If you've ever wondered how come you haven't been able to get melody lines to help you build better phrasing, better neck awareness and greater technical skill, then you'll discover (after watching this video) that you've been missing something in your training...




In this video, I am going to explain the benefits of taking a simple melodic idea and treating it as an interval design.

Then, from both a "geometrical pattern" and an "interval" perspective, I'll teach you how to visualize any melodic exercise in a manner that will help you to get much more out of the melody than just phrasing alone.


WATCH THE VIDEO:



Today we’re going to talk about a highly addictive 3 min. guitar work-out that focuses on connecting groups of notes along the neck and at the same time it helps with developing a much higher level of accuracy.

The main idea behind this workout is all attributed to analyzing the way that a melodies intervals operate across the string sets.

By incorporating this interval idea as an exercise and then applying it into your daily routine for as little as 3 min. you’re going to start to noticing big improvements in three areas:

1). The accuracy of how you play your notes
2). Improvements on how you’ll cover the fingerboard
3). Learn more about all of the notes on the fingerboard 




EXAMPLE LICK (1).

Let’s get into this idea by learning a five position melody (on strings 3 and 2) in the key of, “Am.”

5-position Melody / Strings 3 and 2:



Our first example melody moves along the neck covering two strings while using a small section of the, “A Minor” scale. It allows us to cover a lot of ground and do so very quickly.

By setting up the melody line from example (1) on the neck the way we did, our positions moved by quite fast. This created a sense of movement that comes across as sounding very unique musically.




EXAMPLE LICK (2).

Next, I’d like to cover one more example that operates around a descending pattern in the same key. This time, we’ll move from the 12th pos. down to the 7th and we’ll expand on the group of strings involved to include three strings.

5-position Melody / Strings 4, 3 and 2:



There are dozens of ways to move around the neck using this approach, and all you have to do is plan out scale segments and organize them across the strings vertically and horizontally. It’s an excellent way to apply scales across several positions very quickly.





The 3 Minute Workout:
The next direction we are going to take will have to do with how to go about practicing these ideas using a specialized 3 min. work-out method that was first taught to me by my old Music Reading instructor at G.I.T.  David Oakes.

A lot of the guitar instruction that is found online can certainly be great for offering licks and riffs to practice, but here at Creative Guitar I like to also offer you ways that will help develop the best “at home” practice as well.

Let’s go back to that first guitar melody that I had shown you (Example Lick 1). That melody was a 5-position (ascending) two string run on the guitar strings of 3 and 2.

My practice suggestion for the "3 Min. Workout" is to treat the lick idea as a pattern and play it all over the fingerboard for at least 3 min. (so get a timer and enter in the time frame and get that idea moving all over the guitar fingerboard).

Here’s a fingerboard diagram of how you can start thinking about the first lick and how you can scan over it as intervals applied to the 3 min. workout.



This type of practice gets into a more focused breakdown of each interval involved with creating a melodies fret-board movement.

In the diagram above for our first example, we’re traveling along the neck by way of a; half-step, then two whole steps and the final distance diagonally is another half-step.

Once you can visualize this pattern, you can transfer the fingering shape anyplace that you’d like to along and across the guitar fingerboard.

Watch my video demonstration of how this operates, as I show how to start moving our first example all over the fingerboard.
3 Minute Workout Demonstration:




Once you’ve become comfortable with the moveable idea that I demonstrate in the video above, move that idea all over the fingerboard for a time frame of 3 min.

That might not seem like a very long time, but I think that you’ll be surprised how long 3 min. feels when you’re timing yourself and you’re actually doing the exercise.




EXPANDING YOUR PRACTICE:
Once you’ve nailed down that first exercise; do the same routine with that second melody that I went over with you earlier in this lesson, (Example Lick 2).

Study the intervals on the fingerboard shown below for example lick (2). Make your judgements with regard to note distance and note flow. Then move the pattern all over the fingerboard.


Example Lick 2 - Fingerboard Intervals:





CONCLUSION:
Guitar licks and riffs can be made a lot easier to understand once you take them into a study routine like the one I’ve covered here in this lesson.

This 3 min. moveable intervals exercise is excellent for organizing almost anything that you need to develop on guitar.

The 3 min. exercise period that you put into this workout will help you attain a much better level of awareness for the note locations of any melody on the neck.

Interval design study will go a long way in helping to gain a better degree of technique for playing lines that travel more laterally.

Plus, once you do this exercise several times, with all types of different licks and riffs, you’ll start noticing the benefits of this type of study, and all it takes is 3 min. a day to accomplish.

Also, it is important to keep in mind, that there are a lot of additional benefits that will come out of doing this type of work. And, one of the biggest is being able to very quickly visualize melodic ideas as unique geometrical shapes on your guitar.

Learning to see guitar melody lines on the neck as unique interval patterns will work faster than any other method for speeding up your recognition for every new idea that you’ll learn on guitar. And, new ideas on guitar will come together for you a lot faster.