What a Jazz Pro Sees On The Fretboard (That You Don’t)

The way you’ve learned to organize the fretboard makes it harder to play jazz.

And even if you know all the scales and arpeggios, the moment you have to solo, it’s all gone.

So in this video, I’ll show you a 3-layer system that organizes scales and arpeggios so you can actually use them when you solo — and once you do, you’ll be able to see the licks you want to play directly on the fretboard.

Just Knowing The Notes Is Useless

There are many ways to see and organize the notes on the neck — mostly split between note names or thinking in intervals.

But just knowing intervals or note names doesn’t tell you what you actually need when you’re improvising.

And another thing is that we can’t think about every note or interval we play while soloing. Nobody does that. So we need to be able to think in groups of notes instead.

3 Layers Of Harmony

Let’s keep this really practical. To begin with, I’ll use a Cmaj7 chord as an example.

Jazz solos follow the chords, so we need to see the chord tones first. Let’s start with the Cmaj7 arpeggio in this area of the neck. That is the 1st layer:

And the layer under this is the scale the chord is found in the notes around the arpeggio — in this case, the C major scale. That’s the 2nd layer:

But in Jazz we also use notes that aren’t in the scale, so the chromatic notes are the 3rd layer:

Like this, you end up with three layers:

Layer 1: Chord tones — completely safe, directly connected to the chord

Layer 2: Scale notes — pretty safe, and often beautiful extensions

Layer 3: Chromatic notes — these need to resolve, but they’re also how you add forward motion and energy to your solos

Think of it like three colors — each one tells you something different about how safe that note is to land on.

Think of it like three colors — each one tells you something different about how safe that note is to land on, and how it relates to the harmony.

Here’s how it sounds: Start with only the chord tones.

Add notes from the scale as well:

And finally, throw in some chromatic notes, which is a huge part of the jazz sound:

This last lick also gives you a hint at how you want to practice arpeggios, but we’ll get back to that later.

If you want to explore these licks and exercises at your own pace, there’s a free PDF in the description — I’ve written out all the examples so you can easily start building a more practical overview of the fretboard.

First, let’s look at how this works across chords — because that’s a big part of what this way of seeing the fretboard makes easier.

Using The Layers In Music

Soloing over chord progressions is where things really begin to come together.

Let’s take a basic II V I in C major:

For this, we need chord tones. Let’s keep it simple and add a one-octave arpeggio position for each chord:

You might know these arpeggios as full positions that cover the entire position. That’s useful too, but here we’re using one-octave shapes because they’re easier to see inside the scale, and they’re more practical for building jazz phrases.

The thing to remember here is that these arpeggios are all in the same scale — so the C major scale sits around all of them. Your fretboard visualization is already tying information together.

Add the scale notes around each arpeggio and play through the progression like this exercise:

With this, you can start mixing scale notes and arpeggios to get a lick like this:

And adding chromatic notes creates more tension — but also a more satisfying resolutions:

This sounds like real jazz, and that’s the layers working together — chord tones, scale notes, and chromatic motion, all flowing through the changes.

Having a practical way to create jazz lines and play real jazz solos is also what I teach students in my Roadmap course — a step-by-step process for learning to improvise real jazz lines on an actual standard, without spending hours searching YouTube trying to piece it all together.

There’s a link in the description if you want to check it out.

But like this, we are still seeing notes — and that’s not really how you want to think when you play.

Can You See The Licks?

When I’m playing phrases like this, it’s impossible to think about every note in the solo. In fact, I rarely think about notes at all — it’s more about having groups of notes that sound good, small chunks that you put together to create a line.

The first chunk you want to learn to see is probably the one-octave diatonic arpeggios:

The arpeggios are a direct link to the chords, and the reason to see these notes grouped together is that they’re incredibly common in jazz solos. Check out how Joe Pass is playing one-octave arpeggios all over the place here.

It’s one of the most common building blocks in jazz, and seeing that as one thing makes it a lot easier to use them.

Check out this Cmaj7 lick:

You can see the Cmaj7 arpeggio, a chromatic run, and then another arpeggio: Em7.

Em7 sounds great on Cmaj7 because Em7 contains three chord tones of Cmaj7 plus the D, an added 9th.

That’s the arpeggio from the 3rd — using a related chord’s arpeggio to outline a richer sound.

And it’s obviously easier to think in Cmaj7 and Em7 instead of every individual note. C E G B and E G B D, So you want to see those shapes on the neck as well, not just the basic Cmaj7 chord tones.

This same arpeggio from the 3rd concept works for the other chords too. In this next example, I’m using Fmaj7 over Dm7 — but there’s also another chunk that’s easier to see than to think.

You have the Fmaj7 arpeggio over Dm7, and the Em7 over Cmaj7.

Both arpeggios are great examples of using the arpeggio from the 3rd.

But check out the first part:

This is an enclosure. It is where you approach a target note from both sides — Notes above, and notes below

before landing on the target note, here that is the 3rd of Dm7, F.

And again, it’s a phrase you can choose to see as one thing, rather than thinking through every note. Especially since it is a bunch of mix of chromatic and diatonic notes. E G Gb E F, much too complicated.

If you use it like that, it can be moved to other chords as well.

Here it is over a G7:

It’s the same phrase moved so it encloses the 5th, D, of G7.

Another option is to lead into the phrase with an arpeggio, as I do here on Cmaj7:

You can even use it and move out of the position before coming back, as I do here enclosing D on Dm7:

Remember, you can get the PDF for all of these examples and start exploring how to use this approach in your own playing. Use the link in the description.

So that’s the system. You see the notes on the neck as three layers — chord tones, scale notes, and chromatic notes

and then you use that to stop thinking in individual notes and start seeing chunks: arpeggios, enclosures and other phrases. Things you use in your solos, things that sound good on the chord.

That’s how a jazz player actually navigates the fretboard in real time.

Barry Harris’ Knows Bebop

OA:

But you also need to find those good chunks or licks that you want to use in your solos, and a great place to find solid vocabulary is Barry Harris. This video is on one of his exercises that gradually helps you turn scales into jazz licks directly on the songs you’re learning.

Check it out!

Learn Jazz Make Music!

https://jenslarsen.nl/this-barry-harris-exercise-will-save-you-years-but-most-ignore-it/

Get the PDF!

You can also download the PDF of my examples here:
https://mailchi.mp/jenslarsen/vknzc0r96c

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https://www.patreon.com/jenslarsen/posts/164511804

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