If you're working on getting to know the fretboard, learning scales across the neck, learning your theory and where the notes are, you'll know it's quite a tricky thing to do. Fretboard fluency is a really important goal to work towards.
But it's important to recognise that fretboard fluency will not make you an interesting player. Here's why, and what I think you should be prioritising instead.
One scale shape already covers three octaves ▶ 0:38
You've probably watched top guitarists flying across the fretboard, and it is an important skill. Playing scale shapes all over the neck gives you a lot of options. But there's an important caveat.
Take the A minor pentatonic scale, box 1 at the 5th fret. It's pretty much the first scale any guitarist learns. Within that one shape you've already got three octaves of the root note, A: the 5th fret on the low E string, the 7th fret on the D string and the 5th fret on the high e string.
To get just one more octave of A, you have to go all the way up to the 17th fret on the high e string.
So you get far more musical range by travelling vertically, across the strings, than horizontally along the neck. That's one of the many advantages of having six strings.
Moving up the neck gives you the same notes ▶ 1:25
If you think that getting all that extra fretboard range will open up loads of new possibilities, what it mostly gives you is different ways to play a lot of the same notes. A phrase I play in box 1 can be played in several other places on the neck, and it's the same notes every time.
If you're not that experienced, you might see someone playing high up the neck and think they must really know what they're doing. But a lot of the time it's the same thing they could play down at the 5th fret. It's just as interesting there as it is up high.
Box 1 an octave higher fills in the gaps ▶ 2:00
What's more interesting is that as you go up the high e string past box 1, you hit notes you don't have in the basic shape. But they all exist in the same pentatonic scale if you just take box 1 and move it 12 frets higher, to the 17th fret.
So if you can play box 1 at the 5th fret and again at the 17th, you're not missing a single note of the scale between them. And if you play something down around the 1st or 2nd fret and think you don't know that bit of the fretboard, it's the same notes again.
In other words, every note of the scale on the fretboard is covered by one scale position, played in two octaves.
If you can't be interesting in one place, you won't be anywhere ▶ 2:58
This brings us to the really important point. If you can't be interesting in box 1, you're not going to be interesting anywhere else on the neck either.
So in my opinion what you should be focusing on is phrasing and dynamics, and learning licks and applying them in one place. Learn your chord shapes within that small area. Learn your arpeggios there. There's so much to learn from just a tiny portion of the fretboard. Then do the same thing an octave higher.
Work on how you play things, not just where you play them. People joke about Slash playing box 1 of the pentatonic, but guess what? He sounds really good almost all the time. He does use more of the fretboard, but he does a lot of work in box 1.
Why you'd still move a lick around ▶ 3:45
That's not to say other positions are useless. Take a lick and move it between positions and you'll notice two things.
First, how it feels. In one place it might be a bit awkward because your first finger has to roll up and down across strings. In another place it's awkward in a different way, because you're stretching across a couple of frets. But there the last note might not be on the high e string, which makes it easier to get some vibrato on, or to slide into.
Second, how it sounds. The same notes on thicker strings, further up the neck, sound a bit warmer, and softer again the further you go.
So other positions give you tonal options, and sometimes make particular notes easier to play. But they're the same notes.
Where to spend your practice time ▶ 4:33
Learn box 1, and learn it an octave higher. Play a phrase down at the 5th fret, then come up and play another phrase up at the 17th. Between them you've covered almost everything, from the first fret (even the open strings in some cases) up to the 20th fret on the high e string.
I'd still encourage you to learn your other scale shapes and connect them together. Just realise you've already got most of the notes on the fretboard anyway. What matters more is what you do with them.
So if you've got a set amount of practice time for learning the fretboard, consider spending a bit more of it on your phrasing and your style. Put on a backing track in A minor, stay in box 1, and see how many different phrases you can get out of it.
