Good Excercise?

[Darth Strings]

I have been playing for about 11 years, and have always had trouble developing a comprehesive knowledge of the fretboard.

 

As an excercise, I mapped out the arpeggios for the chords in C Major -

 

CMaj7

Dmin7

Emin7

Fmaj7

G7

Amin7

Bdim7

 

I wrote the letter name for the notes on a fretboard diagram that I had drawn up. The idea was for me to see where the chord tones were located on the fretboard for each chord, so I could more easily relate that to the chord shapes and major scale shapes.

 

Is this excercise worth it? Any thoughts/tips on actually practicing these arpeggios/chord tones to commit them to memory?

 

Should I do this for every key, or just transpose the positions/shapes?

[chittypantz]

Technically, I think the chord with the root on B should be half-diminished (Bmin7b5).

I found that this kind of harmonizing the major scale is useful up to the point where you learn the type of chord to form with the root on any given degree of the major scale. To actually learn the various chord and arpeggio shapes and commit them to muscle memory, I find that going through the circle of 4ths with each form of chord and arpeggio is more efficient. As you do it, name the chords / spell the arpeggios out loud to yourself. That also teaches you to spot the location of a given note on your fretboard at a glance.

[Cackalacky]

Also try doing that starting on different inversions 2 and 3 octaves.

[adamsj]

I teach guitar, and I think that ANY effort that results in a player understanding the instrument better, and/or being a better player is fully acceptable.

Here's some free exercises, scale, and chord lessons to help you too:

http://216.147.38.203/AdamSJ/lessons.html

[Darth Strings]

Thanks dude! I'll check these out later on!

My current guitar teacher is all about teaching tunes, but he has a more difficult time teaching improvisation. He will play cool lick, but then he has a hard time "showing it" to me or explaining how he came up with it.

He did set me on the right path learning how to read music, and learning tunes out of the real book.

Maybe improv is just something I have to pick up on my own.

Originally posted by adamsj I teach guitar, and I think that ANY effort that results in a player understanding the instrument better, and/or being a better player is fully acceptable. Here's some free exercises, scale, and chord lessons to help you too: http://216.147.38.203/AdamSJ/lessons.html