Different positions

Practicing it is really simple. If you know your first box, take a look at the second. Play over your backing tracks using nothing but the 2nd box. When you're starting to get a feel for it, begin mixing the first and second box together. When that works, use just the third box. Then mix them all together. Rinse and repeat, after five boxes you are done. Note: make extremely sure what each note is in the box, you must know at all times where the roots are, where the fifths etc.

Thanks Arjen. I guess I need to look for a site that has a better diagram of the pattern. I went to jguitar.com but it didnt look right to me. But then again, i am the newbie.. Not them LOL

Geoo

Check Greybeard's site, it's all you'll ever need about things like this:
http://people.freenet.de/greybeard/ScalePatternsAminPenta.htm

Practicing it is really simple. If you know your first box, take a look at the second. Play over your backing tracks using nothing but the 2nd box. When you're starting to get a feel for it, begin mixing the first and second box together. When that works, use just the third box. Then mix them all together. Rinse and repeat, after five boxes you are done. Note: make extremely sure what each note is in the box, you must know at all times where the roots are, where the fifths etc.

Good advice from Arjen.

For practice, my teacher has me starting a scale on the root note on the 6th, 5th and 4th strings. That way I learn the scale in several different positions, and it also helps develop familiarity with the fretboard.

Also, sometimes simply playing just a single note "out of the box" can add some flavor. For example, take a look at this simple phrase in Am Blues(8th-note triplets in the first measure; % = 1/8th rest):

|-------------------------|--------||
|-------------------------|--------||
|-------------------------|--------||
|-7-7-5-7-%-7-5-----------|--------||
|---------------7-6-5-----|--------||
|---------------------8-5-|-(5)----||


Instead of playing the C at the 8th fret of the 6th string, you can slide down to the 3rd fret of the 5th string, like so:

|-------------------------|--------|
|-------------------------|--------|
|-------------------------|--------|
|-7-7-5-7-%-7-5-----------|--------|
|---------------7-6-5S3---|--------|
|-----------------------5-|-(5)----|


Same note, but playing it in a different box subtly changes the "feel" of the phrase. It also lets you expand upon your solo from the new location. Hope that's helpful.

Thanks Arjen and slejhammer. That is EXACTLY what I needed to know. Also, big cudos to Greybeard for the excellent site on this.

Geoo

One thing my teacher has told me is to use an open string in common between two positions to allow time to move between them. Take a G scale in open position and G in the 7th position (C shape).

----------0-----------7-8-10
----0-1-3---7-8-10----------
0-2-------------------------
----------------------------
----------------------------

If that makes any sense.

That makes sense but is a rather technically different thing to do since you'll need to mute that string when playing the next. Espescially when using some gain or compression using open strings can get tricky. But yeah, if you can pull it off it's a very usefull skill.

One of the things I ask my students to do is to figure out as many different ways as they can to play a 1-octave scale starting or ending on a particular note tone.

So, for example, concert middle C (1st fret 2nd string) appears on the guitar in 5 places, and at each one of those locations there are an amazing number of ways you can play the C major scale starting or ending on that tone.

Some are rather impractical, but by trying them all, repeatedly, you can learn a whole lot about how the scale and the fretboard interact. And you'll find yourself viewing box patterns a lot differently afterwards.