Fret Science

A road trip from Massachusetts to the Woodshed Guitar Experience in Crossville, by way of Cleveland, Nashville, and the Martin factory.

The conventional wisdom is that there are no shortcuts to becoming a good musician.

Improvising solos over chord changes can be intimidating—but it doesn't have to be!

I've been working on the idea for this video for a few months.

This technique was an epiphany.

A high level overview and detailed syllabus for the Fret Science: Improv 101 course

The Fret Science method connects music theory concepts like CAGED, 3NPS, pentatonic scales, triads, and major scale modes to master the fretboard.

Cowboy chords, often criticized by experienced guitarists, can unlock hundreds of chord variations across the fretboard by mastering just five of them.

As a way of releasing content much more frequently, and as a way to make motivate myself to make more progress on the future Fret Science book, I'm…

Jack Ruch is one of my favorite guitar YouTubers because of his beautifully lyrical phrasing and excellent teaching style.

Why do so many guitar players resist learning the notes on the fretboard?

Instantly create harmonized solo guitar lines with parallel 3rds and 6ths

New video!

The three-notes-per-string system is by far one of the best ways to navigate the fretboard both vertically and horizontally.

What are the major scale modes?

If you already know the pentatonic scale anywhere on the fretboard, you can instantly access the major scale modes by understanding how the modes relate to the pentatonic scale and to each other.

This ~16 minute video deconstructs the CAGED system using easy-to-understand animated building blocks (over 150 animations!)

The thumbnail is a teeny bit hyperbolic, but it's not clickbait!

Learn the simple five-string pattern that completely unlocks the modes across the entire fretboard.

How does the quirky tuning of the G and B strings affect scales and chords?

Our first YouTube video!

Guitarists can learn some valuable lessons from the field of cognitive science.

Make beautiful fingerpicked harmonies just like The Beatles did.

This mental model will have you playing beautiful harmonized licks instantly.

If you know the right way of thinking about the penatonic scale, learning the blues scale couldn't be easier.

A new way to visualize and navigate pentatonic scales across the entire fretboard, with 85% less memorization than the CAGED system.

Many guitarists learn and memorize diatonic scales, pentatonic scales, and triad arpeggios as three separate concepts, but they are intimately related, and it’s beneficial to learn each as an overlay on the next.

"The Rectangle" is a handy place to access all seven diatonic modes in a four-fret span on just two strings.

The link between pentatonic scales and the diatonic modes has been staring you in the face all along.

If you know 3nps, now you also know your "in-position" scales.

"The modes" are all explained by a simple repeating fretboard pattern that you can learn in minutes.

Triad geometry is surprisingly simple.

How being able to reconstruct scales from a few basic patterns can become your superpower.

Understand and visualize the ways that geometric patterns move around the guitar fretboard in standard tuning.