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Chapter 9
Playing Up the Neck
In This Chapter
Positioning your fingers with ease
Playing up the neck and changing positions
Checking out the ways to move up and down the neck
Figuring out the five pentatonic positions
Creating a dynamic solo
Knowing the neck of your guitar (and your sweetie) is the secret to playing
well (on both fields!). If you played nothing but the notes of the pentatonic
scale, and shifted smoothly between positions, you’d never play a wrong
note again — and you’d be moving up and down the neck with authority and
confidence.
This chapter gives you the tools to break out of the open position to boldly
play on the higher frets. The guitar sounds great when played anywhere on
the neck, but for brilliant, piercing lead lines, you can’t beat the upper frets
for their tone and expressive potential.
For Inquiring Minds: Why Up
the Neck You Should Go
Melodic lead guitar — especially electric guitar — sounds better in the higher
positions for three reasons:
It stands out more than it otherwise would. Chords from the rhythm
guitar and keyboards occupy primarily the lower and middle registers,
so the lead guitar distinguishes itself by playing notes in a different
region than the ones occupied by the rhythm instruments.
TEAM LinG