A few years ago, I developed what I call “The Mother of All Major Scale Exercises.” It’s divided into four parts. In the video above, I walk you through Part 1. (You can see a brief explanation of the whole thing, from back when I came up with the exercise, here. I’ll be going into much more detail now.)

If you haven’t learned the five major scale shapes derived from The CAGED System, you’ll need to get those under your fingers before tackling this exercise. The exercise has you shift through the various positions every few seconds, which will eventually become effortless.

To review, here are the five shapes we’re dealing with, in C major:

Put simply, this first part of the exercise amounts to ascending through one position, descending through the next one up the neck, ascending through the next one, and so on.

Below is the entire exercise in C major. Click the image for a printable PDF version. If you don’t have the 22 frets used in this example, just turn around when you reach your fretting limit. And don’t for get to do the whole thing again in all 11 other keys!

Continue to Part 2!