I use first, second, then the sweet spot and what i'm thinking is the forth.
The third position seems not to be given to convenient riffing.
I mostly foget it's there.
The forth spot is a gold mine.

I use the fourth position quite often. I like to start there and extend up the neck.

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The time has gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say.

I use modes.

I'm all over the place, and purposely try NOT to use that first box position. Unless I'm jamming some 12 bar blues or something where that position and sound fits. Even then, I'll take riffs I would have played in that position and just play them in different octaves or on different strings. You just get used to seeing those scale patterns all over the board, how the notes relate to each other, and end up liking different voicings of the same riffs.

I experiment with all of them, but if I'm playing a solo in a song I haven't heard before I usually stick to the main one at first.

I use modes too now, but honestly I like the good ol' pentatonic boxes best for soloing. You can play some insane riffs with modes though.

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The 4th position is my favorite. One of my pet licks is say your playing in A to bend the B on the 15th fret B string a whole step and grab the E at the 15th fret E string with your pinky and also mixing in some natural minor notes. The third posistion is great for mixing major and minor pentatonic ala BB King as he lives there.

I am all over the major and minor pentatonics all up and down the entire fretboard. But ... it largely ends there for the most part so feel free to not be impressed. The most useful thing I practiced back in the day was soloing "side to side" instead of the more normal "up and down", if you know what I mean. It made my soloing much more lyrical, and got me into using every position.

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Laughing out loud with fear and hope, I have a desperate plan ...

Hey Big-Jay! Minor pentatonics are like... the surfice of the lake of guitar music!
You really should try givin it a try once!

Anyway, I'm usually over the 1st position to start with, then slide to second. Fourth someeetimes, but only when I'm really in the mood, because only then can I see and find out where it is without thinking too hard.
Also, in the first and 2nd and 5th position I know where I can place my bends and slides... in other positions I do.
How do you find this out, so that you can slide from position to position in a solo/improv without thinking too much?
And I 'don't really know what modes are either.. Darn now I feel like a real beginner...

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Hey Gang-

I am a 1st, 2nd, and 4th position kinda player with some 5th position thrown in here and there. I am just starting to learn modes such as Mixolidian and learning the Natural Minor.

I think is is good to know all the positions in a particular scale as it gives you much more to work with

The Freeze

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Well, to be a little less cryptic...

A pentatonic scale is a scale with five notes to the octave, as opposed to the "do - re - mi" major scale we all know (which, since it has seven notes, is righteously called a heptatonic scale). Because of the way a guitar is tuned, pentatonic scales are easily played in box patterns on the fretboard, and are considered the first building block of soloing (which might be what he meant by the "surface of the lake" thing).

If you can solo over blues changes, you are probably already well versed in the minor pentatonic, which is commonly called the "blues" scale, and is the basis for virtually all blues/rock guitar soloing. If you're playing Hendrix, Clapton, or the solo from "Stairway," you're playing a minor pentatonic.

If you're playing the same five notes, only the song is in the relative major (for example, playing in Am when the song is in C). then you're playing a major pentatonic scale.... this is what you're doing if you're playing something like many, many "Southern" rock solos or the licks from "Octopus's Garden."

So, as you guessed, you're probably already playing them and just didn't know the name.

Big Jay, music theory is kind of like learning how to run one of those huge intimidating recording consoles. The truth about the console is that once you learn to run one narrow channel strip, you pretty much know how to run the whole scary thing.

So, I think any basic "Theory for Guitar Players" book would be as good as another. Learning how to extend chord harmony can help you make hipper note choices when soloing.

For learning to solo over changes, learning scales and modes is where it's at. This book comes with a CD, which most of us "by ear" guys find helpful.

http://www.amazon.com/Scales-Modes-Guit ... 0882847201

Oh yeah sorry, I meant surface. To make an attempt to explain it a bit further: You need to go throug the surface to get to the bottom.
In my 'metaphore' the bottom is guitar (theory) expertise.

But I guess that when you can play with others just using your ears and your brain, you mightn't even need to know more about the pentatonics!

I once sent some sort of explaination of the pentatonic scale to rkeisher, to use for his daughter. But that'll probably be to easy for you. And I don't really remember how I sent it to him. You could try and ask him.
I'm sure there are millions of good explainations on the web too, since lots and lots of people play the guitar.

Anyway, good luck and keep those hearing-skills up.
PS. sorry if I'm not understandable, but english isn't my first language.

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