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Old 01-13-2017, 07:57 AM
amyFB amyFB is offline
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Default How to learn notes on the fretboard

Found this over at the Jazz forum and I think it a clever idea that I am going to try:

"...there are 7 notes, and their attendant sharp/flats. On Monday, learn where every A is, that will give you Ab and A# as well. Do B on Tuesday. By Sunday, it's done."



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Old 01-13-2017, 08:12 AM
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I found a program called metal method (for electric) and liked their system as well.


Everyone has a "system" but, in reality its just memorization and I found that any "system" still requires rote repetition
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Old 01-13-2017, 08:43 AM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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In Ted Greene's "Chord Chemistry", he provides a very simple method, similar to what AmyFB posted. I have posted this here in years past, in response to this question, but oddly people seem to want to make things more complicated and my post has typically been ignored. Anyway, here it is again. Note that describing in words here makes it sound more complicated than it is. Some things are like that. If you actually follow through with this, you will soon see how simple it really is. You don't need books to show you how to learn the fretboard. The fretboard is its own guide, once you learn how to approach it.

Every day do the following...

1. Pick a note at random on the fretboard - look away and just plop a finger down somewhere on the fretboard.
2. Determine what that note is (more on that in a moment).
3. Starting on the 6th string, find that note at its first (lowest) occurrence, and continue finding that note along each string in turn, from that lowest note on the 6th string to the highest on the 1st string.
4. Starting from that highest note on the 1st string, work in reverse along each string back down to where you started with the lowest note on the 6th string.

If you pick just one note each day and do this every day, over the span of a couple of weeks, you will be seeing the fretboard as clearly as we do the piano keyboard. Once you are comfortable with this exercise, you can start finding specific chords or scales all over the fretboard as a way of expanding the exercise. I prefer small chord voicings of 3 or 4 strings at most, and scales of one octave in length because smaller voicings are more flexible than those big 6 string versions.

If you know how to build the various scales and chords (i.e. their "templates"), you can now build these anywhere on the fretboard, and no longer need systems such as the CAGED system or chord dictionaries.

I do this exercise every day to keep the fretboard clearly in mind. It only takes about 30 seconds now. I think it took probably 5 minutes or so when I first started doing this.

A cool thing about this exercise is that if you have decided to standardize on a different tuning, as Pierre Bensusan does, you can still do this exercise for whatever tuning you chose, though the following information about determiningg the notes will probably not work as described. You can come up with your own method for a given tuning though.

Determining what the note is that you found (step 2)...

You know the notes of the open strings (E A D G B E) and that these repeat at the 12th fret an octave higher than the open string.

You know that between the open string and the 12th fret is an octave and that each note occurs once in an octave. There are 12 chromatic notes in the octave (12 frets).

You know how to tune your guitar by ear - comparing the lower string at the 5th fret to the next higher adjacent string open (except the 3rd string at the 4th fret to the 2nd string). So you know what those notes are. With this, you have effectively divided the fretboard in half, so you can quickly determine if your note is in the lower or upper half of the string.

If all else fails, you can count up from the open string in half steps or down from the 12th fret in half steps to find the note.

Tony
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Old 01-13-2017, 06:07 PM
polarred21 polarred21 is offline
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These methods sound very interesting and I need to start somewhere. Learning one note at a time all over the fretboard sounds like a good place to start. Thanks for posting
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Old 01-13-2017, 07:05 PM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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By the way, the method I described has worked very well for learning the 7 string guitar, which I acquired in December. With this approach, it is just another string, rather than having to pore through books about the 7 string guitar.

Tony
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Old 01-14-2017, 10:14 AM
Ruark Ruark is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by amyFB View Post
Found this over at the Jazz forum and I think it a clever idea that I am going to try:

"...there are 7 notes, and their attendant sharp/flats. On Monday, learn where every A is, that will give you Ab and A# as well. Do B on Tuesday. By Sunday, it's done."
This actually works, but to REALLY internalize it where you can play the notes instantly, without thinking, you need to spend about a week on each note, not just one day. That's only a couple of months, a small price to pay compared to wasting several decades piddling around. At the end of that couple of months you'll be way ahead of 99% of the other players out there.
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Old 01-14-2017, 10:22 AM
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For chording I usually concentrate on what the base note is as that is often the root note.
More power to the people who use several alternate tunings and have memorized where the notes are on the fretboard in each tuning.
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Old 01-14-2017, 10:33 AM
Silly Moustache Silly Moustache is offline
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Hi, this part of tbeltrans's suggestion ring a bell (strikes as chord?) with me:

He wrote : " ........ over the span of a couple of weeks, you will be seeing the fretboard as clearly as we do the piano keyboard".

When I take breaks I tend to close my eyes. Not because I'm being cool, bluesy, or clever but somehow in some way that I can't describe, I "see" the fretboard in my mind's eye.

I'll admit that I don't play all over the fretboard, and yes, if I'm going for a D shape G or an A shape C or D up the board a tad, I'll glance down, but as I can't focus very well on the board anyway - it's a brief source of reference.

I'm going to use the first method used when my student recovers from his cold and comes back for more lessons!
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  #9  
Old 01-14-2017, 11:41 AM
Arthur Blake Arthur Blake is offline
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Default really just one way

The only way to learn the fretboard is to memorize it.

The one thing I found helpful, is that you often hear the guitar finger board is harder to learn than piano for example, because notes repeat so much -- but from frets 1 through 12 on each string you only find them once.

That's what makes all the other methods possible, such as finding the G on each string.
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Old 01-14-2017, 11:50 AM
stanron stanron is offline
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My take on this is.

1 There is only one fret between E and F and between B and C.
2 There are two frets between all the other notes.
3 In between notes are sharp of the fret below and/or flat of the fret above. (the key signature determines which)
4 The open strings are E, A, D, G, B and E.

Extrapolation of this information will give you the name of any note on the fretboard. Use this when you need it and you will eventually have all the fretboard knowledge you need.

However,

If you don't need it what is the point of learning it?

If you are in a band and someone says " F is too high. We need to take it down to Eb." Then knowing the names of the notes on the fretboard is going to be essential. Presumably you already know how to play the piece, you just need to start playing it two frets lower, or somewhere else. If you are not at the stage of learning where you have a repertoire of songs or tunes to play then knowing the names of notes on the whole of the fretboard is of no use. It is useless knowledge, or wasted effort.

If you can't play the music in the first place, knowing what key you are in isn't going to help.

There is a time to learn stuff. That is when you need it. Beware of inexperienced teachers who, being enamoured of some advanced knowledge or technique, attempt to teach it to pupils who are not ready. It never gets good results.
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Old 01-14-2017, 11:51 AM
EllaMom EllaMom is offline
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Arthur Blake, you just gave me another Homer Simpson "D'oh!" moment: From frets 1 through 12 on each string you only find them once.

Why did I not realize that before? I've always thought of the fretboard as a kind of trainwreck....sheer chaos, no rhyme or reason as to why the open strings are the ones they are: EADGBE. Why not ABCDEF or something more "logical." Then I learned it's because you can reach virtually every note in the first position. OK...but still a trainwreck.

Now I'm learning scales, and saying out loud every note as I play them. And looking for patterns...all in the first position. The fog is clearing....slowly. But clearing nonetheless!
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Old 01-14-2017, 12:06 PM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Arthur Blake View Post
The only way to learn the fretboard is to memorize it.

The one thing I found helpful, is that you often hear the guitar finger board is harder to learn than piano for example, because notes repeat so much -- but from frets 1 through 12 on each string you only find them once.

That's what makes all the other methods possible, such as finding the G on each string.
EllaMom said: Arthur Blake, you just gave me another Homer Simpson "D'oh!" moment: From frets 1 through 12 on each string you only find them once.

Why did I not realize that before?

-------

I said this in my post above:

You know that between the open string and the 12th fret is an octave and that each note occurs once in an octave. There are 12 chromatic notes in the octave (12 frets).

Didn't anybody read that?

Tony
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  #13  
Old 01-14-2017, 12:12 PM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stanron View Post
My take on this is.

1 There is only one fret between E and F and between B and C.
2 There are two frets between all the other notes.
3 In between notes are sharp of the fret below and/or flat of the fret above. (the key signature determines which)
4 The open strings are E, A, D, G, B and E.

Extrapolation of this information will give you the name of any note on the fretboard. Use this when you need it and you will eventually have all the fretboard knowledge you need.

However,

If you don't need it what is the point of learning it?

If you are in a band and someone says " F is too high. We need to take it down to Eb." Then knowing the names of the notes on the fretboard is going to be essential. Presumably you already know how to play the piece, you just need to start playing it two frets lower, or somewhere else. If you are not at the stage of learning where you have a repertoire of songs or tunes to play then knowing the names of notes on the whole of the fretboard is of no use. It is useless knowledge, or wasted effort.

If you can't play the music in the first place, knowing what key you are in isn't going to help.

There is a time to learn stuff. That is when you need it. Beware of inexperienced teachers who, being enamoured of some advanced knowledge or technique, attempt to teach it to pupils who are not ready. It never gets good results.
Learning the notes on the fretboard, along with how to "spell" scales and chords, will present a much better way to look at the fretboard than "systems" such as CAGED because learning the fretboard, which isn't difficult at all, as I presented earlier in this thread, is much more flexible than "canned" voicings and memorized patterns.

If a student is being taught to THINK on the fretboard as s/he is learning, that person will have none of the limitations imposed by various "systems" as that person gains the technical facility to get around on the guitar. Doing both in parallel, rather than having to stop and learn this later seems to me a much more natural approach to the instrument.

The reason is that the person is then well equipped to figure things out for him or herself, rather than having to wait to be shown or having to buy yet another book or DVD to show him or her.

The guitar fretboard is not difficult to understand, nor is it a mystery, unless a person is taught that it is through the various canned systems that seem to imply that it is only through such a system that one can learn to navigate the fretboard. It makes much more sense to teach a student how the fretboard works so it isn't difficult or a mystery.

Tony
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  #14  
Old 01-14-2017, 12:54 PM
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Know your chord shapes and the notes they are comprised of. That's two birds with one stone. There isn't a note that isn't in the chords. Visualizing your chord shapes, like the evening sky constellations, is an easy thing for the mind's eye. Then, instead of visualizing dots that represent the shape of each chord you'll see them as their respective notes. It isn't a big leap.
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Old 01-14-2017, 01:15 PM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pitar View Post
Know your chord shapes and the notes they are comprised of. That's two birds with one stone. There isn't a note that isn't in the chords. Visualizing your chord shapes, like the evening sky constellations, is an easy thing for the mind's eye. Then, instead of visualizing dots that represent the shape of each chord you'll see them as their respective notes. It isn't a big leap.
Now, that is another very nice approach. There certainly is more than one path to the same end.

Tony
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