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  #16  
Old 07-05-2019, 12:00 AM
Mr.Bill101 Mr.Bill101 is offline
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I have had fun learning the fretboard by taking a few different approaches.
I learned the CAGED system which did not really make me feel more comfortable with my knowledge of the fretboard.

I tried making flashcards by writing all the notes on 3X5 cards and shuffling them and them going through them one by one and finding the notes on every string a few times a day. This helped a bit.

I worked with books and practiced positions and full and pentatonic scales. This helped a little more.

I picked a few songs written in standard musical notation and figured out how to play them on the guitar. With the previous practice I think this has taken me a long way toward knowing what notes are where on the fretboard.

I still need to figure out how to put it all together so that I can just do an impromptu solo but I feel like I'm making progress.
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  #17  
Old 07-05-2019, 06:45 AM
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Originally Posted by rickcrna View Post
I'm a deductive learner meaning that I prefer to see "the big picture" and then recognize patterns that support it. I also have a major tendency to make learning relatively simple concepts much harder by overthinking.
I have this same issue or blessing. I'm not sure which.

One point I'd like to make that makes music work in a standard sort of way is to understand where the root notes are of the chords you are dealing with. In this way you have the freedom to make any sounds you want between root notes as long as you hit them on the beat when the chords change. Start with your favorite key and once you have it comfortably under your fingers all other keys will transpose from it.
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  #18  
Old 07-05-2019, 06:55 AM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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For those folks who want/need to know where all the notes are on the fretboard, there is an easy and painless method that doesn't cost anything. This idea comes from Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry.

The following description sounds more involved than it really is. That is one of the unfortunate things about having to type a forum message, rather than showing you. The reality is that this exercise only takes a few minutes a day and as you get better at it, only a few seconds until it eventually becomes instantaneous. I know because that is how I learned it.

As I have mentioned in previous posts in this thread, this will click for some, not for others. In a thread such as this with lots of suggestions, the best thing is to approach all of them with an open mind, rather than a foregone conclusion that none of these will work. They have all worked for somebody, or folks wouldn't be suggesting them. Think of the posts as "here is what worked for me...".

Do this every day...

1. Pick ONE note on the fretboard at random. Look away and just plop a finger down somewhere on the fretboard. That is your note for the day.

2. Identify what that note is:
You know the open strings (low to high): E A D G B E
You know that, at the 12th fret the notes repeat an octave higher, still E A D G B E
You know the notes at the 5th fret from tuning your guitar... A D G (B at the 4th fret, 3rd string) E (again at 5th fret, 2nd string) and since the two outer strings are both E, those will have the same notes, so 1st string 5th fret is also A like the 6th string
The distance from one fret to another on the same string is a half step, so just count up or down from one of the known locations to the note you picked.

3. Once you have identified that note, start on the 6th string and work you way up to the 1st string, finding that note on each string successively.
Every string has all 12 notes of the chromatic scale between the open string and the 12th fret, so the note you picked will occur once on every string within the first 12 frets.

4. Retrace you steps from step 3, finding that note starting on the 1st string and ending up back where you started on the 6th string.

If you just pick one random note every day and do this, over a period of just a few weeks, you will begin to "see" all the notes as clearly as one can on the piano.

When you learn how to "spell" chords, you will be able to easily create any chord, anywhere on the fretboard. Start with simple major and minor triads and then learn to add whatever "color tones" you want to hear as you become comfortable doing this chord spelling on the fretboard. The chart referenced below will help when you get to that point.

You don't need to buy any books, DVDs, lessons to do this. The information you need can be found for free on the net. Here is one such chart for chord spelling:

http://www.guitarnoise.com/images/articles/197/2.gif

Another fun exercise to do a little a bit every day is to pick out a melody on the fretboard by ear. Start with nursery rhymes and simple Christmas tunes and progress to more sophisticated material. By doing this AND the note finding exercise AND creating your own chords all over the fretboard, you will begin to "connect the dots". At some point along the way, you can begin to voice your own chords under the melodies you are picking out. At that point, you have begun to put all this together.

I would like to add that, though I wrote that paper on the CAGED system back in the mid-90s, and there is a lot of material around the net and for sale on this system, in hindsight, I think you are better off learning your way around the whole fretboard as I describe here, rather than having to break it up into little pieces as various systems, such as CAGED, do. There are other systems like CAGED around, and for each, somebody is hawking a method for sale. All of this you can do for free, but all of them will cost you time and effort.

Tony
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  #19  
Old 07-05-2019, 07:30 AM
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Originally Posted by rickcrna View Post
Freeing me up to move beyond first position chords would be really fun.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and contributions.

Rick
You need two things. For starters, learn the names of the notes of each fret position on the 6th string up to the 12th fret (learn the 5th string too right after). Many movable chords use the 6th string as the root so knowing the names of the fret positions will make life easier. Then find a movable chord system book, like the one Mel Bay has for rhythm guitar.

So let's say you learn the 6th string note names to the 12 fret and can play the F barre chord at the 1st fret.

The chromatic scale on the 6th string starting with the first fret to the 12th

F F# G G# A Bb B C C# D D# E

Then the F barre chord can be played at each fret and the name of the chord is the same as the chromatic scale on the 6th string, which is the root.

Using a minor chord position you can do the same thing knowing the names of the chromatic scale on the 5th string

Bb B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A

Then using this Bm shape barre x24432 (2nd fret shown) you get the same kind of result. Minor chords up the neck.

Being able to play up and down the neck is just a matter of understanding the chromatic scale, which is nothing more than giving a note name to each fret of each string in fret order. (1 2 3 4 etc = F F# G G#)

Just remember two things. There is no E# and no B#. Notice most of the time you have a sharp or flat between the notes (i.e. C C# D). Not so with E to F and B to C.

Also a lot of books won't say G#, they will say Ab (A flat).

So if you can learn the names of each fret on the 6th and 5th string you will be on your way to learning the entire fret board and be able to understand the notion of movable chords that will enable you to play chords anywhere on the neck.

As someone mentioned, you can also learn triads, which I immediately associate with the treble strings. The same train of thought applies there as well.

Using the above you can learn where the chord is on the neck without getting bogged down on playing the chord perfectly. That comes with time. Once you get going with this you can make up your own barre chord drills to get better at execution.
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  #20  
Old 07-05-2019, 07:42 AM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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Lots of good ideas in this thread. Keep them coming. Maybe this thread can be put some place that others in the future can access it easily. The more ideas/approaches presented, the better.

Tony
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  #21  
Old 07-05-2019, 09:32 AM
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Is there a Sudnow type method for guitar?
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  #22  
Old 07-05-2019, 09:44 AM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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Is there a Sudnow type method for guitar?
Not that I know of, but what I posted earlier about the note finding and picking out melodies and chord building might suffice. Sudnow provided a set of "rules" for building chords under a melody note and a method for getting these into your hands (i.e. how to practice). The course was a set of tapes that you worked through on your own, playing standards from fakebooks in a cocktail manner.

The voicing rules went something like this (he thought of chords similar to Joe Pass: major minor and dominant):

Major: root and 5 (or octave) in left hand, 3, 6, 7, 9, melody in right hand
Minor 7: root and b7 in left hand, b3, 5, 9 in right hand
Dominant: root and b7 in left hand, 3, b9, #11, 13 in right hand

From there, you could experiment once you had the concept well in hand, in practice after doing 15 or 20 tunes this way.

This could easily fit on the guitar with appropriate adjustments for the piano left hand. Once you know the locations of the notes on the fretboard, the spelling of chords, and are comfortable with applying that to the fretboard, along with picking out melodies, you are on your way.

Clearly, this is not the only way to approach this stuff. This thread has plenty of perspectives to choose from, but this is what I know.

Tony
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  #23  
Old 07-05-2019, 10:14 AM
MIGAS79 MIGAS79 is offline
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I am the type of person who needs to know the how and the why when learning something. It’s not necessarily the best way to learn music. But I think recognizing how you specifically learn is an asset

I am nearly blind so I had to learn a very different way. Even if I know where I need to go, I have to learn the guitar spacially and with muscle memory because I can’t just hit a visual target. This slows the learning process but will probably be beneficial in the long run. I really started to put the fretboard together by learning several different scale shas as well as for my individual sake, learning where certain notes are for landmarks. Since I cannot see the individual frets early on if I knew I wanted to be on the fifth fret, I figured out a fretted B string is an E there thus it would sound like the open high E below it. After having about 12 such landmarks all over the place it kind of filled in the fretboard because I am I obviously know that 1 or 2 frets below or above would be the next note... then landmarks start encroaching on each other and I fill in a large space. I am not suggesting anybody else use this method, but when you don’t see you have to figure out your own way. Over time I slowly get better and don’t even need to hit a relative open note to verify the location is correct. Having to learn over time in all aspects of life to be patient because of my situation has definitely helped in not ever getting frustrated in this process.

Which leads me to my number one bit of advice. Think long term and try to learn something every day.

Take it in chunks. It will add up.
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  #24  
Old 07-05-2019, 10:38 AM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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Originally Posted by Mich Novice View Post
I am the type of person who needs to know the how and the why when learning something. It’s not necessarily the best way to learn music. But I think recognizing how you specifically learn is an asset

I am nearly blind so I had to learn a very different way. Even if I know where I need to go, I have to learn the guitar spacially and with muscle memory because I can’t just hit a visual target. This slows the learning process but will probably be beneficial in the long run. I really started to put the fretboard together by learning several different scale shas as well as for my individual sake, learning where certain notes are for landmarks. Since I cannot see the individual frets early on if I knew I wanted to be on the fifth fret, I figured out a fretted B string is an E there thus it would sound like the open high E below it. After having about 12 such landmarks all over the place it kind of filled in the fretboard because I am I obviously know that 1 or 2 frets below or above would be the next note... then landmarks start encroaching on each other and I fill in a large space. I am not suggesting anybody else use this method, but when you don’t see you have to figure out your own way. Over time I slowly get better and don’t even need to hit a relative open note to verify the location is correct. Having to learn over time in all aspects of life to be patient because of my situation has definitely helped in not ever getting frustrated in this process.

Which leads me to my number one bit of advice. Think long term and try to learn something every day.

Take it in chunks. It will add up.
I strongly agree that knowing how we each learn is a true asset that guides our path and progress. I have been saying that, more or less, in all my posts in this thread.

You might be interested in this:

http://www.musicfortheblind.com/guitar-courses/

Tony
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  #25  
Old 07-05-2019, 10:58 AM
DesertTwang DesertTwang is offline
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Originally Posted by rickcrna View Post

I'm a deductive learner meaning that I prefer to see "the big picture" and then recognize patterns that support it. I also have a major tendency to make learning relatively simple concepts much harder by overthinking.
Rick, I'm in the same boat and can relate very well to how you describe yourself. As soon as I learn one scale or form, I immediately try to deduce all the others from it, or find out how it connects to the other shapes, or try to figure out how it related to other keys, etc. And next thing I know, I'm terribly confused.

I, too, have struggled with this for many years and tried a bunch of approaches. None really worked. My old guitar teacher used to say, "Just memorize all the scale patterns and don't question it," but that is not how I learn. If I find myself not being able to see the forest for the trees, I feel intimidated and give up.

I used to learn scales by position, meaning I would run through the open position scales in all major keys, and then go to the closed scales, but again, I got confused and started mixing them up.

I've been studying with Bryan Sutton's online school at artistworks for a while, and he does surprisingly little emphasis on patterns and visualizing them. He teaches several scale forms (open, second position closed major scales and third position minor pentatonics), and leaves it at that, at least in the basic and intermediate curriculum.

So, lately, I have made an effort to just sit down every day and run through some scales without questioning them too much. I find it very, very difficult, because by the time I've come to memorize one form really well, I've forgotten the others I had already learned (or so I thought). I still feel I'm starting over all the time. One thing I found that seems to help a little is to rather approach scales by position, I approach them by keys. So for example, I'd say, this week, I'm going to only focus on the C major scale in all positions, and perhaps even see how I can connect them. That, by the way, is one of the biggest obstacles for me: Each time I play a scale, I'm stuck in that position. I know (conceptually) that all scale forms connect somehow and you can run them up and down the fingerboard, but I have not been able to figure out how.

More and more, though, I have found myself being able to play scales "by ear," meaning my fingers go where they're supposed to, even though I couldn't tell you "consciously" which fret my fingers should go next based on the pattern I've been studying. It's almost as if my fingers are starting to pick up the patterns, while my brain still doesn't get them.

It's really weird, and I'm hoping to get some fresh approaches or insights when I attend the week-long Rocky Grass Bluegrass Academy at the end of the month. I'm signed up for the Intermediate Guitar curriculum, and I have high hopes, because my instructors will include Courtney Hartman from Della Mae and one of the Krueger Brothers — I can never remember which of the two is the banjo player and which is the guitar player...
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  #26  
Old 07-05-2019, 11:09 AM
DesertTwang DesertTwang is offline
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Originally Posted by tbeltrans View Post
N
Major: root and 5 (or octave) in left hand, 3, 6, 7, 9, melody in right hand
Minor 7: root and b7 in left hand, b3, 5, 9 in right hand
Dominant: root and b7 in left hand, 3, b9, #11, 13 in right hand

You got me curious about this approach. I don't understand it, though. What does my right hand (picking hand) have to do with fretting chords?
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  #27  
Old 07-05-2019, 11:48 AM
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Originally Posted by DesertTwang View Post
Rick, I'm in the same boat and can relate very well to how you describe yourself. As soon as I learn one scale or form, I immediately try to deduce all the others from it, or find out how it connects to the other shapes, or try to figure out how it related to other keys, etc. And next thing I know, I'm terribly confused.

I, too, have struggled with this for many years and tried a bunch of approaches. None really worked. My old guitar teacher used to say, "Just memorize all the scale patterns and don't question it," but that is not how I learn. If I find myself not being able to see the forest for the trees, I feel intimidated and give up.

I used to learn scales by position, meaning I would run through the open position scales in all major keys, and then go to the closed scales, but again, I got confused and started mixing them up.


More and more, though, I have found myself being able to play scales "by ear," meaning my fingers go where they're supposed to, even though I couldn't tell you "consciously" which fret my fingers should go next based on the pattern I've been studying. It's almost as if my fingers are starting to pick up the patterns, while my brain still doesn't get them.
.
I quoted the portions of your post I can relate to.
As I mentioned in my previous response, I learned to play the scale patterns from the chord shapes themselves. My instructor also forced me to learn scales from root notes and practice them. I too discovered that after a while, I was intuitively playing scales without cognisance and knowing where to move about the fretboard. My instructor told me this would happen after a while. The brain does know, but doesn't necessarily recognize it consciously. I believe the term is "muscle memory".
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  #28  
Old 07-05-2019, 11:58 AM
Edgar Poe Edgar Poe is offline
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I know every note on the entire Fretboard. That is relatively easy to do, because of the repetitive nature of the fret board. That is NOT my problem. My problem is finding those notes as I'm playing. I have yet to find any system that explains that. If someone ever comes up with a way to help people find the notes without looking, you will become a rich person. The only way I know how to do that is practice, Practice and a LOT OF IT.

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  #29  
Old 07-05-2019, 12:13 PM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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You got me curious about this approach. I don't understand it, though. What does my right hand (picking hand) have to do with fretting chords?
I provided exactly what Sudnow gave as his starting voicing rules no the piano. It is up to you to translate that to the guitar. So, on the piano, the left hand is always playing the root and either the 5, 8, or b7 according to the voicing rules. The right hand is playing the 3rd or b3rd, the melody (as the highest note), and then adding the "color tones", again as per the voicing rules.

On the guitar, obviously the right hand is plucking the strings and the left hand is fretting the notes (or vice-versa if you are left handed).

So, all the voicing rules apply to the fretting hand. I would suggest starting with the "left hand" piano part being handled on the guitar by playing just the root of the chord (inversions can come later). You would put the melody on top, typically on the 1st or 2nd string, and sometimes the 3rd string. The remaining strings in-between can then play the 3rd (or b3) and then whatever color tones you can fit in. If the chord is a dominant chord, then you would also have to add the b7 somewhere in there before starting to add color tones.

So, there is a translation idea for you. Consider that a starting point, rather than the end of it all. Once you are able to do the basic voicing stuff, then you can experiment with chord inversions, leaving notes out, etc., according to taste.

The way I would approach the whole thing is to be able to play the melody first in its entirety on the top 2 or 3 strings, which may require you to transpose the tune from its original key to whatever allows you to play it that way on the guitar. Then, learn all the chords and be able to play through them to become really familiar with the tune so you really know it.

Then, play the melody and the root of each chord on the first beat that the chord is called for. That should give you a feel for the tune as its most basic possible fingerstyle arrangement.

Then, start adding the 3/b3 and the rest of it in between. That will provide a bit more of an arrangement.

Finally, start playing around with building a nice bass line and making the part between the bass line and the melody flow with whatever harmony you wish to add, using those "voicing rules" as a guideline.

I hope all this explanation helps.

Tony
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Old 07-05-2019, 12:15 PM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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Originally Posted by Edgar Poe View Post
I know every note on the entire Fretboard. That is relatively easy to do, because of the repetitive nature of the fret board. That is NOT my problem. My problem is finding those notes as I'm playing. I have yet to find any system that explains that. If someone ever comes up with a way to help people find the notes without looking, you will become a rich person. The only way I know how to do that is practice, Practice and a LOT OF IT.

Ed
Unfortunately, the last thing you said is the final answer: practice and lots of it. That is true with any of the approaches suggested in this thread. If anybody ever finds a silver bullet short cut, yes indeed, that person will be a rich man or woman.

Tony
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