Fretboard Freedom - Book/Audio Online

Final update: after 6 months of working through this book I can say it have improved my playing a lot especially when used in conjunction with Guitar Aerobics and Rhythm Guitar 365.The method of this book becomes clear once you get towards the end. By the end of the book you will have a much better intuitive understanding and feel for the fretboard and will be much more confident playing up the fretboard.One thing that it took me too long to really understand was that the weekly chord shapes are more effective when practiced as arpeggios. Not just as full chords.Week 36 update: almost 3/4 complete and down the home stretch. As you go through the second half, the exercises do get more difficult, but remain a steady progression. I have not gotten stuck on any particular lesson that I couldn’t at least do 90% speed after 30 minutes of focused practice. I have enjoyed this book even if it’s feels a bit repetitive. The great thing about this book, is just when the exercises start to get familiar, they change to something new. So there are similar exercises, which actually helps to integrate what you are learning. Toward the end of the book the focus shifts away from soloing over one chord to a chord progression. I kinda wish that there was a sequel that just focused on soloing over chord progressions using his system. But all that you need is here.Week 26 update: I still really like this book and still recommend it. If anything it becomes much easier as the week have gone by. That is because chord shapes, scale shapes and arpeggios shapes are same every 4 weeks. This may seem to make it repetitive, but it really makes those shapes become intuitive and natural. You are really going to improve your fluency all over the fretboard which is the point of the book. The licks are varied and it is an excellent approach to play the same lick/riff in 5 different positions. While the recommended approach is to do one exercise a day, I have found that the Monday-Friday exercises are more effective to do in a slightly modified routine. Specifically: every day spend 10 minutes on the arpeggio and another 10 on the scale as a warmup. Then on Monday learn the primary lick of the week (30 to 60 minutes). Once you have the primary lick down Tuesday through Friday is pretty easy and you can really focus on moving that lick around the fretboard. If you practice the arpeggio and scale every day as a warmup, Saturday and Sunday will be a lot easier. With this approach, I have found you can do 2 weeks in one week in about 1-2 hours a day, especially as you get farther into the book since the chords, scales and appeggio shapes are the same every 4 weeks. That means by week 26 you have done each arpeggio and chord shape 6 times and the scale shape 12 times. As The arpeggio shapes and scale shapes become memorized, I would focus more on the chord shapes. Some chord shapes are pretty hard, and are more about being able to play them in an arpeggiated style as opposed to a strumming all the notes at once. This is where the magic really happens with this book as you connect the arpeggios and scales to the chord shapes. I would only memorize those licks that you want to integrate into your soloing bag of tricks.Week 12 review:I love the approach of this book and the authors other 365 series of books: Rhythm Guitar 365 and Guitar Aerobics. All three books could form the basis of a great daily practice routine.What makes this book and the other 365 books great is that they give you something new to work on every day. This is a great way to engage in deliberate practice and improve your play dramatically. You don’t have to think about or plan your routine, you just need to open the book and go.Fretboard Freedom is an excellent book to build: Scale vocabulary, internalize scales shapes and really learn your way around the fretboard confidently. You will see that the fretboard becomes smaller and much more intuitive as you work through this book.This book has a rather focused approach on what is covered and I love it for it. It is not a beginners book, but it is also not an advanced book. I would say it is the hardest of the author’s book in this series. But he gives you lots of reputation to really get the knowledge down cold. You defiantly get your money’s worth. It progresses at a very manageable pace, but I found that one lesson/riff a night was pretty much as fast as I could go. His other books, I could get through two or three, especially at the beginning.The audio samples are good and very helpful to understand what you need to play. I have found that it is helpful to practice the week’s scales every day then do the day's lesson.If you really want to supercharge your guitar progress I recommend getting all three of his 365 books and do a lesson or two a day from each for a year, I guarantee you will see dramatic results. Will you be Steve Vai? No, but you will be able to taller Steve Vai’s famous 10 hour practice routine.Don’t skip the audio files, use them to really see how well you are playing.

Book Review: Fretboard Freedom by Troy Nelson.I'm giving this book a five star review, and my highest recommendation. Despite a somewhat goofy looking cover this is the best $12.50 (used) I've ever spent, hours of fun, and for a kid it really could make long term guitar lessons obsolete.I'm a 100 "licks deep" [ha] into the book, and let me describe it to you.Every week, 7 guitar riffs/licks, one a day. If you are an intermediate like myself, you will learn the daily lick in 10 minutes, and then you have your whole TV watching life to practice them during...ha ha!The first five licks each week are the same chord based riff in all five positions, so you are not only learning the chords in all positions, but melodic runs up and down the neck. So much fun, compared to years and years I've wasted [time and money] merely memorizing and mindlessly playing scales. These first five riffs are melodic, memorable, but generic enough, that you can disassemble them, and make them your own.What's brilliant about learning the same riff each week in 5 positions, and I hope you understand this.. it makes me remember the neck melodically, not just rote memory. I can be anywhere on the neck strumming chords, and if I need "that riff," lol, I can now hear it in my head, visualize it, and grab the son of a gun from anywhere.The last 2 riffs every week are a little flashier, and reminiscent of a guitar hero, like Hendrix, Clapton, Roy Clark, et. al. I usually learn these on Sat or Sun, when I have more time to commit.The book is so far thankfully free of the wanky hair band style playing. God, how that plagued me as a kid, when every damn magazine was transcribing hyper fast b.s. like Mr. Big, White Tiger...Lion, lol! I admire that level of skill, but this book is making me sound far more like a 70's player. The primary styles it covers are rock, jump blues, and some really great rocking country riffs too. You'd really be getting your "Big Star" on after completing this book, or your Mick Ronson/Ace Frehley.Every three weeks, the book brilliantly covers 3 different chords, but all the same root note. So for example, the first three weeks are learning C major, then C minor, and finally C dominant 7th. My musicians pals will immediately see the benefit of this, seeing how rock soloing generally flips back in forth between these three scales, over the same 2 note power chord. After the weeks, the next chord group covered will logically relate to the previous three chords. Yes, C, F, and G in the first nine weeks, and as some of you know, transposing that is 90 percent of rock songwriting.The effect of being increasingly able to visualize the neck for me, is I relatively quickly found myself sounding what I will describe as "Seeds as a mo-fo." Yes, flipping effortlessly now between those dominant seventh riffs, and my tired old pentatonics, Yes, I often visualize backing Sky Saxon's quintessential garage rock band, with strobe lights, go go dancers, people bursting through the wall in a gorilla suit, etc. Yes, in other words, I'm living the dream! Flipping to a major riff, suddenly I'm on that Cars/Plimsouls dream, visualizing myself in a striped shirt, rooster cut, on an Elliot Easton groove, or the Phil Seymour solo album tip.Oh, MOST important, access to the website. You get access to the Hal Leonard website, where every riff is not only there to listen and play along to, but get this, you can slow it down, and it stays in key! Remember the stone age, when you'd slow down a tape recorder to learn a riff, but the key changed? No more brothers and sisters. No too fast to learn riffs, where you can barely hear what notes are playing. Yes, many of the riffs are quick of course, but slowing it down becomes fun. When you start slow, you get on the David Gilmour vibe, digging on every long drawn out tasteful bend. Oh, and you can loop the riffs too! Nothing cements it in your memory like a riff played over and over at first 50 percent speed, then 60, then 70, then 80, then....weedle-ee-dee, weedle-ee-dee, weedle weedle. You get the picture.In conclusion, I've never been a guitar wizard, but if this book is penetrating my thick middle aged skull to the level that it is, any kid starting out would be a rock and roll maniac after finishing this brilliant course. I'd probably blaze on bass now too, after getting such a firm visualization of patterns on the neck.Get rocking kids.P.S. I would encourage the author to do a sequel, with more advanced chords, 6ths, 4ths, suspended seconds, etc. If a sequel was as fun as this, it could take me into Robert Fripp/Adrian Belew land...

Seemed like a good book but I returned as the kindle version did not include the code to access the audio. I found with Guitar Aerobics that the audio (which included a code in the kindle version) was very important to help me understand what I was trying to do.

I have a significant amount of guitar instruction books including ones devoted to playing lead. However, I ordered Nelson's "Fretboard Freedom" after reading the user reviews and looking through the sample pages on Amazon.com. Although I am only into week one, I have a very good feeling that this book is going to allow me to gain the confidence in playing lead guitar once and for all. It is organized in short lessons and it is very well structured so that there is always something new each day and yet maintains a consistency.I highly recommend it. I would also suggest downloading some backing tracks to improvise your lead playing in the day's key lesson. For example, the first week is C major. I downloaded several tracks from the internet (free) that I can play along to based on the licks I've learned and the five "voicings" in that particular key. It seems to greatly aid in my learning where I can play.

I have purchased a lot of guitar tutor books over the years and i have to say that the three Troy Nelson ones are excellent. They have given me a greater understanding of the fretboard and got me out of a rut and given me renewed enthusiasm for the instrument.Highly recommended

Really cool if you've got the time to stick with it each day. Provides a nice structure that teaches a range of things.

Very helpful

Kein Buch für Anfänger!Der Titel des Buches verspricht die Freiheit auf dem Griffbrett. Was gemeint ist nach diesem Lehrbuch beherrscht man das Griffbrett. Was sicherlich auch stimmt. Als Vorübung im ersten Kapitel möchte der Autor, dass man lernt, wo welcher Ton auf dem Griffbrett liegt. Das sollte man wissen. Hmmm, ich dachte, das lerne ich im Laufe des Buches....Jeden Tag gibt es einen neuen Lick, der aus den Bereichen Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country, Metal oder R&B stammt. Nach 365 Tagen sollte ich dann das Buch durchgearbeitet haben. Aber das ist eine Illusion. Um einen Lick nicht nur mal angespielt zu haben, sondern auch in das eigene Repertoire aufgenommen zu haben, braucht man eigentlich eine Woche ständigen wiederholens.Das Buch eignet sich eher als eine systematische Lick-Sammlung zu unterschiedlichen Stilrichtungen. Habe ich also einen Song in C-Dur, dann finde ich hier genügend Anregungen für ein Solo aus den vorgestellten Licks. Wer also Anregungen und eine Licksammlung aus verschiedenen Stilrichtungen sucht, ist bei dem Buch sehr gut aufgehoben.

Ok, so I'm a week behind where I should be with this one because I mistook the prelim mon-sun pages as the first week. It's fine, it's not a race. Anyway, the first week is under my belt and this book has some great material.I've paired this book with Guitar Aerobics and Rhythm Guitar 365 (same author and publisher), which I'm studying concurrently. I've been playing for 40+ years and wanted a kick in the pants to explore new territory on the guitar. If I had to choose one of the three books to study, based on these early days and the material covered so far, this would be the one I'd recommend. It's got some great stuff.