonus video in there that I called "Blues Shapes" and it covered this exact topic.
No one watched it hardly, so I didn't bother to reshoot it for BGU... I did some other things instead.
But it's still online and still available. There is a video and a color PDF with all of these little shapes mapped out. Perhaps now that you've been exposed to the concept, this could be a really useful video.
[glow=yellow,2,300]These videos are now on the main page of the SBS download area in the member portal. If you have SBS you will see these videos available there.[/glow]
You'll have to extract them first or the videos won't work. The PDF files are wrapped up in the zips.
I think that will help a lot with putting this little "aha" moment to work for you.
Griff
