Learning three note per string patterns of scales can bring many advantages. They can help you play faster, improve fluency and broaden your fretboard knowledge.
These fingerings do not form compact shapes like CAGED scale patterns, requiring more flexibility from your fretting hand and creating challenges for players with smaller hands or limited flexibility.
Improved speed
Playing scales using 3 note per string patterns will enable you to play them faster than using traditional scale shapes, as they provide consistency across all strings and allow your picking hand to quickly move up and down the fretboard.
Beginners often struggle with speed when playing standard scale shapes, and following a consistent pattern is an invaluable aid in memorizing scale shapes more efficiently and building up speed more rapidly.
An additional advantage of employing scale patterns is their symmetrical patterns on the fretboard, which can aid when navigating complex modal scales or extended arpeggios. You could also use these symmetrical designs to practice string-to-string transitions when leading, which will enable smoother melodies and fast runs up the fretboard.
Practice these scale patterns will also help expand your fingerboard knowledge. By watching how intervals in different scales change when moving patterns across strings, it will give an understanding of their construction as well as help you to navigate more easily across the fretboard and learn other scale patterns with similar interval structures as your chosen scale pattern.
Additionally, these patterns can be combined with directional picking techniques to further increase their efficiency when moving up the fretboard and playing fast lines. This method can especially benefit those still learning alternating picking as it will save even more time than just using regular patterns.
Though the advantages of playing with 3 note per string patterns are clear, it is important to keep in mind that they take time and practice to master. They require slightly more flexibility in your fretting hand than some other scale systems – which could present challenges for guitarists with small hands or limited flexibility. But once these obstacles have been surmounted, 3 note per string patterns will open up your fretboard while adding new sounds to your lead playing!
Improved fluency
Not only can using three note per string scale patterns improve your speed and fluency, they can also expand your fretboard knowledge. Many great guitarists utilize this form of scale formation as it gives a greater understanding of chord formation across the fretboard – as well as help transition between positions more effortlessly.
These patterns form scale shapes which can be combined to produce various melodies and scale patterns, from lead lines to rhythm parts. You can use these 3-note-per-string patterns for improvisation, lead lines or even legato techniques like playing smoothly without picking each note individually; using traditional fingering patterns makes this difficult; with 3-note per string patterns this becomes much simpler.
3 note per string scale patterns offer another distinct advantage on the guitar: they allow for playing a wider range of notes than standard scale shapes, making it particularly helpful when performing modal scales or extended arpeggios. Being able to transition seamlessly from string to string makes these patterns easier than other approaches when dealing with complex chord progressions and modal scales.
These scale shapes can also help expand the keys played with more flexibility than standard scale shapes allow, for instance the first three-note-per-string pattern covers an A major scale while only reaching G in its original state. This can be beneficial when playing songs in different keys or learning other modes of the major scale.
These patterns also tend to feature more symmetrical feel than standard scale shapes, which is beneficial when employing other techniques like alternate or economy picking. Their symmetry also makes memorizing their patterns much simpler – this being one reason so many guitarists, including some of history’s finest guitar shredders, choose 3 NPs patterns as part of their learning repertoire.
Improved fretboard knowledge
Employing three note per string scale patterns is an excellent way to familiarize yourself with the fretboard. By practicing different keys of these patterns, you will gain a solid grasp on how the scales connect to form an overall fretboard picture that makes improvising easier as well as finding melodies or arpeggios that go beyond simple scales in one key.
Learning three note per string scale patterns is another excellent way to expand your understanding of intervals and fretboard layout. By memorizing all major and minor scales, as well as how they interact with chord shapes, learning these patterns allows you to play them anywhere on the fretboard – even more difficult positions! Knowing these patterns allows you to learn songs and riffs more quickly while also giving you the option of creating your own scales in any key you desire.
Scale patterns with three notes per string provide an effective alternative to the CAGED fingering pattern set, particularly for beginners. Requiring less string changes than other patterns makes these scale patterns easy to speed up and perfect for fast runs legato style improvisation or fast runs accompanied with legato technique. Furthermore, this approach also works well when taking on modal scales or expanding your improvisational vocabulary.
If you’re familiar with CAGED system, moving onto this fingering pattern set should be fairly simple. But if it’s your first time using it, you may struggle with keeping up at first – to ease into it gradually, try practicing these patterns at lower tempos until they feel comfortable for you before slowly increasing the speed. This will build muscle memory for these patterns!
Three note per string scale patterns also offer another benefit – they can be played using directional picking techniques such as downstroke-land-on, which involves playing downstrokes on each string to land on its next note before moving to another string. This technique saves both time and effort when trying to improvise fast licks quickly; many shredders utilize it. When combined with these scale patterns, combined practice becomes even faster and more efficient!
New sounds
Three note per string scale patterns can add new sounds and textures to your lead guitar playing, creating more interesting harmonies and arpeggios when played alongside standard scale shapes. They’re also great opportunities to practice hammer-ons and pull-offs which will increase picking efficiency and speed overall – simply practice at slow tempos until you’re comfortable playing them consistently before slowly increasing their tempo until it feels natural for you.
These patterns also allow you to easily create modal scales. Modal scales are formed by starting with one chord and moving up or down through its scale degrees (known as scale keys). For instance, C major can lead to G Dorian with careful transitions of scale keys – so using 3 notes per string scale patterns you can generate multiple modal scales without changing strings during fretboard traversals.
Those interested in rock, fusion and jazz will find this technique especially helpful. These genres demand fast runs with many string changes; using a three note per string scale pattern will enable you to speed up these runs while keeping a constant rhythmic flow.
Although this fingering system takes some getting used to, it can be immensely useful when expanding their fretboard knowledge. These patterns help break out from the standard box-shapes used by CAGED system and offer greater rhythmic consistency than other fingering systems. They are also popular among guitar shredders since they make fast playing easier while maintaining rhythmic flow.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that while scale patterns are great for scalar passages, they may not necessarily provide you with the most effective tool for melodic playing. When performing melodic runs you should still utilize box patterns familiar to you.