Point taken.
Not everyone needs a small encyclopedia of musical knowledge in their head to play. However there’s such a thing as music fundamentals, a triad is a triad is a triad.
Your application of it may turn it into a different style but a Perfect 4th as a non passing tone on a major chord is a pretty crappy choice regardless, and it’s a pretty unmusical choice to “fall on it” just because it’s the very end of the first 3nps pattern for ex.
Now it’s all about relating your phrases back to the visualization system so you can mix, alter, transpose, link or, in general, mess with them.
I did all kinds of stuff, pentatonics, 3nps, one-octave scales. In the end, Mick Goodrick’s view from The Advancing Guitarist was the best for me. Learn all the natural notes (ie, no sharps or flats) on one string at a time. I had a decade of piano background before playing guitar so this helped me see the fretboard in a similar way to the piano.
These days I try to do more CAGED stuff as well, I’ve been using Single Note Soloing by Ted Greene to help with this. But like Jake mentions above, the system I “use” depends on what I’m trying to accomplish at that time.
+1 for Mick Goodrich’s “single string unitar” exercise.
I have my students improvise over C major backing tracks
Really helps cement notes as something with a name and not just a series of coordinates.
There’s something very non bs about Mick Goodrick 's idea, you have to actually know the notes (no shapes) and if you wanna be somewhat musical you better know your intervals well too.
“Whatever Works” (Woody Allen, 2009) 
I think it’s useful to learn as many approaches as you can. Here are some of the approaches that I like.
Three notes per string scales.
Consists of 7 positions with 3 notes on each string. Good for quickly getting to know a scale all over the neck. Good for speed picking and legato playing. On the other hand it can make for very scalar playing and the positions are very big chunks of information to learn and navigate.
1 octave “3 nps”
This is one of ny favourites and i use this kind of thinking when practicing the usual 3nps positions also. It’s basically three different one octave fingerings. One starting from the index, one from the middle finger and one from the ring or pinky finger. When you reach the next root note you can then stitch it together with another one ocatve position to make a regular 3nps position or make a position shift to use the same shape again in the next octave. This makes it easier for me to learn scales and to be aware of what scale degrees I’m playing since i don’t have to think about such a big shape.
4+3 or 3+4 scales
This is the result of playing a one octave shape on the lower strings and connection them to the same kind of shape an octave up in the higher strings. This makes the scales very symmetrical and easy to learn and use. I find it works especially well with melodic minor scales.
Scale degrees geometric shapes
This is a method taught by Tom Quayle in his Visualising the Fretboard course. It uses the root notes all over the neck as reference points and then uses the shapes for the various scale degrees/intervals ascending and descending within an octave. I find this very useful for improvisation and playing over changes. The shapes are small chunks of information to learn and easy to improvise and be free with. It makes sense espescially with Tom Quayle’s all fourths tuning but is very useful in standard too.
Caged
Using 5 different chord shapes as visual anchors for scales, arpeggios and other melodic material. Good for connecting scales to chords and chord tones and playing over changes. Easier for me to visualise the scale degrees compared to 3nps even though these positions too are big chunks of information. The five positions of caged can also be viewed as the five common pentatonic shapes with extra notes added.
Voicing arpeggios
This means using any voicing you know for a chord as an arpeggio.
practicing 1 string at a time
As in Mick Goodricks The Advancing Guitarist. In my opinion one of the best things you can do for your fretboard knowledge.
Nir Felder in his great MMC masterclass talks about not relying on scale shapes by practicing first on one string at a time similar to Goodrick and thinking note names and scale degrees simultanously. Then practicing the scale from the guitar’s lowest note to the highest and back with shifting strings in random places, still while thinking note names and scale degrees. He also does this with diatonic intervals and 3 and 4 note structures.
4, 3, 2 nps
This is perhaps not really a visualisation method but more a way of practicing a scales to really learn them well. Practice the scales from all scale degrees from the lowest string with 4 note per string, 3 notes per string and 2 notes per string. This will have you playing scales in all directions.
Regardless of visualisation approach I think it is very important to learn all the notes of the fretboard. Alex Machacek has some useful exercises for this in his MMC masterclass.
Guess we’re all dorks here since I own every single course and MMC masterclass you mentioned haha. My idea is pretty much the 1 octave 3nps you mentioned as a core and anything else built on top of it.
Nir Felder’s and 4, 3, 2nps (Oz Noy?) may be the lesser known of the bunch but are very much worth exploring, specially for improv.
About learning the notes, pretty much anything I’ve ever seen or come up with is about one of two concepts:
1 note in many places (C all over the neck, D everywhere on the first 12 frets…)
many notes in 1 place (12 tone row in one position, cycle of 4ths on one string…)
I agree with everything in this post and yes I got that from Oz Noy 
Hi,
I recommend checking Effective Music Practice by Prokopis Skordis:
https://effectivemusicpractice.teachable.com/
His SFS approach is simple and amazing. It helped me a lot. Actually I found Cracking the Code thanks to SFS.
Jakub
Great thread!
In my experience there are many approaches, too many and I tried almost all of them but still lacking a connection in real time with Music.
In my view all these are marketing solutions to sell to frustrated guitarist (like myself…), each approach is tailored for the one that found this approach but in the end what makes an approach work it is not the approach in itself but its application in Music.
We think that in order to be a great improviser we must know everything about notes intervals… in reality these are just human concepts that are used to teach and to communicate musical ideas, for improvising are necessary musical ideas and being able to express them conveying emotion…
People that play pattern on scale are the most boring musicians to listen in my view , what we need are emotions and communication.
As JakeEstner suggest the best way to practice fretboard knowledge is studying and playing the music you like, not patterns, shapes, do re mi fa sol., etc etc…
If I would apply Nir Felder approach I would have my head explode in searching the notes for that momentary scale… too mental for me! It is like thinking to each letter while we speak for me…
I think the best approach is to find a way to play what you like and gives you emotion on the guitar in as many places you can… the rest is just good for writing and selling books and methods…
I do think that for any approach - ANY approach, there is a phase of having to practice and ingrain it, then there is a phase where it can come out organically. I think in the end we don’t want to discredit approaches that seem ‘too technical’ because it’s possible that with efficient practice the approach will feel very natural. This is coming from someone who has practiced a LOT of extremely technical, detailed stuff…for me, a lot of things that require tons of brain power at first do eventually become natural.
Yes and no…
While playing scales up and down “as a way of life” is a pretty terrible thing, not even knowing anything is pretty much the opposite and also terrible, imagine trying to play any idea having zero technique.
The game is about finding the balance in between using the least possible amount of “bandwith” so you can focus on being musical and on a higher level respond to what’s going on around you.
Most people that are frustrated with scales haven’t gone deep enough into them so they can integrate them with the rest of their knowledge. At least, that’s what I’ve seen as a player and teacher for many years.
I think we are in an époque where there is an overflow of information that confuses us…
Few years ago there were no youtube, methods, site etc etc and there was A LOT OF GREAT MUSIC as well… people learnt to play instruments studying from LP, CD, tapes Music played by Masters without the 20 millions methods we have nowadays… I am just pointing out this concept, then you are free to study all the methods you want…
I did so (I got also a BA Hons in guitar) but at the end, the best way for me is just focus on the Music you love…
Sure you need to have the basics of H&T and develop your technique, I am just talking about the method for visualizing scales all over the fretboard…
Your point being… not having any?
No offense intended, just trying to get it…
My point is that we don’t need a method developed by whoever, we need to find our own solution, that one that works for you does not necessarily works for me…
Sorry I didn’t express it clearly…
Ciao
Got it now, cool man.
That’s kind of the point of sharing here all the ways that we collectively know, so you can at least have some ideas of where to start depending on your preferences.
Finding your own way is probably a lot easier when you can understand what others have done before you.
“Different strokes for different folks” Frank Gambale
absolutely! Perfection is an iterative process that never reach the end…
I think you need a combination of all ways.
Personally I think knowing the note names is essential because then you can teach yourself 3NPS Scales, Arpeggios In Position, 2NPS Arpeggios, Triads, Drop 2 Chord, Drop 3 Chords, Shell Voicings, etc.
I found the best way to learn the notes on the strings was playing on a single string, finding a specific note in all Strings as fast as you can (ex. Where are all the D notes), and saying the note names aloud when you are playing scales and arpeggios.
Then it is about memorizing these shapes, and that is when I think about things from a root note perspective and what intervals I’m playing. Most of these shapes are also symmetrical and repeat at the octave- Example being 2NPS Arpeggios- all exactly the same just repeating the Shape an octave higher.
Of course for this you have to know your theory- how scales and arpeggios, chords (and chord Voicings) are constructed, and what notes are in them.