Learn the Guitar Neck (Ezine Article)

Have you tried your hardest to improve your creativity as a guitarist, but walked away feeling unhappy with your progress? Many guitarists go through this in the process of practicing to grow their musical skills. In addition, if you have played guitar for any length of time, you have certainly heard the conventional wisdom about one's potential for musical creativity being limited by how much natural talent they possess. All of this combines into a recipe for massive disappointment and frustration and it may start to seem that there is no reliable solution to this problem.

Although the above situation is very common, there DOES exist a real tangible method for developing musical creativity on guitar. If you cannot dismiss the conventional wisdom about the "need" to be talented in order to become musically creative, realize that 'only' those who are not high level musicians make such ignorant statements, and you will be hard-pressed to find a world-class musician to support this myth.

Nonetheless, there are a number of explanations as to why only a small number of guitar players become creative musicians. Here are some of them:

1. Most guitar players aren't aware of 'what' they need to do/practice to achieve higher levels of creativity.

2. A lot of guitarists consider creativity in music to be an isolated practice item that is meant to be learned as a single skill, similar to learning a song on guitar or memorizing a new scale. Because of this, these guitar players look for an isolated item to play/practice on guitar to reach this goal. The truth is however, that creativity in guitar playing and music is not an individual "thing/item" that you practice, but rather a result that appears from being able to use 'several' guitar playing skills (that on the surface seem disconnected). Think about the process of learning to be fluent in a foreign language. To speak fluently, it isn't enough to ONLY learn 'a lot of words' or to 'only' master the rules of syntax or 'only' work on your pronunciation. You must do all of these tasks simultaneously in order to develop the same command of a language that native speakers possess.

3. A big number of musicians mix up the concepts of being 'original' in your guitar playing with being a 'creative' musician. Originality refers to doing something radically new in music in attempt to stand out from all other guitar players. In contrast, 'musical creativity' is about making music that sounds inspiring, creative and fulfilling 'to you', no matter what the others think. It is very important to be clear on the definitions of terms because the more you understand about what your true goals are, the more accurately (and faster) you will be able to reach them.

The entire list of topics that is needed for becoming a highly creative guitar player is much too broad to be covered in only one article. However, in the points below I will help you to learn how to practice one particular aspect of guitar playing which is highly important for developing musical creativity. This aspect is the ability to visualize the entire guitar fretboard. Of all the skills you need to work on in order to improve your creativity, mastering the guitar neck will help you to see instant progress in your ability to express yourself on guitar, even though (ironically) this element is rarely practiced as much as it should be. Becoming totally fluent in your visualization of the guitar will make it a whole lot easier for you to master other aspects of making more creative music.

In the rest of this article I will list for you some of the ways in which you can (and should) be practicing guitar fretboard visualization. As you continue reading the points below, consider how the practicing ideas I present are interconnected to help you develop the same general skill (of fretboard mastery) from a variety of angles.

Here is what you must do in order to completely master your visualization of the guitar neck:

Learn To Recall The Notes On Guitar

The most obvious skill you must develop to make yourself a better songwriter or improviser is the ability to recall EVERY note on the guitar neck. In addition, you need to be able to do this instantaneously, without having to think about the note names any more than you think about the names of the months in a year. Many guitar players stop after they develop the skill to merely 'find' the name of any note on guitar after several seconds of thought. This is not enough for you to truly benefit from this knowledge in your guitar playing and you must work towards a much more intuitive command of the note names on your instrument.

Learn What Chord And Interval Shapes Look Like On The Guitar Fretboard

One rarely mentioned skill that is nonetheless critically important for complete mastery of the guitar fretboard is the ability to visualize the patterns (shapes) of frets that form intervals, scales, chords and general licks you play on guitar. This will enable you to play a note on your instrument and immediately know where to find a chord, interval or scale pattern based on that note. This skill will greatly speed up (and make easier) the process of expressing yourself creatively on guitar.

Play Scales In Every Position On Guitar Fretboard

When it comes to the skill of fretboard visualization, few things are more common among guitar players than the problem of only knowing how to play scales in one position. Until you learn how to play the scales you know everywhere on the guitar neck, your ability to be creative on guitar will be severely (and needlessly) restricted.

Conversely, when you CAN play scales all over the guitar, your ability to be free to express yourself in music will go through the roof.

Become Confident At Playing Guitar In Any Key

Due to the unique nature of the guitar, it is common for guitar players to become locked in to playing in a certain set of keys that are physically easier to play. However, this leaves a significant portion of the instrument unexplored when it comes to playing in unfamiliar keys such as Db major, F minor and others. Although you probably already know how to slide/transpose barre chords and scales to any key, there is a difference between theoretically knowing "how" to do something and actually feeling confident about playing in strange and unfamiliar keys. The good news is that by practicing to play in keys that you aren't used to yet, it will become much easier to visualize the entire guitar neck and to have your playing feel much easier and more creative as a result.

After reading the points above, it should be easy to see that building musical creativity on guitar does not revolve around tricks or secrets that only the "naturally talented few" are born with. Although there is a lot more to the general topic of creative guitar playing than what I have time to explore in this article, the practicing steps for developing visualization of guitar fretboard can be done by anyone and the result will be a much higher level of freedom and control over expressing yourself on guitar.

To learn how to practice the ideas from this article, watch this free video lesson on guitar fretboard knowledge.

Mike Philippov is a music instructor, recording artist and professional guitar player. He publishes articles about the best ways to learn and practice guitar for musicians around the globe. Visit Mike's guitar practice website: http://PracticeGuitarNow.com to learn how to make your guitar practicing process more effective.

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