Below are two fretboards, one A and one A minor. The nut is on the left, body on the right.

As a slide guitarist, I make it my business to know all the positions where notes line up. If they line up, I can grab them together under my slide. Two together make a 'double stop', three together (usually) make a chord.

This is how my brain 'sees' the fret board when I hear "Key of A".

Notice that each position is directly above the fret. That's where the pitch is. Your slide has become the fret. Gold indicates notes from the simple chord, ie I, III and V. I haven't indicated which are which. That's for you to figure out. And figure out you must do in order for this to be of any value to you. The most important thing, by far, is to know which note(s), in the context of the key, you are looking at. That means knowing the I, II, III, IV etc. value of all notes. Paramount. And I mean all notes, even the in between notes, between scale notes. These are the flat-fives, sharp-fives,flat-nines etc. etc.

The blue shows the flat seven, (also known as the minor seven, dom7, blues 7) and where to play it against the gold notes.The magenta shows where the Major 7 is. I forgot to indicate where the sus4 can found. And the diminished and augmented. You find them...or go to the Slide Lesson page.

Filling in the gaps is where the fun comes. The rest of the key, ie. scale notes and related chords, are all embedded there. It all becomes clear after practise. Lots and lots of daily practise.

I have twelve of these fretbards filed mentally. With the minors, twenty-four, but really I view them as altered major fretboards, so twelve. The less the better. They are all the same, yet different. Things change around the nut for each key. Open strings that can be used come into play...or must be avoided.

By the way, I didn't put little crosses where you should mute. If there's no coloured bar there, you should mute.

Have fun.