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#46
02-07-2012, 01:50 PM
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So you can understand theory? So you can make better sense of (see more connections between) the patterns? The note names are only labels, nothing to be scared of. You're right it's the sounds that matter, and you can do without the note names to a large extent, but they're VERY easy to learn (I mean really), and IMO it's worth it for the increase in understanding that they bring. It's a piece of knowledge that makes music simpler. 
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#47
02-07-2012, 02:36 PM
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"Zzzzzzzz" - that's the same mneumonic I used to learn shredding!
 Though I often suspect melody is determined as much by rhythm as by pitch (seeing as the next note can be higher or lower or the same - but comes in when it comes in) I do agree that thinking about harmony using scales or chord tones would be clearer, once you play a while and figure some things out, just by repetition. You kind of learn how they sound, what's possible, and then figure out what they're called if you need to. Handy for internet discussions, obviously Otherwise it always seemed to me like trying to spell long, rotten words that I didn't even understand yet- kind of makes it over-complicated. I play what I like, and only simple stuff, but given that - it would have been a struggle not to learn the notes up and down the fretboard after 20 odd years, on and off. To each his own. I wish played better and knew more - but who doesn't?
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#48
02-07-2012, 03:01 PM
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If someone wants to learn, they shouldn't? There's stuff that knowing the fretboard allows me to do. I can instantly come up with another part to fit with another guitarist. I can look at a piece of sheet music and play a song with people without having ever heard it. I can improvise freely over songs and create true melodies that fit the chords of the tune, without relying on boxed in scale patterns. Inevitably someone says "I can do all that by ear." Can you? No fishing for notes? No clams? No trite, boxed in scale patterns? Over chord changes that are unfamiliar, or non-diatonic? No you can't. About 10 players in history could do that well. For the rest of us mortals, there are maps and suggestions and touchstones to help us find our way. The anti-knowledge contingent of guitar players is a group I'll never understand. It's why we're not taken seriously as an instrument, and it angers me greatly. I wish guitar players would focus more on being musicians. To the guitar players of the world -- LEARN. Learn as much as you can. Never stop learning. The day you stop learning is the day you start sucking. Everything can be learned in context. Just because you learn the notes on the fretboard doesn't mean you have to stop learning songs. It means you can learn MORE songs! Don't EVER listen to someone who tells you that knowledge will stifle your creativity. The only time information gets in the way is when a player doesn't truly understand something, and they try to force it to fit everything their working on. This isn't the knowledge's fault--it's the player, who's overzealous (and likely a little impatient and lazy as well)
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#49
02-07-2012, 03:02 PM
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Yes. See my post above for my take on theory. Scales and scale-based chord harmony is all the theory I need to know to get me where I want to go, musically, for longer than I'll be alive. Just don't tell those dancing people that us pickers don't know where every A-flat is; they would sit down in disgust of our poor knowledge about makin' music. Better than what? More than what? Better than you? Probably not. You win!
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#50
02-07-2012, 03:24 PM
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You have some guitar skills that I don't have. Whip-dee-doo. I have lots of interests outside of playing guitar and I could trot out a list of skills that I have that you probably don't. We all could. BFD. And that's the whole point. I'm having a blast playing music, among many other things that make me smile. I can have a boatload of fun without knowing all the names of the places I can put my fingers on a guitar. I don't want to be serious about music, and the day that someone's guitar-playing choices makes me angry is the day I get a lifetime prescription for da kine medicinal herb. Here's an interesting tidbit. I can name every note on a piano, probably faster than you can on your guitar, but I can't make music on a piano. To the guitar players of the world -- SMILE, have fun, see if you can induce other people to SMILE and DANCE.
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#51
02-07-2012, 03:26 PM
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I don't doubt you know enough for your own purposes; and it's good that you've explained the circumstances for which your level (and type) of knowledge is sufficient. That's an important foundation for your advice. IOW, when you offer an opinion on a topic like this, it's good to know where you're coming from - which we do now. I don't have a problem with that. As I think I said; the level of theoretical knowledge we need is dependent on the kind of music we want to play and who we're working with. FWIW, I don't play jazz (any more), just rock, folk and blues in pubs, and - no doubt very much like you - more for dancers than listeners, and certainly not for people who care a **** about how much theory we know. My fellow musicians know a lot less theory than I do, and none of them read notation. They don't know any jazz scales. But they all know the notes on each fret (or can quickly work them out from the ones they do know), and what notes are in each chord they play. That can be useful for quick communication. Eg, if I want to give a bass line to the bassist (not just a chord chart, from which he'd probably just play roots), notation is no good; but I can write out the note letters for him; he'll know several places he can play them. It's hard to imagine how I could work with a bassist who didn't read and didn't know his notes (who only worked in patterns); it would take far too long to tab lines out for him, or to teach him stuff by ear. (We only do gigs, we never rehearse.) Last edited by JonPR; 02-07-2012 at 03:34 PM.
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#52
02-07-2012, 03:34 PM
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#53
02-07-2012, 03:47 PM
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Eg, if I decide I want to play in (say) Gb major, I'll just shift a G major scale pattern a fret down and not think about the notes in it. I know the notes, of course, but I don't think about them (and the theory doesn't get in the way either). If I think theoretically at all, I think in intervals: scale degrees, chord tones and extensions. (And I suspect jwing thinks that way too; that's how music works.) It's not so much that fret/note knowledge makes you a better guitar player. I think the knowledge you can gain by learning patterns and developing a good ear can get you to the same place (over a longer period of time, and with more difficulty, but you get there). The advantage of knowing the notes is simply in becoming a better all-round musician: feeling one is literate, and on a par with any other literate musician. (And that's not a matter of pride or snobbery, it's about passion and curiosity about one's craft. Why wouldn't you want to know the notes? Why wouldn't you care? Why would you be happy to be excluded from the club?) I might be able to speak Spanish very well, but I wouldn't consider that I knew Spanish very well unless I knew how the words were spelled so that I could write it down, and read it. (And I recognise that there will be illiterate Spaniards who speak it perfectly but can't read a word.)
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#54
02-07-2012, 04:14 PM
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Knowledge and fun aren't mutually exclusive. Some of us, like the OP, don't want to stay in one place. Your post obviously suggests that fretboard knowledge is frivolous and boring. I can't for the life of me understand why anybody would post in a thread where the OP is on a search to get better and essentially make fun of that. And if you're not offering advice, you're just talking about yourself?
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#55
02-07-2012, 04:22 PM
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Knowledge and fun aren't mutually exclusive. Some of us, like the OP, don't want to stay in one place. Your post obviously suggests that fretboard knowledge is frivolous and boring. I can't for the life of me understand why anybody would post in a thread where the OP is on a search to get better and essentially make fun of that. And if you're not offering advice, you're just talking about yourself?
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#56
02-08-2012, 08:18 AM
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This is a true, serious, cautionary tale (Boring? Maybe. Frivolus? No.):
There lives a man name Eric who could name every note on his guitar and could play every mode of every key. And Eric was really, really good at it. Unfortunately, Eric couldn't play a single tune, couldn't boom-chuck a simple backup, and wouldn't sing a lyric. Eric quit lessons and never takes his guitar out its case. Eric regrets the time he wasted with a guitar. Eric would've been far better off learning how to make music. My name is not Eric. Eric taught me a valuable lesson.
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#57
02-08-2012, 08:57 AM
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I'm a novice at VERY best (and you can probably play circles around me). None the less, I AM working to get a better handle on the fretboard. I DO work on scales, mode shapes, melodic patterns, and plenty of other exercises, but I'll be d****d if I'm not going to play some music (even if it's just bits an pieces of songs). I believe that the fundamentals have been VERY beneficial in helping to move me ahead faster than I would by just learning a few tabs. But having fun is also VERY important. As with just about everything else in life... "everything in moderation". I guess what has puzzled me is what sounds like a reluctance to be well rounded. I doubt I'll ever be anything more that a couch player, but I don't want that to be an excuse for me to hold myself back. And in all honesty, what are we really talking about here?? A 6x12 grid... 72 notes that repeat in a specific pattern. That's it! How long should it take to memorize? A couple of weeks of partial effort maybe? RIP THE BAND AID OFF! After that, it's done! I BETTER be playing for a LOT longer than a few weeks! Oh, and I didn't mean to revive the thread to start any controversy. I just wanted to recommend an Android App that I think is great to help achieve the objective being discussed. Again, I highly recommend RR Guitar Fretboard Trainer.
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#58
02-08-2012, 09:20 AM
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#59
02-08-2012, 09:23 AM
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However, I couldn't play a guitar at all. I couldn't play a tune for inspiration. I couldn't apply anything I was learning. The progress wasn't meaningful to me because the results weren't resolving into music. Months of practice and not one song. A current player, at whatever level, might have a very different experience. I value the knowledge from those lessons now, far more than I did then.
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#60
02-08-2012, 09:30 AM
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