Transpose the Map and Make Diagonal Routes

Day 22 | about 25 minutes

G and E minor

Focus: transfer all five shapes to G without mentally sliding the C diagram.

• 3 min: Name the five notes: G, A, B, D, E. Locate each root family. A root family is all the places one of those notes turns up: G is on the open G course and its twelfth fret, the fifth fret of the D course, the tenth of the A course and the third of the E course. Do the same for A, B, D and E and you have accounted for every dot on the board. The orange dots are the G's, and the dots marked 6 are the E's, which is E minor's root.
• 8 min: Transfer all five shapes; do not slide the diagram mentally from C. Sliding means picturing last week's C shapes and moving them seven frets, which works arithmetically and teaches you nothing. Find each window from its own notes instead: Shape 3 sits at the second to the fifth fret, Shape 4 at the fourth to the seventh, Shape 5 at the seventh to the tenth, Shape 1 at the ninth to the twelfth and Shape 2 at the twelfth to the fifteenth. That is the order the brackets read, 3, 4, 5, 1 then 2.
• 6 min: Connect the four joints using a different string each time. Shapes 3 and 4 share four notes, one on each course: B at the fourth fret of the G course, G at the fifth fret of the D course, D at the fifth fret of the A course and A at the fifth fret of the E course. So cross the first joint on the G course, the next on the D course, the next on the A course and the last on the E course, and no two joints get crossed on the same string.
• 6 min: Alternate G major and E minor resolutions over the same note set. The notes never change. Play a phrase and end it on a G and it is G major; play the same phrase and end it on an E and it is E minor. Do them in pairs, major then minor, so you hear the difference arrive with the last note and nothing else: the G at the fifth fret of the D course against the E at the second fret of the same course.
• 2 min: Log which tonal center felt clearer. Write G or E, and why. Usually one of them has better notes to end on under your hand. That is worth knowing, because the one that felt vague is the one to start phrases from tomorrow.

Why the brackets read 3, 4, 5, 1, 2: The five windows are a cycle rather than a row, so which one sits lowest depends on the key. In C they happen to read 1 to 5 from the nut up. In G the lowest window on a fifteen fret neck is Shape 3, and Shape 1 does not turn up until the ninth fret. The numbering has not changed and neither have the shapes; the neck simply starts in a different place, and meeting that on the page beats meeting it in the middle of a solo.

• End-of-day check: Both centers audible in your endings.

Day 23 | about 25 minutes

D and B minor

Focus: the same five shapes again in D, and the diagram put away after a minute.

• 3 min: Name the D major pentatonic notes before playing. D, E, F sharp, A and B, which are degrees 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6. Say them, then find one of each on the board without counting up from an open string: D at the seventh fret of the G course, E at the ninth, F sharp at the fourth fret of the D course, A at the seventh, B at the ninth. The relative minor's root is B, which is why the dots marked 6 matter as much as the orange ones today.
• 8 min: Full five-shape chain in both directions. The brackets read 5, 1, 2, 3 then 4 from the nut up, so the lowest window is Shape 5 at the second to the fifth fret and the highest is Shape 4 at the eleventh to the fourteenth. Run up through all five and back down, crossing at the joints rather than jumping. Shapes 1 and 2 in D share four notes and all four are at the seventh fret: D on the G course, A on the D course, E on the A course, B on the E course.
• 6 min: Start on F sharp, then B; hear major against relative minor. F sharp is the 3rd of D and B is the 6th, which is B minor's root. Start a phrase on the F sharp at the fourth fret of the D course and end it on a D and you have D major with the 3rd on top. Start on the B at the ninth fret of the D course and end on a B and the same five notes are B minor. Four of each, and listen to what the first and last notes are doing rather than what happens in the middle.
• 6 min: Two 30-second solos, one per tonal center. Thirty seconds aiming at D, thirty aiming at B, over the same five notes. Aiming means starting there, finishing there and passing through it on the way. If somebody listening could not say which of the two you were in, the endings were not clear enough.
• 2 min: Record the weakest joint. There are four in D and the brackets say where: 5 into 1 around the fourth and fifth frets, 1 into 2 at the seventh, 2 into 3 at the ninth, 3 into 4 at the eleventh and twelfth. Write down the one that broke, with the fret.

• End-of-day check: No diagram after the first minute.

Day 24 | about 25 minutes

A and F sharp minor

Focus: cross the joints on different beats, and stop every phrase landing on the root.

• 3 min: Silent root map for A and F sharp. A is the tonic and F sharp is the relative minor's root, marked 6 on the board. The A's are the second and fourteenth frets of the G course, the seventh of the D course, the open A course and its twelfth fret, and the fifth of the E course. The F sharps are the eleventh fret of the G course, the fourth of the D course, the ninth of the A course and the second and fourteenth of the E course. Touch them all without picking anything.
• 8 min: Five shapes, low to high and back. The brackets read 2, 3, 4, 5 then 1 from the nut up, so the lowest window is Shape 2 at the second to the fifth fret and Shape 1 does not appear until the eleventh. Run the road up and back down. Shapes 2 and 3 in A share the B at the fourth fret of the G course, the F sharp at the fourth fret of the D course, the C sharp at the fourth fret of the A course and the A at the fifth fret of the E course.
• 6 min: Cross each joint on a different beat of the bar. Count a bar as eight eighth notes, one and two and three and four and. Cross the first joint on the first and, the second on beat two, the third on the third and, the fourth on beat four. The crossing then stops being tied to a strong beat, and a shift that always lands on beat one is a shift the listener can hear coming.
• 6 min: Resolve five phrases to chord tones other than the root. The A chord is A, C sharp and E, so a non-root resolution means finishing on a C sharp or an E. C sharp is at the fourth fret of the A course and the sixth of the G course; E is at the seventh fret of the A course and the ninth of the G course. Five phrases, not one of them ending on an A, and count them as you go, because the hand will try to sneak one in.
• 2 min: Log any default ending. A default ending is what your hand goes to when you stop choosing, and by this point in the week it is usually a climb to the nearest root. Write down the note and the fret, because naming it is what lets you refuse it tomorrow.

• End-of-day check: At least three non-root resolutions.

Day 25 | about 25 minutes

B flat and G minor

Focus: build the chain in the key you have played least, and start inside five seconds.

• 3 min: Name the pitch set and find both roots. B flat, C, D, F and G, which are degrees 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6, and the two roots are B flat for the major and G for the relative minor. B flat is at the third fret of the G course, the eighth of the D course, the first and thirteenth of the A course and the sixth of the E course. G is the open G course and its twelfth fret, the fifth fret of the D course, the tenth of the A course and the third of the E course.
• 8 min: Build the five-shape chain in the less familiar key. B flat is the one key in this workbook where the brackets read 1, 2, 3, 4 then 5 straight up the neck, and it is also the one where a shape uses open strings: the open G course and the open D course are both in Shape 1. Build the chain from the bottom up, naming each window's own notes rather than moving another key's picture, and run it up and back down twice.
• 6 min: Random shape calls: enter from below and exit above. A call here is a shape number drawn at random, one to five. The five shape slips are on the call slips page below, or write your own. Entering from below means your first note is the lowest note of that window; exiting above means your last is the highest, so you pass through the whole thing rather than dipping into the middle of it. Shape 3 in B flat, for instance, runs from the C at the fifth fret of the G course up to the C at the eighth fret of the E course.
• 6 min: Phrase against B flat major, then G minor. The same five notes both times. For B flat major, start and finish on a B flat, the third fret of the G course or the first of the A course. For G minor, start and finish on a G, the fifth fret of the D course or the third of the E course. Do them in pairs so the difference is plain to you, and play them for somebody else if you can, because the real test is whether a listener hears it.
• 2 min: Count clean starts out of 10. Ten shape calls, and a clean start is the right first note inside five seconds with no hunting. Eight out of ten is the proof line. Write the number and which shapes the misses were in, because in B flat it is usually Shape 1, where the open strings make the fingering feel unlike the other four.

Call slips to printThe pentatonic shapes set: five slips, Shape 1 to Shape 5.mandolintrainer.com/workbooks/fretboard/slips/#shapes

• End-of-day check: At least 8 of 10 immediate starts.

Day 26 | about 25 minutes

Diagonal route

Focus: get from a low tonic to a high one without a single boxed shape run.

• 3 min: Choose G or D and mark a low starting tonic and a high target tonic. In D the low one is the D at the seventh fret of the G course and the high one is the D at the tenth fret of the E course, two octaves of road apart. The first board draws every D on the neck, so pick a different pair if you would rather. Say both out loud, and say roughly how many notes you think the trip should take.
• 8 min: Travel diagonally; use only 2 to 4 notes before changing shape. A diagonal crosses the neck instead of running up and down one shape. Play two to four notes, change shape, play two to four more, and keep climbing. Change shape on a gray dot on the second board. Two shapes hold that note, so nobody hears the change. The third board draws one diagonal, and the lines below spell it out.
• 6 min: Reverse the exact route without defaulting to position runs. The same notes in the opposite order, from the D at the tenth fret of the E course back down to the D at the seventh of the G course. Defaulting to position runs means the hand giving up on the diagonal and walking down one window instead. It will try. Play it slowly enough that you can feel it try, and then do not let it.
• 6 min: Create three phrase-length diagonals with rests. A phrase-length diagonal is one short enough to be a single phrase, four to eight notes with a breath after, that still gets somewhere: from a low register to a high one, or across at least two windows. Three of them, each with a rest inside it, and put the rest where the hand would otherwise be scrambling to change shape.
• 2 min: Name the best route. Write the notes down, or hum it into your phone. This is the first day of the workbook that makes something worth keeping: a diagonal you can play again is a lick, and a diagonal you cannot play again was luck.

• 1. Shape 1: the low D at the seventh fret of the G course, then A at the seventh fret of the D course.
• 2. That A is circled. Shape 2 holds it too, so change shape there. Carry on in Shape 2: B at fret 9 of the D course, then E and F sharp at frets 7 and 9 of the A course.
• 3. That F sharp is circled. Shape 3 holds it too, so change shape again. Finish in Shape 3: A at fret 12 of the A course, then the high D at the tenth fret of the E course.

What a boxed-shape sound is: It is what you get when a line runs up one window, stops at the top, comes back down and starts again. Anybody who has heard a player learn shapes recognizes it, because the phrases all come out the same length and turn round in the same places. A diagonal cures it by leaving each window before it has been used up.

• End-of-day check: Reach the target without a boxed-shape sound.

Day 27 | about 25 minutes

Rhythmic disguise

Focus: take one route and make it stop sounding like an exercise.

• 3 min: Choose one connected route through at least three shapes. The board draws Shapes 3, 4 and 5 in G, which between them cover the second to the tenth fret. A connected route is one line passing through all three without stopping: out of Shape 3 across the B at the fourth fret of the G course or the G at the fifth fret of the D course, through Shape 4, and into Shape 5 on the D at the seventh fret of the G course or the A at the seventh of the D course. Choose your route now and keep it all day, because today is about the rhythm and not the notes.
• 8 min: Play it in groups of 3, 5, and 7 against steady quarter notes. Set a metronome or the band to a plain quarter note pulse and leave it alone. A group of three means you accent every third note of the route while the beat keeps coming in fours, so the accent walks around the bar and only comes back into line three bars later. Then fives, then sevens. The route is the same every time; the only thing moving is where the weight falls.
• 6 min: Add one rest and one held note per two-bar phrase. In each two-bar phrase leave one beat silent and let one note last twice as long as the others. That is all. Those two things are most of the difference between a scale and a line, and neither of them costs any technique.
• 6 min: Call and response: same notes, different rhythm. Play two bars of your route, then answer with the same notes in a different rhythm: even the first time, then with the groups of three, or with the rest moved somewhere else. Not one pitch changes between the call and the response. If it still sounds like a conversation, the rhythm was doing all the work.
• 2 min: Record the version that sounds least like an exercise. One take of whichever grouping felt most like music, and keep the file. Week 7 asks for this again inside a tune, and having one of your own to compare against is worth more than a memory of it.

What a group of 3, 5 or 7 does: It lays an odd number of notes over a beat that comes in fours, so the accent lands somewhere different in each bar and only comes home after three, five or seven of them. That is the whole trick, and it is why the same notes can sound new. Keep the quarter note pulse absolutely steady, because the effect only exists against something that is not moving.

• End-of-day check: The pulse stays intact through the groupings.

Day 28 | about 25 minutes

Phase 2 test

Focus: record a round trip and a diagonal in two keys, with nothing to look at.

• 3 min: Draw two keys, one familiar and one less familiar. Out of the four this week used, G, D, A and B flat. Familiar is whichever came easiest; less familiar is the one you would rather not be asked about, which is usually B flat. Draw them rather than choosing them. The two boards on this card are D and B flat, written in note names rather than degrees, because a test checks whether you know the notes and not only the pattern.
• 10 min: Record an uninterrupted five-shape round trip in each. Up through all five windows and back down, one take per key, with the recorder running. Uninterrupted means no pauses, no restarts and no slowing down for a joint. If you need to slow down, slow the whole thing down before you start: a pass that changes speed at the joints has failed the thing it was testing.
• 5 min: Play one diagonal route in each key. Low tonic to high tonic, two to four notes a window, the way Friday built it. In D that is the D at the seventh fret of the G course up to the D at the tenth fret of the E course. In B flat it is the B flat at the third fret of the G course up to the B flat at the sixth fret of the E course. Record both.
• 5 min: Improvise 45 seconds using at least three shapes. Either key, forty five seconds, at least three of the five windows, and phrases rather than runs. Count the windows afterwards if you are not sure: a solo that stayed in two stayed in a box, however good it sounded.
• 2 min: Score transitions, time, and tonal resolution. Transitions is whether the joints held. Time is whether the pulse did. Tonal resolution is whether a listener could tell the major from the relative minor by where you stopped. Score each 0, 1 or 2 and write the three numbers down. Both keys have to pass, and a pass in the familiar key alone is not one.

• End-of-day check: Both keys pass without the diagram.