In this video, I’m going to show you the fastest way to address working on all of this and it comes out of beginning with the performance of simple "single note line" melodies. The single melodic form of a vocal line or of a primary melodic idea, (from an instrumental part) is critical to start with. 

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The second stage of development is based around building chords off of the established single note melody. This is more difficult, but can be made easier through two practice directions. 

First, you need to discover a small collection of ways to exert second and third notes that will expand the harmonic range. Second, you need to think in respect to velocity, (the change of positions) across the span of the neck.

This lesson will show you how to blast through one of the main reasons that guitar players get stuck in their playing and why guitarists start to feel like they just can’t make decent progress. 

What you’ll learn is actually how simple it can be to start incorporating a very easy method of; learning a melody, mapping it out across the neck, working through any melody, (getting up to a level of solid performance and commitment to memory), and finally the really cool part of this will be creating chords around the melody. 

The best part is that you don’t need to know any music theory or how to read music and you don’t even need to understand how the neck works. 

This exercise uses only your ear and focuses on how harmony is built across the strings using a few common shapes! So, grab your guitar and let’s get started. 

EXERCISE 1). MELODY
Our first step will be all about learning a very simple melodic idea that is common and has been performed by many different artists over the years. 

For our example, we’re going to check out an old melody written back in the year 1835. This melody has been covered by everyone from Johnny Cash, to Willie Nelson and even Chet Atkins did an instrumental of it. The piece is called, “Just As I Am.” 

To get started, let’s focus on playing and learning the basic melody taken from the piece.

So, coming up next I’ve got a great idea to show you that involves building out a melody so that it focuses on getting organized on a group of chords that connect to the part. It’s just like you’ll hear by famous guitarists’ like Chet Atkins or Mark Knopffler... 

But first, I want to tell you about a special promotional offer related to my new edition of the; Handouts Collection eBook. 

EXERCISE 2). BUILDING A HARMONY
The next thing I want to cover involves using tones that will always be able to line up vertically around your melody. Those tones can be used to build outward and create small, medium and large chord ideas. Check out the example below.

You’ll hear this "harmony building" work done by many famous musicians (including guitar players like Mark Knopfler, Chet Atkins and Larry Carlton). When done smoothly and expertly it sounds great. Here’s how it all works.

Keep the melody tones located up at the top (highest pitch) end of the harmony that you're building. 

Test play through several lower tones that are available within a 3-fret range and determine the most harmonious note connections.

Intermix single-note segments along with 2 and 3 note chords. Balance the spacing of all of the chords that are used with individual notes with a goal of creating an interesting harmonic flow.

If you know your musical keys, and you are familiar with a lot of chords plus you understand intervals, you'll find that you'll be much faster at producing harmonies.

That said, if you've never tried playing a solo with a box shape before then the pattern I’m going show you in this lesson could help you tremendously because the larger more complex scales can leave a lot of potential on the table. 

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In this Guitar Soloing, "Box Shape" video, I'm going to show you the number one way to start using the power of the, "box-shape" to perform great solos. 

Of course, thinking that you can ignore your notes and your knowledge of the major and minor keys and have all of this work like some form of a magic trick is a big mistake. 

Remember, that guitar solos are made in the practice room and revealed on stage.

THE BOX SHAPE:
What I have for you is probably the fastest and easiest path to playing solos that you could ever learn about. You’ve probably already heard of the guitar’s “Box” shape for soloing. 

You may not fully understand what it is, or how it works, and that’s fine. Sometimes this topic can get a little confusing because there’s more than one “box shape” out there to study and understand on the neck.

Let me help you become familiar with how one of the most common box shapes for guitar operates. We'll also learn how you can study this shape. Most importantly you'll learn how easy it is to apply this box shape and how to start soloing with it VERY quickly! 

Grab your guitar and I’ll begin by showing you how to get into learning the way that the box shape sits on the guitar fret-board. The first step will be to learn it and start using it. After that, you'll be able to integrate it for use in your guitar solos.

BASIC BOX:
The box (shown below), is very easy to understand because it is literally a rectangular box pattern on the fingerboard. 

The root note is highlighted in red and is positioned at the 5th string’s 7th-fret. That note is an “E” so this means that our shape is rooted on the “E” 

Here’s how the "Box" shape sits on the neck off of the “E” root. 

The named tones are outlined below:
Notice the additional "A" tone indicated on the 6th-string

BACK-DROP /JAM-TRACK:
To apply this shape we need to have a back-drop practice harmony for it. Our back-drop is going to be based upon the color of how our root note sits on the neck and how the other tones are situated around the root. 

The two circled notes that you see below are the critical tones related to the root. Because those tones are a whole step away from the root they end up establishing the color of Minor. 

The cool thing about the "Box" is that you can also use this shape over the Blues Dominant sound as well. Practice creating melodies with the jam example (shown above). It will begin to start helping you with applying the shape and its sound.

SHIFTING THE BOX:
The Fourth and Third String Box Pattern

One of the coolest things about the box pattern is how versatile it can make our guitar playing. 

As we move the shape elsewhere on the neck we gain more ground for soloing with it. In our next example, we’ll place this “E” box-shape between 4th and 3rd strings. 

Learn the note names:
Take notice of the new arrangement of the notes within the box and how we gain a new note of "B" under our new location of the "E" root.
 

Second and First String Box Pattern
We can take the box shape even further along the neck yet by placing it up into the top two guitar strings like this.

Learn the note names:
Take notice of the arrangement of the notes within the box and how we maintain the note of "B" under our new location of the "E" root.

CONCLUSION:
If you don’t know very many scales and you want to start soloing as quickly as possible, you just can’t beat these box shape patterns. 

They’re super easy to apply, and they make playing solos really fast and really easy to understand on the guitar. 

Even if you do know a few scales, there’s still some pretty cool ideas that can come from what we’d just refer to as “shape based” soloing. 

So, spend some time on these box layouts, I can pretty much guarantee you that you’re going to get into playing solos with them, no matter what level of guitar player that you are.

All the pros have worked on these types of picking drills at some point because developing them will make a huge difference in how the left and right hands interact. 

With an exercise like this one, the balance between each hand improves along with an increase in the general feel for steady accurate picking. 

Remember, the hand that we're really focused on working in this study is the pick-hand.

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That said, it’s not going to be easy to develop this exercise. In this video, I’m going to make sure that you aware of your own efforts that will be required. 

And, you'll also need to keep in mind that through the development of this drill, (and through the course of learning this drill) I hope it becomes revealed to you how much more that your picking can improve along the way. 

In this post, I am going to give you one of the keys to getting great left and right hand picking control. This is an exercise that you can do before playing anything on guitar. 

The best part is that this exercise is only 10 notes so it takes very little time out of your day to do. Plus, this drill provides you with the benefits of getting a solid development established out of your picking, as well as your fretting skill. 

Overall the exercise is a well-balanced technical drill that applies a picking workout across three strings while operating in multiple fret positions performed laterally.

The bottom line is that this drill allows you to get a great picking workout anyplace on the fingerboard. Let’s get things started by introducing the exercise to you right now so that you can start becoming clear on exactly the way it works.

THE PICKING EXERCISE:

Example 3): The 10-Note Picking Study (vertical movement)  

CONCLUSION:

Picking studies like this one are excellent for developing higher levels of skill between the left and the right hands... And, one book that you might want to consider looking into getting is the, “Al DiMeola - Picking Techniques Book.” 

Hal Leonard still publishes it. And, it covers several ideas like this one! And, I know that when I first worked through this book years ago, it made a big impact on my guitar picking technique.