90 days to fretboard freedom

[mr. beaumont]

Week 4…

Let’s stick with C major one more week, and look at some of the other patterns involved that should help you get a little more confident with the fretboard.

Last week, we looked at arpeggio patterns for the harmonized C major scale in a “1+2” fashion, meaning we started with the root of each arpeggio on one string, then moved to the next string and played the next 2 notes (example, C—8th fret 6th string, then E and G on the 5th string, 7th and 10th frets respectively)

This week, try the following:

1. Keep playing the 1+2’s

2. Check out 2+1’s…so 2 notes on the first string, then 1 on the next string adjacent. It’ll be a bit of a stretch for major chords…this will also get you pretty far up the neck in some spots…

3. Finally, work across groups of 3 strings. So CEG—8th fret 6th string, 7th fret 5th string, 5th fret 4th string.

Go through these as often as you can, again going through the whole scale. Again, singing the notes as you play is great—at least say them, but singing is maybe even better.

And again...once you can go forwards...go backwards.

Once you get these patterns under your fingers, we can talk more about the logic behind them and the intervals you’re looking at—but hopefully, you’re starting to recognize patterns…there’s only a few of them, really. And yes, they get “bumped” a fret when you get to that tricky G to B string interval…more on that later.

If there's any confusion, let me know, I can do more clarifying videos...

[Knollhaven]

Latecomer in joining this thread, here, but I’ll be following along with the discussion and trying to make a start. Thank you for the helpful fretboard breakdown!

[Chipotle]

Another vote to keep going. I am going through the exercises at least once a day and try to get in more. Thanks for doing this!

[jdto]

I've fallen off completely. I'm going to start back at the beginning and do it properly. Thanks again for doing this!

[Arch Stanton]

Originally Posted by jdto

I've fallen off completely. I'm going to start back at the beginning and do it properly. Thanks again for doing this!

Its ok, i'm a little behind too. Must be spring fever. Bruins/Celtics playoffs, trout fishing and outdoor stuff. I'll catch up soon.

[jdto]

Originally Posted by Arch Stanton

Its ok, i'm a little behind too. Must be spring fever. Bruins/Celtics playoffs, trout fishing and outdoor stuff. I'll catch up soon.

I'm not in the mood to discuss hockey playoffs this morning

At least the Raptors wrapped things up with Orlando.

[Paultergeist]

What a great thread......sadly, I am just now discovering it.

[mattyc71]

Another latecomer here, but I'll be catching up and have saved a link to this thread. Thank you Jeff, this looks like terrific stuff!! Not TOO much theory for us "guitar players", but more toward the practical side. I've also found that my retention goes through the roof when I write stuff down. Much less so for typing it.

Thanks again!!
Matt

[jdto]

Originally Posted by Paultergeist

What a great thread......sadly, I am just now discovering it.

Originally Posted by mattyc71

Another latecomer here, but I'll be catching up and have saved a link to this thread. Thank you Jeff, this looks like terrific stuff!! Not TOO much theory for us "guitar players", but more toward the practical side. I've also found that my retention goes through the roof when I write stuff down. Much less so for typing it.

Thanks again!!
Matt

I've compiled the lesson posts into a document so I can keep track and view them easily at home. Here's a link to a Google Doc if that helps.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

[jricc]

Very helpful thread, thanks Jeff

[mr. beaumont]

Glad there's so many folks sticking with it...here's the assignment for Week 5:

Ok, a quick review…

To this point you should have made a bunch of fretboard diagrams, spiderfingered up and down the whole neck (or at least the playable real estate) saying/singing the notes as you played them, played notes in octave pairs and harmonized the C major scale into triads, playing through the triads in 1+2, 2+1, and three adjacent string patterns (all while saying/singing and playing) (and yes, forward and backwards)

Whew.

We’re going to go through all 12 major scales…you probably saw that coming. But this week, a little break…well, not really, you still need to make some time to keep going on all the week 1-4 stuff or it’ll leak out of your brain. But this week, we’re going to see what’s sticking, a bit.

This week, I want you to pick 3 easy melodies…happy birthday, mary had a little lamb, Giant steps, whatever…And your goal is to pick a note at random on the neck of the guitar, and then play that melody from that note. Then move to the same note in a different octave and play the melody from there. Then another octave…Then pick another random (different) note to start on and play the melody from there…etc.

After a day or two with your first melody, introduce the second, then finally the third.

And yes, say/sing those notes as you play them.

Make note of patterns. They are everywhere.

[Gitfiddlemann]

Happy Birthday is a good one.
I started the melody on E, and after playing the melody and writing out the notes, I realized it ended in A. It made sense when I saw the 3 sharps.
Ditto for starting it in C. It then ends in F, so one of those melody notes was a Bb (rather than A#).
And my starting points, E and C, were actually the V in the major key triads respectively. It makes use of octave pairs too.
Simple melodies can reveal a lot!

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by AndreF

Happy Birthday is a good one.
I started the melody on E, and after playing the melody and writing out the notes, I realized it ended in A. It made sense when I saw the 3 sharps.
Ditto for starting it in C. It then ends in F, so one of those melody notes was a Bb (rather than A#).
And my starting points, E and C, were actually the V in the major key triads respectively. It makes use of octave pairs too.
Simple melodies can reveal a lot!

YES!!! Absolutely...

[Arthur Blake]

Music theory is not my strength, but I have stuck with drawing out the fret board daily. After a while realized with sharps and flats it was just too much to assimilate, so omitted those, just trying to learn the natural notes on all strings.

These days, I'm thinking of the name of the strings as I draw the lines on a quarter sheet of unlined paper, and also the number of the fret as I draw them - 12, 6, 3, 9, etc. Then they get dots at 3, 5, 7, 9 and double dot at 12.

Then I go backwards from the 12th fret on each string, writing each note, and then same thing on the guitar before playing - open string, then 12th and backward, then forward up each string.

May sound like a lot, but in practice it's only a matter of moments.

Not sure how well it's all sinking in, or what the value is to knowing note names, but hopefully after 90 days I'll be further along than when I started.

[Gitfiddlemann]

Originally Posted by Arthur Blake

Music theory is not my strength, but I have stuck with drawing out the fret board daily. After a while realized with sharps and flats it was just too much to assimilate, so omitted those, just trying to learn the natural notes on all strings.

These days, I'm thinking of the name of the strings as I draw the lines on a quarter sheet of unlined paper, and also the number of the fret as I draw them - 12, 6, 3, 9, etc. Then they get dots at 3, 5, 7, 9 and double dot at 12.

Then I go backwards from the 12th fret on each string, writing each note, and then same thing on the guitar before playing - open string, then 12th and backward, then forward up each string.

May sound like a lot, but in practice it's only a matter of moments.

Not sure how well it's all sinking in, or what the value is to knowing note names, but hopefully after 90 days I'll be further along than when I started.

If I may make a suggestion:
That's all fine what you're doing, and you'll definitely be learning, but in the same amount of time, you could be doing a lot more for yourself.
I don't know if it's been mentioned or not, but what Jeff is doing here too is presenting people with a golden opportunity to learn to read standard notation as they are learning the fretboard, in case they are interested. And that is a very useful skill.
For example, rather than just writing note names on imaginary frets, however useful that is, you could just as easily be looking at a two octave C major scale written out in front of you in notation, (no sharps or flats), and then calling out each note as you play it on your guitar.
That will be really sink in after doing reps.
And in the same amount of time you're putting in with paper, you'll be a lot further ahead after 90 days with the real fretboard.
Don't even think of it as theory. Just do it!