5grp9gshwb
Verified buyer
04/02/26
Great Content, Great Teacher
Dweezology: Fretboard Freedom
Creative & Visual Methods for Dynamic Improvisations
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About this course
The pentatonic box is the guitarist’s proverbial “blessing and curse.” For guitar players, the initial discovery of the box parallels Edison’s eureka moment with the light bulb. The visual mapping of the pentatonic box on the fretboard is as easy to follow as painting with numbers. Beautifully symmetrical and quickly transposable to any key, the box single handedly catapults the vast majority of players into ‘lead’ guitarists.
But the box soon becomes a prison, a bad habit that restricts players from venturing outside, which in turn makes the rest of the fretboard a scary no man’s land of uncharted territory. ‘Breaking out’ of the box is a rite of passage that every player must take on at some point in their development, if only to quell the boredom, let alone becoming a skilled improvisor.
There are dozens of effective approaches and systems for breaking out of the box, but none of them as simple and quick to master as the approach found in Dweezil Zappa’s Fretboard Freedom. Better yet, Dweezil’s Five Shapes of Freedom serve double-duty as highly creative building blocks for fresh lines and improvisations.
We’re thrilled to welcome Dweezil to the TrueFire family. Dweezil is a prolific and extraordinarily inventive composer, recording artist and performer. He’s highly respected by his peers, fans and friends alike. Dweezil is also a passionate educator and we consider ourselves very fortunate to collaborate with him and bring his insightful teachings to our student body.
Get a grip on this simple system and you will not only break out of the box, you will see, understand and be able to navigate the fretboard like never before. Everything you already know about pentatonics -- all of your licks and favorite moves -- you'll be able to play anywhere on the neck, in any octave, in any key. And you’ll be able to do it in a matter of days.
In the second section, Dweezil shares an improvisational toolbox filled with technical and creative applications for the Five Shapes of Freedom system: Connecting The Shapes, Pentatonic Color Palette, Resequencing Phrases, Rhythmic Resequencing, Picking Techniques, Economy Picking Pentatonics, Connecting Small Phrases, Pivoting With Connectors, Randomization, In-Between The Box and the Whole Tone Scale.
Dweezil demonstrates and clearly explains everything step-by-step, concept-by-concept. The Five Shapes of Freedom are also clearly illustrated in a series of charts. All of the key demonstrations are also tabbed and notated.
Ready to begin your own rite of passage? The first step out of the box is just a click away…
But the box soon becomes a prison, a bad habit that restricts players from venturing outside, which in turn makes the rest of the fretboard a scary no man’s land of uncharted territory. ‘Breaking out’ of the box is a rite of passage that every player must take on at some point in their development, if only to quell the boredom, let alone becoming a skilled improvisor.
There are dozens of effective approaches and systems for breaking out of the box, but none of them as simple and quick to master as the approach found in Dweezil Zappa’s Fretboard Freedom. Better yet, Dweezil’s Five Shapes of Freedom serve double-duty as highly creative building blocks for fresh lines and improvisations.
We’re thrilled to welcome Dweezil to the TrueFire family. Dweezil is a prolific and extraordinarily inventive composer, recording artist and performer. He’s highly respected by his peers, fans and friends alike. Dweezil is also a passionate educator and we consider ourselves very fortunate to collaborate with him and bring his insightful teachings to our student body.
"This course has really opened up my eyes to new possibilities for soloing, mainly in the way I can mentally visualise the fretboard in new ways - opening up new combinations of notes and runs. Also the breakdown of technical aspects of playing, from pick techniques to hand positions has really helped. Not only that, Dweezil is COOL!" - Malcolm W., TrueFire StudentDweezil organized Fretboard Freedom into two mind-blowing sections. In the first section, he presents the fundamentals of his Five Shapes of Freedom system in just four video lessons. He’ll show you the five shapes, their ‘mirror image patterns’ and their ‘neighbors’ to the right and left.
Get a grip on this simple system and you will not only break out of the box, you will see, understand and be able to navigate the fretboard like never before. Everything you already know about pentatonics -- all of your licks and favorite moves -- you'll be able to play anywhere on the neck, in any octave, in any key. And you’ll be able to do it in a matter of days.
In the second section, Dweezil shares an improvisational toolbox filled with technical and creative applications for the Five Shapes of Freedom system: Connecting The Shapes, Pentatonic Color Palette, Resequencing Phrases, Rhythmic Resequencing, Picking Techniques, Economy Picking Pentatonics, Connecting Small Phrases, Pivoting With Connectors, Randomization, In-Between The Box and the Whole Tone Scale.
Dweezil demonstrates and clearly explains everything step-by-step, concept-by-concept. The Five Shapes of Freedom are also clearly illustrated in a series of charts. All of the key demonstrations are also tabbed and notated.
Ready to begin your own rite of passage? The first step out of the box is just a click away…
What you'll learn
- Master five pentatonic shapes that cover the entire fretboard
- Apply economy picking to pentatonic phrases
- Navigate three octaves using mirror image patterns
- Think of the fretboard as three sets of two strings
- Craft fresh pentatonic ideas using rhythmic resequencing
Release date: 04/20/2015 • 1h 33m runtime
Sample lessons
5 Shapes Of Freedom
Demonstration
String Subsets
Demonstration
Connecting The Shapes
Demonstration
Economy Picking Pentatonics
Demonstration
What's included
21 lessons • 17 charts
Dweezology: Fretboard Freedom
Hello, I’m Dweezil Zappa and welcome to Dweezology: Fretboard Freedom. Time and time again, we’ve all asked ourselves “How can I break out of the box, man?” Well, a better question might be “How can I STRETCH the box?”
In this course, I’ll show you five simple shapes—taking everything that you know about the pentatonic box and moving it anywhere on the neck. We’ll learn these “Five Shapes of Freedom” and extend them further by using Mirror Image Patterns, the Pentatonic Color Palette, and Rhythmic Resequencing. I’ll show you an Economy Picking technique and we’ll look at pivoting and connecting strategies to bring it all together. We’ll also look at the notes in between the pentatonic box, making it more interesting and raising a few eyebrows.
I will demonstrate and explain each approach and break down every example in detail, with all of the key examples tabbed and notated for you. You’ll also get charts for the essential Five Shapes of Freedom. Alright, grab your guitars and let’s get started!
SECTION 1: The 5 Shapes
In this first section, I’ll introduce you to the Five Shapes of Freedom. We’ll start to demystify the neck and begin to connect pentatonics so you can play in any position or key. We’ll also break down the strings into three sets of two to help you organize your thoughts and grow small ideas to even bigger ones. Let’s get started!
5 Shapes Of Freedom
The first thing we’re going to look at is the infamous pentatonic box, and how to escape it. By breaking down the pentatonic scale into two note segments, we can create new shapes to move around the fretboard. I’ll demonstrate the Five Shapes of Freedom—getting us out of the box and to the next octave, starting anywhere on the neck.
Mirror Image Patterns
We can take the Five Shapes of Freedom and mirror them within three octaves, getting us out of a linear understanding of pentatonics and giving us more room. I’ll demonstrate how and where to mirror them to extend the pentatonic box.
String Subsets
We’ll look further at breaking down the strings into three groups of two strings, considering the A & D string and the B & G string as subsets that the Five Shapes of Freedom can be played on. However, we must adjust and offset the shapes to compensate for this change. I’ll demonstrate these changes, working them into the positions we’ve already learned and looking forward to connecting the shapes into patterns.
Extending The Shapes
It’s time to meet the neighbors! Taking what you already know—that same old pentatonic box—we’ll change the two note shapes into three note patterns, using their “neighbors” to the left and right. This two fret extension combines two shapes by uniting it with its neighbor, integrating a unison note into the new pattern. We’ll also look at extending the Five Shapes of Freedom within our three groups of strings and their respective subsets, making sure your hand and thumb are positioned to make long stretches across several frets
SECTION 2: Shape Applications
In this next section, I’ll introduce you a lot of new options for using the Five Shapes of Freedom. We’ll look at Economy Picking, a right hand technique that we can use to attack the notes and develop new rhythmic patterns. We’ll look at the notes in between the pentatonic box as well, giving you a unique sound and a new style. Let’s get started!
+ 14 more lessons
Reviews
25 results
Joe M.
Verified buyer
01/18/26
Great info but. . .
He has a really unique way of looking at the fretboard that I never thought about before. He really simplifies it. Problem is, about halfway through the lessons he starts playing these 3 note phrases that sound fantastic, but I couldn't comfortably reach them, and I don't have small hands. I even grabbed my short scale guitar and I still couldn't make them work. So most of the second half of the lessons for me were unusable, and that was disappointing.
Dablos555
Verified buyer
08/18/25
Great course. Absolutely worht the investment.
Addahia
Verified buyer
12/13/24
contagiously enthusiastic
The concepts Dweezel shares are very interesting, and his way of teaching is very “visual” and very little theoretical. Regardless of the difficulty of the concepts, his enthusiasm is genuinely contagious and uplifting. May only complain would be that perhaps. there could have been more micro excercises in between lessons, drills with the concepts, since the pace of the course is as fast as his styl of playing.
guitarguy234
Verified buyer
12/02/24
Complete!
This course starts at a point on A minor pentatonic and then proceeds to fit it all together…. . perfectly. Well worth the money! You’ll enjoy this one!
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