I’ve been playing regularly since around 2020, but have known open chords and messed around long before that. I learned the pentatonic scale in Amaj in the G shape shortly after starting, and just slid that around the fretboard. There have been points where I must have known 10-12 different chords based on pure memory but still didn’t know my way around the fretboard at all. You know how some people start seeing patterns? Yeah, I didn’t.
Lo and behold, I just sat down for a couple hours today and yesterday to sit through some introductory theory. I started off with the CAGED system yesterday, and learned the G, E, and D shape pentatonics. Then I asked myself: what tf am I doing with this information if I don’t know the key I’m in, and went on to research more theory.
Man… not realizing that notes flow down in alphabetic order down the fretboard was probably the craziest realization. How did I not know this??? The next one was that the note corresponds directly to where the respective bar chord is played. Like the A note on the 5th fret of the E string is the A major chord… Next was realizing that there is in fact a pattern to the shape of major and minor chords on the E vs. A strings. Honestly, in a matter of hours, I feel like I just absolutely barrelled past my plateau. I’m also learning the 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 thing where if you find any two-three chords, you can sort of tell which key you’re in. I was just guessing using the root note before.
I cannot wait to continue. I’m moving onto the wheel of fifths now but everything already makes so much more sense, it’s kind of surreal. All those shapes I learned before are instantly coming back, and I can actually link everything now. wtf
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