Consider the above diagram. It’s a map of all the notes in C major and where they can be found on the neck of a guitar. The notes with the crosses on them are C, the root note. The first note in the scale.It looks daunting doesn’t it? It looks like it would take you weeks of boring work to learn. You have nothing to worry about, you can learn every nuance of this in a very short time if you just have some patience and devote an hour a day to learning it. Once you have this map in your head, you can use it to play in any key. When you watch Steve Vai play on a dvd, not only will you appreciate it more, but you will know exactly what he is doing, what key he is in and how hard it might be to do.

More to the point, you will know that you can do it too. You will do what every exceptional guitarist has done since time began; watch and copy. If you learn the scales that follow, you will never need to buy a book of music again; you will never need them. The best thing though, you can make your own music and know it’s in key and perfect. This is why you want to play guitar isn’t it? So you can make that
sound you have in your head, your sound, and make it real. Well then, invest a weekend in learning these few pages and watch your musical ability explode