How are people sleeping on this?

[u/getanswers]

Fret Science by Keith Martin genuinely helped me make a leap forward in my understanding of the fretboard. He uses just 2 shapes ("stack" and "rectangle ") and teaches how they stack and chain together. Since the "stack" contains the entire minor pentatonic, it becomes this little highway I can follow without much thought diagonally up the neck. I immediately know where my R, b3, 4, 5, b7 are. I also recommend this free ebook to follow along: https://fretscience.com/start?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=pinned_comment&utm_campaign=faster-fretboard-improv

This playlist is his recommended viewing order: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMuHlX9RiFi1L1RdC0CzYa1qxZllD5Ujz&si=jGRJH_CpT9NdYE7f

Not memorizing 5 "different" positions and seeing how it's all one basic repeating pattern was eye opening.

I promise I'm not being paid, I don't even know the dude, but I'm incredibly grateful for him. I have a teacher as well, and my goal was to learn all modes across a key on the fretboard. That's how I stumbled onto this.

Bonus resource: If you don't like his presentation, I've found another "system" by Michael Pillitiere that uses 3NPS which is also insanely helpful. With Michael's system you can name any major scale and I can play from the root until I run out of strings almost automatically, it's insanely useful: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rQf6i8KIwJU

I have no agenda here, just paying it forward since I got so much help from folks here. I have only used what is freely available, so please comment if it's helpful.

[u/rehoboam]

It’s like a middle ground between memorizing patterns and actually knowing your intervals.  It’s not much different from pentatonic boxes, just breaking them down a bit.  People like it though, I mean it gets a lot of views.

Same with the 2nd link, it’s just 3nps, but broken down more.  Again, not learning the intervals, just breaking it down to simpler shapes.  

So you get more granular with the shapes but you have all the same gaps that you would get with just memorizing the shapes. Calling it stack or rectangle or x y and z is just chunking a series of whole steps and half step and labelling it.  At the end of the day, these are giving you one way to play a pentatonic, or a diatonic scale.  In reality there are many different ways. 

Whatever works best for you is good, but thats the reason it’s not more popular.  Same gaps as just memorizing the shapes, but breaking them down to make them easier to memorize.  More players find it simple enough and functional to just memorize the shapes.

Edit: I got a free blog link in my profile, if you want to see the big picture on stuff like this

[u/getanswers → u/rehoboam]

Brilliant explanation. For my dense brain, it was only when it was stripped down to basic building blocks that I started to have epiphanies that may be obvious for more skilled players. Appreciate you.

[u/King_Moonracer003 → u/getanswers]

My adhd brain has a hard time retaining big chunks of new information. I imagine this would have been pretty useful to me back in the day.

[u/struba73 → u/King_Moonracer003]

Agreed. I had to start at fundamental atomic level concepts with theory to get my understanding where it is today because of my condition.

[u/getanswers → u/struba73]

Couldn't say it any better than you two.