Pong, if you remember, was that awesome game on the Atari that simulated table tennis. Here’s a little musical exercise where you use the edges of the fretboard and a highest and lowest fret to simulate the game. Sort of…

Say I wanted to practise the C major scale. Set one edge of the game to, ‘no further than A on the 5th fret of the top E string’, and set the other edge of the game to, ‘no lower than F on the low E’. Don’t use any open strings.

So, let’s say you start on C and ascend until you hit the top A. At that point you change direction and descend until you hit the low F. then you change direction again, and so on. Forever.

To make it a bit more challenging, do the same thing but use a chord progression. Now you have to choose notes to fit the harmony. Try using the major thirds thing that I wrote about here. I wrote it out here in 7/8 with 8th notes. Starting on low G, you’d start by playing these notes ascending:

(G maj) G A B C D E F#, (Eb maj) G Ab Bb C D Eb F, (B maj) F# G# [PONG! the top edge, now you descend] F# E D# C# B, (D maj) A G F# E D C# B, (Bb maj) Bb A G F [PONG! the bottom edge, now you ascend] G A Bb, (F# maj) B C# D# E# F# G# A# (A maj) B C# D E F# G# A [PONG! the top edge, now you descend] (F maj) G F E D C Bb A  (Db maj) Ab Gb F Eb Db C Bb  (E maj) A G# F# [PONG! the bottom edge, now you ascend] G# A B C# (C maj) D E F G A B C (Ab maj) Db Eb F G Ab [PONG! the top edge, now you descend] G F, (G maj) etc…

Make sense? Here it is written out. It’s easier to see what’s going on from the music.

To make it even more of a challenge, try singing a different line as you play the above. How about starting on the G on the D string and descend. Sing that line. Then you’ll be hitting the edges at different points and in different directions. That’s a really great exercise for increasing your awareness. It’s like a keyboard player being able to play a bass line and solo at the same time. A little bit…