Jam Track Central – Tom Quayle: Visualising The Fretboard [Tutorial, ENG]

Visualising The Fretboard – A Complete Guide To Seeing Harmony On The Fretboard
This Lesson download is an intervallic formula based tuition for improvising over changes. Tom teaches us to break out of the constraints of scale and arpeggio type playing where scales and arpeggios often dictate the lines we play.
If youâ € ™ ve been wanting to know how to break out of the boxes in your playing this practical lesson in fretboard visualization is definitely without a doubt for you.
It is 4hrs of HQ HD and looks great even on a 46inch screen with some major close ups on the fretboard. Check out the files you get in the download and weâ € ™ ll get stuck into the review
Video 1
Tom first walks us through the 2 other widely used concepts of fretboard visualization (3-note per string and caged system) He points out their usefulness and inadequacies in regards to playing through modulation or key changes.
Next Tom shows us the importance of learning the root notes all over the neck and demonstrates ways to make this vital ingredient easier to learn. Small chunks and one-octave sections make it far easier for the brain to connect and learn the interval shapes.
Tom teaches 4 concepts he uses for all intervals; same string, adjacent strings, lower and string skipped lower intervals, plus how these all stay the same through changes, where only the note names change.
Without giving too much away, Tom meticulously teaches us all the intervals we need to know. Everything is there to make up the tools we need for composition and improvising.
Tom shows how he thinks and maps out through scales when improvising, and then demonstrates it.
He them moves from visualizing intervals chord tones to visualising intervals that make scales.
He explains the benefits of using this knowledge in smaller brain friendly chunks and the benefits of phrasing with it instead of automatic muscle memory runs.
Video 2
Tom now takes us through the concepts we learned in the first video and teaches us how to practically apply them to changes playing concepts.
This second part is where tom really shows his great teaching skills and guides us into creating lines and traversing through changes with interval recognition from the first chapter.
This is a fantastic tool that works incredibly well and takes me personally into uncharted territory via Toms step by step methodology.
We learn 3 exercises in free time, song forms, are of the jazz genre and consist of, Autumn leaves, Spain and Inner Urge (plus bonus track) so youâ € ™ ll be getting your jazz tickle on for sure.
Tom explains the functional and non functional nature of these tracks and gets into the chords for Autumn Leaves in Bb (first 8 bars)
Although Tom states he is not teaching jazz harmony he does talk about the 251 types the song has and what each chords function is in relation to the roman numeral or numbers system.
Tom then launches into the different ways people learn to visualize over these chords in scale forms, then arpeggio form. He speaks on the pros and cons of these larger pieces of information types.
Then we learn the way Tom thinks when he plays, focusing in, using intervals in one-octave chunks. We are shown that there are different ways to learn these, limitation and freeform.
The progressive way tom teaches this, starting with just locating root notes shows up that I need to work on note location.
Tom goes methodically through each of the other tracks showing us in incremental steps how to think when improvising and writing in a way that will add to our thought process in any chord progression situation.
I have left out many great insights and pearls from this review so you will have to get the tutorial and I promise you wont be disappointed.
I recommend this to everyone learning guitar even if youâ € ™ re not into jazz because the fundamentals Tom teaches will be useful for any style or situation.
Beginner:
Starting with the beginner masterclass you’ll be covering the very basics: Explaining what a scale is, what intervals are, what target notes (over static chords) are, and why it’s important that you know them!
After some explanations (complete with useful scale diagrams) we have some exercises designed specifically to help you learn the major scale across the entire neck. If you’ve ever wondered how the pros are able to solo so freely on the guitar that’s because they can visualize their scales as one big shape that spans the whole neck. With this series you can learn to do that too! This part lays down the groundwork and ensures that you know the basics very well before we move on!
Intermediate:
This second part of the series takes things up a level. You’ll be covering targeting notes (this time over moving harmony), arpeggios within the major scale, viewing the major pentatonic scale as a subset of the major scale. We will start to look at playing in string groups to break out of box shapes, and increase the tempo so that you have to think that little bit quicker! Inside the licks and solo we will be looking at a few melodic studies, some arpeggio studies and we will be working on viewing the major pentatonic scale all over the neck!
Advanced:
Following on from parts 1 and 2, we really start turning things to the max, challenging you technically and theoretically by adding in more advanced target notes (over faster chord changes), using the pentatonic substitutions in context, exploring non-diatonic intervals and their character sounds as well as including more advanced concepts like chromatic passing tones! Being able to freely play / think and understand these concepts at both fast and slow speeds is the overall goal of this masterclass, so that you can demonstrate just how well you know the material! The exercises in this final section will challenge you by using quick shifts between positions, working through triads and their inversions at a faster pace as well as using pentatonic substitutions.
Rounding things off for pack 3, we have the last and most advanced sample solo which takes the concepts covered in all three parts of the masterclass, along with some cool new ideas to challenge you one last time! Mastering (and genuinely understanding) the lines in this solo is your final task for this masterclass and studying this will require you to use everything you’ve learned so far by putting your new skills to the test!
As ever, we have included everything you need to practise and perfect the material in this package. There are video and audio tracks for you to watch / listen and study, accurately transcribed TAB / notation for you to analyse and master, and backing tracks for everything!
We would also like to extend a huge thanks to Jake Willson for being our ‘Stig’ and sessioning on this JTC Masterclass!