Fretboard Roadmaps: The Essential Guitar Patterns That All the Pros Know and Use

by Fred Sokolow

(Fretted). The updated edition of this bestselling guitar instruction book now includes new music examples! This book will show you how to: play lead and rhythm anywhere on the fretboard, in any key; play a variety of lead guitar styles; play chords and progressions anywhere on the fretboard; expand your chord vocabulary; and learn to think musically the way the pros do. Each chapter presents a pattern and shows how to use it, along with playing tips and guitar insights. Absolute beginners can follow the diagrams and instruction, and intermediate and advanced players can use the chapters non-sequentially to increase their understanding of the guitar.

Genres: Music

80 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1993

Reviews

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've played guitar sporadically over the last 20 years, gradually migrating to classical guitar, not so much to play classical but I like the mellow/mysterious sound of a nylon string guitar more. In my limited experience, this is one of the more helpful books on guitar I've seen. The main things this book will help you do are to learn what all the notes on the fretboard are, help you find any chord in multiple positions up and down the guitar neck, and you'll know how to quickly transition to related chords without getting lost.

There's also a lot of music theory here. What's the difference between a major 7 chord, a minor 7 chord and a dominant 7 chord? Aren't sus4 chords and a 11 chords the same thing? You'll find out, and know relatively quickly how to form them with a knowledge that goes beyond mere chord formations and goes more into the notes on the fretboard which surround the formation which can be modified. A C major chord modified into a C maj7, a C maj7 #11 or Cm 6/9, etc, just by moving a few fingers around.

If this all sounds rather complicated, it's actually handled very well, as long as you take your time and work through it. Sokolow has you learn the D-A-F chord forms first instead of the more complicated C-A-G-E-D which can be a bit overwhelming for people.

All of these complicated chord forms make far more sense if you dig into the theory a bit and understand what's going on behind their structures on the guitar neck. This demystified a lot of things for me. And the section on the pentatonic scale had me pulling up jam tracks on YouTube and jamming along -- not playing anything profound, but having fun doing it. This isn't a book that's going to teach you a lot of songs -- there's only a few toward the end.

[Stefano P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Provides informative ways to master the guitar fretboard for melodies and chords.