Learning The Fretboard: BEADGCF

[fpuhan]

I confess that after having played guitar for some 55 years, I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't have the fretboard memorized. I know patterns, chord shapes, CAGED and other lessons I've picked up over the years, but I find I can't just blindly pick a string and a fret and tell you the note name (well, I can, but not first without going through some mental gymnastics).

So, while I was recently perusing the 'Net I came across another one of those "guaranteed" methods to memorize the fretboard. But this one seemed a little different, and more to my amazement, easy and maybe even fun!

Here's the method: For ten minutes, just play the notes, in order, on ONE string, naming each note. The order is BEADGCF. Yes, that's the "order of flats" in the cycle of fourths!

Starting on Day One, just spend ten minutes on the low E string, playing and naming the notes in order (a metronome helps). On the second day, do the same thing with the A string. Then, play the E string and the A. Move on to the D, and when comfortable, do all three strings. And so on.

I may actually be making this sound more complicated than it is. Somehow, both the time needed and the rather simple memory training it uses seems like it might actually work for me!

I actually also learned that the BEADGCF pattern is repeated across the fretboard, too. On the 7th fret, the BEAD occur on the bottom strings, and then on the 8th fret, the GC (which is on both E strings). The F can also be found on the 8th fret on the A string.

Funny, that I never noticed these particular patterns before.

[hubcapsc]

I like patterns...



There's a pattern of triads too... instead of counting sheep,
I sometimes calculate three note triads on adjacent strings in
my head as I fall asleep.

When you locate a G triad, for example, on the E, A and D strings, you can
move it down to the A, D and G strings it becomes a C triad... just like
the note pattern in my video above...

The other day I stumbled over this fellow on youtube...





-Mike

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by fpuhan

I confess that after having played guitar for some 55 years, I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't have the fretboard memorized. I know patterns, chord shapes, CAGED and other lessons I've picked up over the years, but I find I can't just blindly pick a string and a fret and tell you the note name (well, I can, but not first without going through some mental gymnastics).

So, while I was recently perusing the 'Net I came across another one of those "guaranteed" methods to memorize the fretboard. But this one seemed a little different, and more to my amazement, easy and maybe even fun!

Here's the method: For ten minutes, just play the notes, in order, on ONE string, naming each note. The order is BEADGCF. Yes, that's the "order of flats" in the cycle of fourths!

Starting on Day One, just spend ten minutes on the low E string, playing and naming the notes in order (a metronome helps). On the second day, do the same thing with the A string. Then, play the E string and the A. Move on to the D, and when comfortable, do all three strings. And so on.

I may actually be making this sound more complicated than it is. Somehow, both the time needed and the rather simple memory training it uses seems like it might actually work for me!

I actually also learned that the BEADGCF pattern is repeated across the fretboard, too. On the 7th fret, the BEAD occur on the bottom strings, and then on the 8th fret, the GC (which is on both E strings). The F can also be found on the 8th fret on the A string.

Funny, that I never noticed these particular patterns before.

Having a hard time appreciating how this sort of thing gets you anywhere towards playing music.

[hubcapsc]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Having a hard time appreciating how this sort of thing gets you anywhere towards playing music.

I bet the world is thick with people who don't know where all
the notes are or how to make the basic triads everywhere who
are much more musical than me. But knowing where the notes
are and knowing how to make the triads is a thing, and it is
fun too...

-Mike

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by hubcapsc

I bet the world is thick with people who don't know where all
the notes are or how to make the basic triads everywhere who
are much more musical than me. But knowing where the notes
are and knowing how to make the triads is a thing, and it is
fun too...

-Mike

I appreciate the triad thing and and for example the inversion thereof up and down the fretboard. I think you do that enough to cement that into muscle memory it could come in handy in various situations.

[Robin, Wales]

After 50 years of playing, like you, I have not actually needed to know the fretboard. However, I think that I'd put that 10 minutes a day into learning lyrics and save bothering to learn the fretboard for another 10 years.

[hubcapsc]

The pentatonic scale stretches across the entire fretboard in that
chain pattern that we all know... but there's only five notes in it.

It seems to me that there's people who can decide, on-the-fly,
in-the-moment, to throw in a flatted third or whatever.

I've known how to play the pentatonic scale all over the neck
in whatever key for years, but since I sort of "reverse engineered"
it in a vacuum, I didn't even know it was called "the pentatonic scale"
at first.

I'm old now but it seems there's a whole lot of depth (and some of
it is low hanging fruit) to be gained by knowing, in-the-moment,
where you are in the scale (1 or 2 or 3 or 5 or 6) and what note that is.

-Mike

[godfreydaniel]

I also used BEADGCF to help me learn the notes in the Fretboard, but what really helped is the Justin Guitar Note Trainer app. I still spend a few minutes on it when having my morning cup.

I also use the Earpeggio app for ear training, primarily for identifying intervals.

[mr. beaumont]

However you do it, DO IT!!!

Nothing opens up the guitar quite like knowing the fretboard and knowing how to spell chords. Once you realize a G major chord is ANYWHERE you can play a G, B, and D note together (and not necessarily in that order) you are liberated!

I'm not saying you HAVE to...I get it, some folks get by fine without it. But if there's one music "theory" application you decide to learn (and I put theory in quotes because there's nothing theoretical about it) it's fretboard knowledge and chord spelling. Really. I promise.

[rick-slo]

For me playing through memorized pieces I am not thinking of anything other than where where my fingers have to be in the next measure and how I want to express it.

Learning a cover of something then it's mainly just that - from a score or tab, or a video, or by ear if your ear is good enough.

Ad libbing something off the cuff it's relying on some store of chord shapes and progressions and scales. It's also important to be able to "hear" intervals in your head - for
example on a scale to hear what is next and how many fret notes it is away from where your are currently.

[Gordon Currie]

Originally Posted by hubcapsc

It seems to me that there's people who can decide, on-the-fly, in-the-moment, to throw in a flatted third or whatever.

Once you truly know the fretboard and combine it with basic chord/interval knowledge, this kind of thing is super easy.

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

However you do it, DO IT!!!

Nothing opens up the guitar quite like knowing the fretboard and knowing how to spell chords. Once you realize a G major chord is ANYWHERE you can play a G, B, and D note together (and not necessarily in that order) you are liberated!

I'm not saying you HAVE to...I get it, some folks get by fine without it. But if there's one music "theory" application you decide to learn (and I put theory in quotes because there's nothing theoretical about it) it's fretboard knowledge and chord spelling. Really. I promise.

Jeff, what is great about AGF is that there are so many exceptional musicians from different disciplines visiting - and so many different takes on the acoustic guitar from differing perspectives. And then there are us cowboy chord campfire amateurs too!!!!

I have not bothered to learn the guitar fretboard because I have not (yet) needed to learn the guitar fretboard. Just as I can't read TAB because I have not needed to learn guitar TAB (it's a bloody load of nonsense if you ask me! Why not just listen to the record and then work out how to play the darn song?).

BUT - at choir practice last night I was handed two new songs and I can sight read the sheet music for 4 part MVC pieces and follow the piano part - although I have never touched a keyboard in my life - That's because I need to know how to do that! I can hear intervals, talk about harmony structures, read timing and pitch, sing over other parts, hear when the 2nd tenors or baritones have got it wrong etc. So musically I suppose in that situation I can conceptualize the complex and articulate in the language.

However, to play guitar and sing a few songs I don't need to know any of that rubbish. If I did ever need to learn the fretboard then I reckon I'd have it wired in less than a month - despite 50 or so years of not needing to know. But I'm not going to bother just yet.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by Robin, Wales

Jeff, what is great about AGF is that there are so many exceptional musicians from different disciplines visiting - and so many different takes on the acoustic guitar from differing perspectives. And then there are us cowboy chord campfire amateurs too!!!!

I have not bothered to learn the guitar fretboard because I have not (yet) needed to learn the guitar fretboard. Just as I can't read TAB because I have not needed to learn guitar TAB (it's a bloody load of nonsense if you ask me! Why not just listen to the record and then work out how to play the darn song?).

BUT - at choir practice last night I was handed two new songs and I can sight read the sheet music for 4 part MVC pieces and follow the piano part - although I have never touched a keyboard in my life - That's because I need to know how to do that! I can hear intervals, talk about harmony structures, read timing and pitch, sing over other parts, hear when the 2nd tenors or baritones have got it wrong etc. So musically I suppose in that situation I can conceptualize the complex and articulate in the language.

However, to play guitar and sing a few songs I don't need to know any of that rubbish. If I did ever need to learn the fretboard then I reckon I'd have it wired in less than a month - despite 50 or so years of not needing to know. But I'm not going to bother just yet.

Robin, I think you are an an absolute genius at playing the guitar, but I think you should have some understanding for lesser mortals who will never(to be honest) posses your skills, most of us less face it may well in time develop an ear good enough to recognise intervals at least some of the time but we would never get there without first knowing what note we were playing.

[Bob Womack]

The more knowledge you have, the better you can communicate. I was working with a young guitarist in the recording studio about a week ago. He was trying to come up with parts to overdub onto a song. I was able to explain the idea of chord inversions, stacks of triads, to him. That allowed him to extend the chord voicings via overdubbing inversions over the root chords, ie. a high inversion over a low root chord, which is far more pleasing to the ear than more of the same.

Bob

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by Robin, Wales

Jeff, what is great about AGF is that there are so many exceptional musicians from different disciplines visiting - and so many different takes on the acoustic guitar from differing perspectives. And then there are us cowboy chord campfire amateurs too!!!!

I have not bothered to learn the guitar fretboard because I have not (yet) needed to learn the guitar fretboard. Just as I can't read TAB because I have not needed to learn guitar TAB (it's a bloody load of nonsense if you ask me! Why not just listen to the record and then work out how to play the darn song?).

BUT - at choir practice last night I was handed two new songs and I can sight read the sheet music for 4 part MVC pieces and follow the piano part - although I have never touched a keyboard in my life - That's because I need to know how to do that! I can hear intervals, talk about harmony structures, read timing and pitch, sing over other parts, hear when the 2nd tenors or baritones have got it wrong etc. So musically I suppose in that situation I can conceptualize the complex and articulate in the language.

However, to play guitar and sing a few songs I don't need to know any of that rubbish. If I did ever need to learn the fretboard then I reckon I'd have it wired in less than a month - despite 50 or so years of not needing to know. But I'm not going to bother just yet.

Definitely! Which is why I added, you certainly don't HAVE TO.

But I firmly believe if there's one thing from the realm of "music theory" that will take any player to the next level-- it's fretboard knowledge and chord building. I see people all the time get bogged down with scales, modes, other stuff they think will make them better, or some stuff they saw from a YouTube video made by a person who has no business teaching.

What fretboard knowledge/chord building gets you is a few things-- it will help your ability to arrange tunes for yourself, it will help tremendously with coming up with contrasting parts for another guitar (so two aren't playing the same thing) and it's the single most important thing in being able to improvise freely over any chord progression, even those that don't stay in one key.

Obviously if those things aren't of interest-- move along, nothing to see here