Learning something in all keys.

as long as you're not forgetting the previous keys you've learned, you're fine. i just go by finger patterns and shapes, personally.

i just go by finger patterns and shapes, personally.

Me too.. this way, once you know the major or minor or pent scale in 1 key (across the whole fretboard, of course), you know it in all keys.. just slide the whole pattern up/down to the correct root note..

Analogy: I saw learning it 1 key at a time like a jigsaw puzzle...Without having the corner pieces or the edge pieces as a guide to start with.... you had to know ALL the patterns/scales before the puzzle came together... Learning by pattern/box position gave me the edges and corners of the jigsaw to know where to start from and where to finish. ( this helped me with goal setting and evaluating my progress. IMHO)

I personally relate "everything" back to the major scale/major scale shape. It's the foundation of western music.
The overlapping layout of a guitar allows guitarist to use a pattern that just shifts to the correct key. Unlike piano, wind/brass and other instruments, we have a shortcut that allow us to "cheat" a little (as beginners :wink: ) with memorization of a pattern and not having to learn the scale of every key seperately.
The tradeoff of this shortcut is having the option to play the same note in up to 5 different places, (which can be confusing)

I see the learning the whole major scale pattern as a roadmap of music and the fretboard..
Although, I've learned many shortcuts since memorizing the major scale shape, so I don't always envisage the fretboard in this way, but this original map is something i can always fall back on. As a guide, if nothing else...
Another analogy: like learning your times tables... Once memorized, more complex ideas are possible (Long division, exponentials, equations etc) and once you learn them, they are with you for LIFE (and you can use it to check your answers... hopefully :wink: )

would love to hear some more opinions on this..

Peace

J