3-5 · Fretboard Practice: D Pentatonic Scales

You can create hundreds or even thousands of unique exercises from a single core idea by changing the values of a handful of variables. The core exercise idea in this video is to:

1. Find a D note somewhere on the fretboard.
2. Alternate rectangles and stacks to play up a pentatonic scale as high as you can in one position.
3. Play back down to the D note you started on.
4. Continue playing down to the lowest note you can play in the same position.
5. Play the scale back up to your starting note.

Within this simple framework, I identified 8 variables you can adjust to change the exercise:

1. How you choose which D note to start from (3 options):
   1. Go string by string
   2. Go from nut to bridge
   3. Go from bridge to nut
2. Whether to start with your index finger or ring finger on the root or alternate (3 options).
3. Whether to play the major or minor pentatonic scale or alternate them (3 options).
4. How to play up from the root (3 options):
   1. In scale-wise order
   2. In groups of three notes
   3. Skip playing up altogether
5. How to play back down to the root (3 options as with #4)
6. How to play down from the root (3 options as with #4)
7. How to play back up to the root (3 options as with #4)
8. Whether to start by playing up or down from the root (2 options)

Taken together, this yields over 4,000 different exercise variations from this simple idea.

Exercises 1-4374: Choose a combination of variables and use the pentatonic rectangle and stack to play D major and minor pentatonic scales across the entire fretboard.

The point of this isn’t to practice all 4374 options, but each one will challenge you in a slightly different way. The point is that you can always create new variations of exercises to challenge yourself by changing a few variables.