So, for a long time I've known about the standard pentatonic scale that just about everybody uses on guitar. For all you kids out there that may not know what I'm talking about, here it is:

1   4
1   4
1  3
1  3
1  3
1   4

That's a guitar fretboard with the fingerings for this particular scale.

The problem I've always had is how to go beyond this scale the way the really great players do. I've put about as many different ideas into it as I can. But there was a breakthrough today when I realized what the lower extension of this scale is:

 2  4(1   4)
 2  4(1   4)
1   4(1  3)
1   4(1  3)
 2  4(1  3)
 2  4(1   4)

In this case, the 4 and 1 in the middle are the same note. It makes so much delicious symmetrical sense. So I wailed on it for a while today using G (3rd fret) as the base, which means a lot of the lower notes are open strings. This might seem like stupid introductory stuff to some, but it was a major epiphany for me. I can't believe I went this long without knowing the stupid lower extension. And now the upper extension makes more sense. So that's my post for Super Bowl Sunday, which I just realized is playing out like some kind of professional SEC championship.