I am just beginning to learn the guitar.
Maybe it is natural, but personally I find it more difficult playing the upper part of a scale (or higher in pitch, 1st, 2nd and 3rd strings) mainly because of the B string tuned 1 fret lower.
Thinking that I am not the only one with this sort of difficulty, can anyone suggest a practice method that can tackle just this part of the fretboard?
This is a very good question and something that causes issues for many guitarists, including myself at times. The G-B M3 tuning was created and standardized centuries ago. It facilitates playing chords but it creates issues for playing melodically. The solution is a combination of memorization of positions and understanding what happens when we cross the G-B threshold.
A good way to break this down is to see what happens playing one octave on 3 strings. I have chosen a single position of a major scale and a minor pentatonic to demonstrate this. These positions are usually referred to as position 1 if you start on the low E.
You can see that the low E to D and A to G patterns are identical in both scales. When we get to D to B the blue arrows indicate that it is the same basic fingering shape but one fret higher on the B string. The green arrows show the shift when descending. The same is true from G to high E, there is a shift one fret higher from G to B then it’s the same as the original low string shapes from B to E.
Bottom line is it’s similar to the lower strings, you just have to move up one fret ascending from G to B and down one fret descending from B to G as shown by the colored arrows. Of course you can and should adapt your fingering to make playing these positions easier and more logical. An example is, the lowest and highest major scales would be fingered 24-124-134 and 13-124-134 respectively.
These diagrams should help to visualize what happens. I suggest practicing one octave scales on different sets of strings and not just for these scales and positions, but others as well.
This will be pretty well dependant on which scale you're having trouble with. We need to know that info.
With the pentatonics, I really can't see a problem: it's as if the guitar is an instrument made for the ease of playing them.
With a full two octave major scale, starting on fret x on the bottom (fat) string, and going to same fret x on the top (thin) string, you just have to get used to the fact that there is a pattern - but it's one which incorporates all the notes!
There is, however, a three-notes-per-string pattern, which translates to, as it says, 3 notes on each string, with the same pattern on strings 6 and 5, another pattern on 4 and 3, and another on 2 and 1. Which makes remembering the patterns a tad easier.
But - your problem may not be the patterns as much as the fingering, or positioning of hand/wrist/arm. For that, you've not given any clues..!
