5-7 · Diagonal 3NPS Pathways

The Pairs have one more trick in them, and it's the last navigation tool of this module: using a single Pair to climb the fretboard diagonally, an octave at a time, without ever changing the shape under your fingers. This is the 3NPS version of the diagonal pathways from 3-5 and 5-4 — the same idea with a different building block.

Here's the observation that makes it work. A Pair holds six notes, which means six of the seven scale degrees. That means every Pair is missing exactly one note from the scale. And that missing note is always in the same place.

Memorize this: Every Pair is missing exactly one scale degree. It sits one scale step below the lowest note of the Pair — and one scale step above the highest note, an octave up.

Now watch what the missing note does. Play the six notes of the Pair, then slide up on the upper string to grab the missing note. That slide positions your hand to play the same Pair again on the next two strings. Play it, slide again, and play it a third time. Three full octaves with the exact same fingering in each one.

If the move feels familiar, it should: it's doing exactly the job the slide to the connecting note did in the rectangle pathways of 3-5 and 5-4. Descending works the same way, sliding down from the lowest note to the missing note below the Pair.

The one thing you need to know in the moment is whether the slide is one fret or two. Sliding down is easy, because you know the number of the Pair you're playing: Pairs 1 and 4 have a one-fret slide, everything else two frets. Sliding up is where it's easier to get confused, so here's the shortcut: look at the fragment on the string you're sliding from. If it has a half step in it, the missing note is a whole step away. If it doesn't, the missing note is most likely a half step away — the exceptions are Pair 4 going down and Pair 1 going up, where it flips back to a whole step. If you'd rather not memorize that, it all falls out of where the major scale's two half steps are; either route gives the same answer.

One last connection. Remember from 5-4 that a filled-in rectangle can carry six of the seven modes, depending on where the color notes go. Each of those three fill positions is one of the Pairs:

This is one more reminder that any of these shapes can be used to play any of the seven modes — the only difference is which note you treat as the tonal center. The more routes you know, the more choices you have when you're actually playing.

Exercise 5-8: Pick a mode and the corresponding Pair, and set up a drone. Play the six notes, find the missing note above the Pair, and slide up into the next octave. Practice just that one move until the slide feels automatic. Then practice the downward version. Then run the full diagonal: start on the low E string, climb all three octaves, and come back down. From there, change a variable: a different Pair over the same drone, or a fun challenge — climb up on Pair 1, shift up and descend on Pair 2, climb Pair 3, and so on through all seven. A metronome is helpful here; it will tell you immediately if you slow down at the slides and string changes.