Sign up

Fret Science

Not verified No WebSub updates No webmention support Not yet validated

Understand more, memorize less. This is where I work on Fret Science in public: what's new on the site, what I'm building and measuring, and the ideas behind the method. Updated when I have something worth sharing.

Generator
Next.js
Public lists
ooh.directory: Guitars
Fetched

Fret Science
Text • Keith

Learn the modes in minutes!

Our first YouTube video! If you already know the pentatonic scale anywhere on the fretboard, you can instantly access the modes by understanding how the modes relate to the pentatonic scale and to each other.

Fret Science
Text • Keith

Cognitive science for guitar nerds, part 1: the magical number 7 +/- 2

Guitarists can learn some valuable lessons from the field of cognitive science. Understanding of the limitations of working memory in the human brain is one of them.

Fret Science
Text • Keith

More yummy harmonies: spread thirds

Make beautiful fingerpicked harmonies just like The Beatles did.

Fret Science
Text • Keith

MmmMMmm: easy delicious harmonies with 3rds and 6ths in all seven diatonic modes

This mental model will have you playing beautiful harmonized licks instantly.

Fret Science
Text • Keith

Learn the blues scale across the fretboard in under a minute

If you know the right way of thinking about the penatonic scale, learning the blues scale couldn't be easier.

Fret Science
Text • Keith

The rectangle and the stack: reimagining the pentatonic scale

A new way to visualize and navigate pentatonic scales across the entire fretboard, with 85% less memorization than the CAGED system.

Fret Science
Text • Keith

A hierarchy of notes

Many guitarists learn and memorize diatonic scales, pentatonic scales, and triad arpeggios as three separate concepts, but they are intimately related, and it’s beneficial to learn each as an overlay on the next.

Fret Science
Text • Keith

Break into the box

"The Rectangle" is a handy place to access all seven diatonic modes in a four-fret span on just two strings.

Fret Science
Text • Keith

Hiding in plain sight

The link between pentatonic scales and the diatonic modes has been staring you in the face all along. And it’s both the key to quickly pivoting from one scale to another and an easy way to add color to your pentatonic soloing.

Fret Science
Text • Keith

Learn to go from 3nps to “in-position” scales in 1 minute

If you know 3nps, now you also know your "in-position" scales.

Fret Science
Text • Keith

3nps: One pattern to rule them all

"The modes" are all explained by a simple repeating fretboard pattern that you can learn in minutes.

Fret Science
Text • Keith

Triad geometry

Triad geometry is surprisingly simple. Here's a way to learn all your triads by learning 3 basic shapes and some simple transformation rules.

Fret Science
Text • Keith

If you only understand something one way…

How being able to reconstruct scales from a few basic patterns can become your superpower.

Fret Science
Text • Keith

The geometry of standard tuning

Understand and visualize the ways that geometric patterns move around the guitar fretboard in standard tuning.