Understanding Keys Unlocks Music
Follow the Fretboard Toolbox Path and see how chords, scales, and keys all fit together, so you can start unlocking the music theory that matters most!
When I Built Fretboard Toolboxes…
I could play chords.
I could play songs.
I knew some scales.
But I still felt stuck
I could memorize shapes…
but I couldn’t connect the ideas behind them.I could play in a jam session…
but only if I had the chords in front of me.If someone said, "this song is in G…”
I had no idea what that meant.Figuring out chord progressions by ear felt impossible.
Improvising seemed like a far off dream.
The fretboard still felt blurry instead of connected.
I knew lots of pieces of the puzzle…
but had no idea how they fit together.
But once I started creating these books to see the big picture, the pieces started falling into place.
Music started feeling like a system that I could actually understand,
and the more pieces that I connected, the more freedom I felt playing.
When I discovered that these rules were all the same regardless of the instrument,
I created Fretboard Toolbox books for all the instruments that I wanted to play.
And suddenly learning a new instrument became seeing the same musical ideas
in the unique places they live on each fretboard.
Now, all these years later, I’ve turned all these ideas into a free curriculum-
it’s called the Toolbox Path.
The Toolbox Path helps you move from “put your fingers here” to creating and communicating on whatever instrument you play, by helping you see the music theory that matters most.
Discover how Fretboard Toolboxes help you see all these ideas with the free Toolbox Pathfinder.
Unlocking music doesn’t happen all at once.
It happens step-by-step, as you start seeing how beautifully, and predictably, all of the pieces connect.
Best of all, when you learn to see the connections on one instrument, you understand them on any instrument!
The Toolbox Path (overview)
Step 1. Learn the Major scale and discover all the doors it unlocks.
Step 3. Learn the notes that make up those chords, and find them on your instrument.
Step 2. See how the chords of a key come straight from those notes.
Step 4. Practice common chord progressions and learn their Roman numerals.
Step 6. Unlock the secrets to bluesy sounds in Major keys.
Step 5. Discover the hidden connections in pentatonic scales.
Step 7. Open up a new world of sounds with natural minor keys.
Then you put your music on shuffle, and start unlocking music!
Step 8. Explore Rule-Breaking Chords (and how to use them)
The Major scale holds the key to unlock the doors.
That’s what Fretboard Toolboxes help you see,
in any key, on any instrument.
Check out some places Toolboxes are used all over the world!