Most of the guitar books, Internet guitar lessons and guitar teachers show the fret-board's scale patterns in tight fingerboard position layouts (approx. 4-5 frets horizontally). And, while some guitar licks are played from within those closely grouped scale patterns, most are not.

If a practicing guitarist were to begin spending a good deal of time learning licks found in many of the most popular songs, they'd discover that there are a lot of "along the neck" (horizontal) scale patterns being applied to create most of the famous licks and solos.

Going along with this idea of working with scales more horizontally, is the concept of starting to think more musically about the scale shape. We can have some quick initial success in doing this by getting more inventive with the various note choices and with how we think of the fingerboard layouts of the scale. Seeing notes in sections, or as patterned clusters and playing those clusters in abstract ways can often create some very interesting melodies.

In this lesson, we are going to run through a few different methods that can be used to begin breaking away from the "generic" scale shapes and start turning, "Scales into Guitar Licks." Enjoy this weeks lesson!

The lesson video:

About the Author:
Andrew Wasson is a 1992 Graduate of Hollywood California's Guitar Institute of Technology (G.I.T.). He has operated his Canadian Music School; Creative Guitar Studio, for the last 20+ years teaching thousands of guitarists both in studio sessions, and through his popular YouTube Channels, Skype lessons