Are you getting bored with playing your lead guitar parts in the same "Box" areas all the time? Then, you need to learn a powerful melodic technique for re-locating your melodies into other regions of the fingerboard...

MPM: Multiple Position Melody
Guitar solos are often played within "Scale Boxes" or "Box Areas." Sometimes we'll call these "In-Position" scale layouts. This can be a great way to play lead in the early days because all we have to do is learn a scale within one region of the fingerboard and just stay there.The notes we require will be within that box and with embellishments (slides, bends hammer-ons, pull-offs, etc.), we can play all kinds of tasty licks and runs.



However, there is another technique that really starts opening up the neck. It's often referred to as "Multiple Position Melody," technique. Using this approach, we gain greater access to more area of the fret-board and have our melodies take on a unique double perspective.

Example #1). Play through this 5th position melody. It will act as our foundational statement.


 Example #2). This next example takes the phrase from example one, and moves it up into a new register. This gives us a new position for our original statement.


This technique takes a melodic pattern in one position and focuses on it's unique is interval outline. Doing this will make your scales sound less "position bound" and more like larger more expanded musical phrases.

The relocation of a pattern provokes expanded melody. Since we're moving along the neck and thinking so laterally, there are many variations to fingerings, from easy ones to more challenging patterns.



Let's have a look at another MPM pattern and discover what occurs when we need to make a greater alteration to the fingering.

Example #3). This will act as our foundation idea. Learn the phrase and in the next example, we'll move it elsewhere on the neck.


Now, let's relocate the phrase from example three into a higher register on the neck.

Example #4). Notice how the fingering have to change in order to access the higher tones at the end of the phrase.



Practicing multi-position melodic patterns will increase your dexterity and make your technique become more fluid. With regular practice you will start noticing that your fingers will be going to jump over to the right places at the right time more easily. They will develop, to some extent, a mind of their own for accessing positions. Your fingers are being trained to master the fingerboard when you jump into other locations with phrases.

Applying multi-position melodic patterns will also allow you to translate the melody in your head more quickly onto the fret-board in more locations because both your ears and fingers are trained to know where to go with sound more easily.



Studying multi-position patterns is one of the best ways to get you to the next level of playing more freely across the entire guitar neck.

If you combine this technique with all the other phrasing tools like; arpeggio triads, licks, harmonic intervals, and if you mix it with some blues and create more dynamic melody with the scales, your way of playing will become more melodic, and you'll feel more limitless and interesting as well.