DAY 2 - Dorian Everywhere!

    Hello, my name is Prokopis Skordis. I’m the creator of the SFS Series of courses and lessons, and I want to welcome you to part 2 of the SFS Fretboard Secrets mini-course.

    If you missed the previous lesson, you can still follow along, but it might be better to use the navigation on this webpage to get to part 1 first. Or even better, if you haven’t already, go ahead and get the complete FREE mini-course using the link above.

    Btw I want to thank everyone who liked and shared part 1 and gave me some feedback on it. I always enjoy hearing from you and answering questions. 

    Today we are going to apply the String Fragment System to learn an extremely easy and quick way to play the Dorian Mode. But before we get started with our lesson, I wanna remind you to pick up the 2 free gifts that I have for you, if you don’t have them, using the links above. 

    One of them the very popular Fretboard Memorization Toolbox, and as I already mentioned, the other one is the complete SFS Fretboard Secrets mini-course, which includes lesson videos, diagrams, backing tracks, and some other bonus material. Just use the links below to get lifetime streaming and download access to these courses. You can get them for free, or you can chip in a donation to support EMP (now String Systems) if you are inclined to do so.

    And now let’s get to our lesson. By this time you are probably beginning to understand the potential of SFS. It’s a system that can help you improvise everywhere on the fretboard, in a very short time. It still takes practice, but the string fragment system is such an effective approach, that you see progress after every practice session.

    Those of you who tried what we learned in lesson one, can probably roam the fretboard, soloing with the blues scale in ways you couldn’t before. And that happened in a matter of minutes. Today we will do something similar. We will learn the Dorian mode, again using 3 string fragments. The Dorian mode is very useful, sounds very cool, and is an essential tool in every modern lead player’s toolbox.

    Even if you can already play it, today you will learn how to be more creative in your soloing, by being able to jump anywhere in the fretboard and improvise using SFS. By the end of the lesson, you will be doing something that usually takes ages to learn using traditional methods.

    So let’s get to it. We will learn this in the key of A, just like we did with the Blues Scale in lesson 1. This will help you see these two options side by side, and in a later lesson, we will learn how to combine them creatively. So let’s go to the A on string 6. This is our first root note. Put your 1st finger there, and play our 1st string fragment, which looks like this [EXAMPLE IN VIDEO].

    I’m going to call this SF2 and not SF1. That’s because what I’m showing you today is part of a bigger system that covers all 7 modes, and in that system, the Dorian Root note happens to be on the second string fragment. And I don’t want to confuse those of you that have worked on modes with me before. But those of you who are new to SFS, just bear with me, and let’s call this first string fragment SF2.

    So now we can already start improvising with these 3 notes, everywhere on the fretboard by placing SF2 over any A on any string. [EXAMPLE IN VIDEO]. If you don’t know where the A’s are, there’s a table in your PDF notes, in the SFS Fretboard Secrets package, that you can use until you learn them. Now at this point, you can use the A Dorian mp3 backing track that’s also included in your package, and start improvising with this.

    I know it’s just 3 notes, but you can still get a lot out of it, mostly because of this ability to jump around. In my premium courses, we do this kind of thing a lot. We use a big list of improvisation ideas and work with just a few notes. This forces you to use imagination, and rhythmic variation, and pay more attention to the sound of what you are playing. It’s a very effective practice approach.

    But sooner or later you will need more notes, so let’s add the next string fragment. We’ll call this SF3a. Again, the name is not so important. I’m using SF3a because that’s the name we use in my premium SFS Modes course when we work on 3nps fingerings. But don’t worry about the number. The numbers are temporary anyway, we just use them to communicate. As you practice this, the system will become totally intuitive, so let’s just play.

    SF3a requires a small stretch. Some players prefer to use fingers 1-2-4 [EXAMPLE IN VIDEO], and others 1-3-4 [EXAMPLE IN VIDEO]. Both have their benefits, so use what you want. What’s important is that now I can go to any A and play 6 notes [EXAMPLE IN VIDEO].

    But there are a couple of things we need to notice: First of all, if we start on string 1, as you can imagine, we don’t have an SF3a because we run out of strings. My students that are more skilled in using SFS, would in this case build the system backwards, and still use this root note [EXAMPLE IN VIDEO]. You see, in this mini-course, we will learn some very useful soloing options using a limited number of string fragments, just 3. But the potential of this system is unlimited. More advanced players use 7 string fragments for 3nps modes, and they can build the system in both directions. This makes them virtually unlimited in their fretboard navigation. But don’t let that intimidate you. One cool thing about SFS is that you can take it just as far as you want, and still get great results. You will still be miles ahead of many players by using just the material in this mini-course. I’m just trying to help you see the big picture.

    How far every individual wants to take this, depends on their goals, the style of music they want to apply this to, and so on. And don’t forget that learning guitar is a lifelong journey, so it’s nice to know what’s available, even if you will get to that at a later time.

    But let’s get back to our 2 string system. The second thing I want you to notice is the shift that occurs when we cross from string 3 into the top 2 strings [EXAMPLE IN VIDEO]. We talked about this in the previous lesson but it bears repetition. There is a discrepancy in the standard guitar tuning that makes this shift necessary. String fragments on the top two strings need to be shifted one fret up in relation to the bottom 4 strings. Let’s add one more string fragment and you will see this even more clearly. This one is called SF3b, and it looks exactly like SF3a, so it’s very easy to remember [EXAMPLE IN VIDEO], Again we see that shift happening in 2 cases. When we map the system on string 4 [EXAMPLE IN VIDEO] and also on string 3 [EXAMPLE IN VIDEO].

    So now I will improvise going quickly through every possible root note, so you can hear what we learned today in action, and when we get back I will address a few more points and we’ll wrap up this lesson [EXAMPLE IN VIDEO].

    Ok so now it’s your turn to practice this. You can find everything you need in the Fretboard Secrets package, but first I need to address some questions that can come up at this point. Some of you may be wondering if you need to think about string fragments all the time, especially if you learn more of them. This seems complex to some people. After all, you don’t want to be thinking about numbers like a machine, when you create, right?

    Well, SFS is not like that at all. The secret is to build this up gradually. By spending some time with just one string fragment, and then adding just one more for a while, and so on, the whole thing gets into autopilot mode. You do it without thinking. That’s how more advanced players have no problem at 7 string fragments. Using all 7, they play every imaginable box shape, without ever learning it. Compare that to trying to memorize 7 cumbersome box shapes. How much does that take before it’s transparent and automated? For most people, it just never happens...

    So anyway, I think that as you proceed through the rest of these lessons, the advantages of this approach will become even more apparent.

    In the next part, we will do something different. You will see a different aspect of SFS, that is very exciting, but I won’t tell you more about it because I want to build some excitement and anticipation.

     So don’t forget to like, share, and say hello in the comments below, and when you are ready I will see you in lesson 3.