Memorizing notes of the first 12 frets...

[Cecil6243]

What worked best for you?

[rick-slo]

Never bothered with that specifically.

[godfreydaniel]

Find an app. I use Justin Guitar Guitar Note Trainer. It has four parts, some of them don’t work as well as they should, but overall I spend about 5 minutes a day on it and find it very helpful.

[hatamoto]

Originally Posted by Cecil6243

What worked best for you?

I don't know notes. I mean I know random ones just through playing, and I know the root notes, but beyond that I never bothered.

Intervals worked much better for me.

[stanron]

When you play a piece of music there is not enough time to think "That is an A, that is B flat, that is F". Finding the root note of a piece before you play can be based on knowing the root notes in the five basic open chord shapes when moved up the neck. I can't remember ever needing to know how to do this. After playing a range of music over several years I found I could just do it.

I recommend concentrating on the sounds of the notes you play when your hands do whatever they do and getting the ones you want. When you can do that the names are almost irrelevant.

[Nama Ensou]

Your quest for improvement should not be squelched by those who don't care for such things and I'm sure that soon there will be others offering more helpful advice than you've seen here so far.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by hatamoto

I don't know notes. I mean I know random ones just through playing, and I know the root notes, but beyond that I never bothered.

Intervals worked much better for me.

? How do you know what the intervals are if you don't know what the notes are?

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by Cecil6243

What worked best for you?

I was taught how to work out scales and chords using the basics of music theory so perhaps my initial progress in memorizing the fretboard was slower than what might have resulted from other methods but does help me understand what is going on musically whatever I play. As a child I had piano lessons and must have learned the notes pretty quick but never gained any understanding of why some notes work together and others don't.

[Cecil6243]

Interesting responses. Found this intriguing video on Youtube with a guy with an Italian accent that sounds like Father Sarducci from SNL. Some of comments he makes later in the video cause me chuckle too. He also explains how knowing your notes on the fretboard can be helpful for obvious reasons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJddQ6Q0UDo

So his method starts with one of the notes of the natural scale of your choosing. One starts on 6th string picking that note on each string down to the first string. Then back up again to the 6th string. Not actually memorizing but trying to get the note accurately one string after another in succession, low to high and back again. Once one can do that accurately 5 times in a row, one does it with a metronome starting at only 40 bpm and then successively faster. And move on to the next note in the natural scale, and so on. He stresses not to actually memorize?

Kind of fun really, and a challenge at the same time, which is the kind of thing I eat up. I also read music (prefer reading staff notes vs. tabs), and probably contrary to some enjoy music theory.

Someone in the comments section summed it up like this, which makes sense:

"In principle it is like a computer keyboard. Nobody could write the keys down by heart in the right order, but you intuitively know where the keys you want to press are."

[Pattern]

Cecil I found that same video a few months back and have added that into my practice. I agree it’s fun and challenging especially when you start switching to other notes at random times.

I’m not sure yet how this will help my playing, but so far I’ve learned it’s good to gather all the musical ingredients you can because you never know what seemingly simple thing will lead to an epiphany. And I love Aha! moments

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Cecil6243

What worked best for you?

I never bothered. I'm not a musician, just a play-by-tab player (read "paint by numbers") so its more about the fret position than the actual note. Being in different tunings all the time too clouds things up for a couple of strings too. I do know enough though to find different ways to play things just in case.

[egordon99]

Originally Posted by hatamoto

Intervals worked much better for me.

Yep, same here.... And knowing the major/minor scale patterns (with regards to half or whole steps) allows me to "hear" a phrase in my head and immediately apply it to the fretboard.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by Nama Ensou

Your quest for improvement should not be squelched by those who don't care for such things and I'm sure that soon there will be others offering more helpful advice than you've seen here so far.

Learning to play guitar and play actual pieces of music on the guitar it's helpful not to go down rabbit holes. See it happening again and again.

[hubcapsc]

A chord* is made up of 1, 3 and 5. There's 5 chord shapes down the neck
in this order: C, A, G, E, D. I've focused on where 1 is in all the 5 shapes. I
fiddle with it a little most times when I sit up there and play guitar
for a while, it is growing on me, I'd like to not even think about it after
a while. Start with the G shape, for example, and bing, bing, bing,
there's the three #1s in it, it's easy to pop over the single #1 in the E
Shape you haven't used yet and so on down the neck.

-Mike " * yeah, yeah :-) "

[rllink]

Toby Walker taught me. If you watch his licks videos he walks you through them and instead of telling you what fret he is playing on a particular string he tells you what note it is. Master them and not only will you learn a whole bunch of cool licks, you will learn what notes you are playing when you play them. Thank you Toby.