Moving up the neck

[billhay4]

I've been messing with FFcP, scales, modes, etc. a lot lately. All of this is pretty obvious to me intellectually and I am adept at major scales, major FFcP scales, and have an understanding of how modes are constructed. I'll practice them until I'm reasonably skillful at them, too.
However, I have yet to figure out how and when to move up the neck as opposed to across the fretboard, so I don't do it much. Oh, I can start a scale anywhere and go from there. But I don't understand any patterns for doing this, or for moving a scale on the first seven frets up.
Is this just a matter of making a large slide at once (say from starting on the B note on the G-string to continuing from the B note on the D-string) or is there a more subtle pattern here that I am missing?
These big slides are daunting.
Not sure if this question is clear, but we'll see what I get.
Thanks,
Bill

[AlanN]

You need Timmy O'Brien's The A Scale in 7-Positions...I'll see what I can do.

[Beanzy]

Well I tend to decide based on tone and try to keep the tone during the shift by staying on that string, then move up and across when shifted. That way I figure I'll be less likely to draw too much attention to position change by changing the tone too.

In terms of which finger to shift on, my basic change is to move off third finger and take up the new position with the first where the fourth would have been. That's just so I don't have to look to shift as I can feel where that is by moving the thumb behind the third finger just before the shift then let it settle behind the newly shifted first finger once that's in place.

One weird thing I've noticed is I seem to prefer to move up the fretboard on the G&D courses then across, and then back down then across from the E and A courses. It's probably just the way I think of the layout or something.

[JeffD]

I play with a lot of double stops. The impetus to try what I am playing up the neck usually starts for me with the search for an easier to reach harmony.

[OldSausage]

Well, suppose you're playing in G, and the song moves to a C chord. Then you can slide your first finger up to the third fret on the second string and play some notes out of the pentatonic C scale that starts on that position. Then if the song moves to the D chord, slide your hand up two frets so you're playing out of the D scale that starts on the 5th fret, second string. Then when the next chord is G, you could move down a string and play out of the scale that starts at the 5th fret on the third string. Or you could go up higher and play out of the G position that starts with your third finger on the 10th fret of the A string.

Of course, you can change between different positions over the same chord too, but as you pointed out, that can involve longer slides. It can be achieved smoothly with practice, though, or if you just figure out some clever ways to reposition in smaller steps. It's a great exercise to figure out different ways of playing a scale on a single string, by playing one or two notes and sliding up to the next, all the way up the neck.

But I find using pentatonics and changing positions on the chord changes to be very useful and easy to apply.

[onassis]

I'm with JeffD. I tend to move up the neck when I'm sliding double stops. For some reason, I really like the sound of the harmonies sliding up, more so than down, so by the second half of a verse or chorus I often find myself up in the twelfth fret area. One of my latest mini projects s[is to work on neat transitions sliding down.