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This live stream focused on learning the fretboard through songs. The foundation is knowing your note circle - without it, everything falls apart. From there, you can count up from any open string: A, A sharp, B, C, C sharp and so on until you're back at A again.
The key landmarks are the first three dots and the double dot at the 12th fret where the guitar repeats. If you can remember G, A, B and C, D, E at those positions, you're honestly laughing because everything else runs from there. String six is tuned the same as string one, so those patterns mirror each other.
Seven Nation Army is perfect for this - E, B, G, E, D, C, B - no sharps or flats, and you can play it in different positions once you know the notes. Same with Knock On Wood and Midnight Hour using E minor pentatonic on one string. Shakin' All Over by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates is brilliant because you can challenge yourself to play the same riff at different octaves across the neck.
I covered the relationship between E minor pentatonic and G major pentatonic - same notes, different starting point. Wish You Were Here demonstrates this beautifully using the three-two method: three notes two frets apart, then two notes two frets apart. That pattern gets you from the nut to the dusty end in the key of G.
Octaves are crucial for fretboard knowledge. You've got the obvious ones two octaves apart on strings one and six, plus the top of your power chord shape. The tricky bit is the C shape - if you can visualise where your ring finger and index finger sit in a C chord, you've got all your octaves sorted. I ran through finding every F and every E-flat on the neck using these shapes.
We went through the five shapes of the minor pentatonic, with shapes three and four being where all your Hendrix riffs live - that E minor pentatonic superhighway between the open position and the octave. Shape five at the 12th fret is one everyone uses without realising.
Finished with a preview of the upcoming Rolling Stones course - ten songs covering open G tuning, open E tuning and standard tuning, including Start Me Up, Gimme Shelter, Satisfaction and Sympathy For The Devil.