The Course


Fret Science: Improv 101 is built for guitarists who have been playing for a while but still feel stuck when it comes to improvisation. Maybe you’ve learned some scale shapes. Maybe you’ve memorized licks. But when the chords start changing, everything falls apart—or your solos just don’t sound like music.

This course is different. It works with your brain, not against it, using simple visual and conceptual models that make the fretboard finally feel logical and playable. You’ll start understanding how everything fits together—so your fingers can respond to what your ears are hearing.

The course is designed to streamline what you need to keep in mind as much as possible, so you can focus on playing great phrases instead of second-guessing every note. You’ll learn intuitive ways to visualize scales, triads, and target notes under your fingers, no matter where they are on the fretboard.

No more juggling six-string scale patterns or mentally jumping through theory hoops. Everything builds step-by-step toward the goal of improvising confidently over real chord progressions, with tools that make immediate musical sense and are easy to recall in the moment. It’s the most efficient—and most freeing—way to finally unlock improvisation.

What you will learn


When I set out to craft this course, my main goal was to make improvisation on the fretboard something that you can grasp effortlessly, no matter where you're starting from. I meticulously organized each lesson to build upon the last, ensuring that even a beginner would find a smooth, coherent progression through the complexities of musical theory and practical hands-on play.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to instantly play the most widely used scales across the entire fretboard: minor and major pentatonic, blues, and the major scale modes. And you'll have two powerful and easy-to-use strategies for finding chord tone targets under your fingers every time: pentatonic scale shifts and triad overlays. You'll have everything you need to be able to improvise over chord changes in any style.


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Student Testimonials


Shane L – 17 years experience – Hard and Classic Rock:


Improv 101 is the clearest and most practical path I’ve found for learning how to actually improvise on guitar. It makes advanced concepts like chord tone targeting and one-scale-per-chord easier to understand, and makes music theory feel intuitive instead of intimidating.

Keith’s teaching style is down-to-earth and focused. He connects the theory to the fretboard in practical ways that instantly apply to playing lead guitar; he’s not interested in showing off how fast he can play or how much he knows like every other YouTube “guru”. The visuals, handouts, and animations are the best I’ve seen anywhere and finally cracked the code for me after 17+ years of just memorizing tabs.

After taking this course, I can understand my favorite songs and solos on a deeper level than ever before, and I am finally starting to write my own songs and play with other guitarists. Can’t recommend this course enough!


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Lee C – 1 year experience – Blues:


I’ve been playing for a little over a year, mostly blues, and I’ve lost count of the number of CAGED and triad and pentatonic lessons I’ve taken. They’ve all been too complicated, with too much memorization, and I swear they’re all cribbing from the same notes.

Keith’s framework of rectangles and stacks is totally unique. It’s so straightforward, easy to grasp, and broadly applicable (to scales, triads, arpeggios, and navigating the entire fretboard). The visualizations and PDF resources are also tremendously helpful at explaining the different concepts covered in the course (they also make great reference material).

The best thing about the course for me, though, is that it’s so musical. There are tons of practice exercises for sure, but every module ends with an exercise where we take what we learned and and improvise with it over one of the included backing tracks. In fact, I improvised for the first time ever at the end of Module 1 and it was glorious – I thought it would take me years to get to this point.


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Marc C – 40 years experience – Rock, Folk, Indie:


I’ve always wanted to improvise along with my favorite tunes but have always struggled to do so with confidence. I’ve studied the CAGED system, music theory, various scales, etc. but have never managed to integrate those learnings into the sort of fluid, inspired, effortless playing I seek. With Fret Science, Keith provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the theory, technique, and concepts you need to improvise effectively and expressively. It all makes a lot of sense and just fits my brain. The lessons are presented in a clear, logical, step-by-step method you can do at your own pace, and review as often as you like. I’m already seeing big improvements. In short, this is the course I’ve been waiting for my whole guitar life.


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Michael D – 3 years experience – Blues & Fingerstyle:


I’m not a jazz cat, or even a great player, I’ve only been playing guitar for about 3 years. The Improv 101 course has given me a firm push into the late intermediate stage. Pentatonic scales, nailed it! Diatonic scales, nailed it. Modes, explained it in a way even I can understand it, wow. Chord tone soloing, nailed it. The Rectangle and Stack concept made learning these ideas so much easier, and has opened up my fretboard understanding. I have improved light years from where I started from. Am I the next super star guitar player? Not very likely, but my accelerated progress from this course is very real.


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Isaac C – 1 year experience – Blues


I decided to give the Improv 101 course a try and I was able to make a lot of progress in a relatively short amount of time. This course helped me visualize things in the fretboard a lot better and it also improved my phrasing a lot. I would greatly recommend this course to beginner to intermediate players that are looking for other ways to make sense of the fretboard, scales and what to play when improvising.


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Paul B – 23 years experience – Rock/Alternative:


Improv 101 has challenged my guitar brain and is pushing me past my “intermediate plateau”. Keith’s methodical and analytical teaching style paired with the PDFs is perfect for me.

The video explanations are easy to follow, especially with the animations. I highly recommend all of the material made by Fret Science!



Curriculum

  Introduction
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  Module 1: The minor pentatonic scale
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  Module 2: The major pentatonic scale
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  Module 3: Mastering the minor and major pentatonic scales
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  Module 4: Introduction to chord tone soloing
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  Module 5: One scale per chord with pentatonic shifts
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  Module 6: Major scale modes
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  Module 7: Triad target overlays
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  Module 8: Blues
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  Conclusion
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Your instructor

Hi, I’m Keith Martin. I’ve been playing guitar since the 1980s, and for a long time, improvisation felt like a locked door. I tried every method I could find—books, courses, teachers—but nothing seemed to stick when the chords started changing. It wasn’t until I began drawing on my background as an MIT-trained computer scientist and applying principles from cognitive science that things finally clicked. I started to see how the fretboard actually works—and how to build simple mental models that made improvisation not just possible, but easy and fun.

This course is the result of that journey. Fret Science: Improv 101 distills every major breakthrough I had on the path to becoming an improviser. It’s the course I wish I had years ago—one that works with your brain instead of overloading it. I created it to help other lifelong guitar players finally experience what I now get to enjoy every time I pick up the instrument: the freedom to move confidently across the neck, play what I hear, and connect musically in real time. If you’ve struggled like I did, I’d love to show you what finally worked.

For more information, visit FretScience.com

At fretscience.com, you can find more information about all of my offerings, including free YouTube content and my growing Patreon community. I also invite you to sign up for my low-volume, spam-free newsletter.