The time has come...

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by janinep7

Is there a good, concise internet resource that you can recommend that has all the chord recipes?

Use the major scales to name chords.

Here's C major--for example-- C D E F G A B

To make a major chord, take the 1st, 3rd, and 5th note

C E G is C major

To make a minor chord take the first, lower the third by a half step ("flatten it") and the fifth note

C Eb G is C minor

For G major and minor, start with the G major scale...for A major and minor, A major scale...

If that makes sense let me know, I'm happy to go further. There's obviously TONS of chord types, but you can do a lot with major and minor.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by janinep7

for me to learn all the notes on the fretboard by heart. I've tried doing this a few different ways - using two sets of flashcards - one with the string name, one with the fret number, 1-14. That's kind of good, but it's still a lot of individual notes to memorize.

Yesterday I took a printout of the guitar neck, with all the notes indicated, and I started looking for patterns. So if you are on the low E string (#6) and you want to find all the other Es, you go down two strings and over two frets or down two strings and over three frets. Or down one string and forward five or backwards 7, or down three strings and back three frets. It reminds me of the chessboard and how the different chess pieces move, particularly the knight.

It's easier to memorize the different patterns and intervals than individual notes. The B string is always one off. And the other thing that really clicked for me doing this is the guitar neck is "3 dimensional." So if you're on the high E (1st string), and you want to go down two strings, you'll end up on the A string (5th). Likewise if you're on a note on the 12th fret (let's pretend the guitar is a 12 fretter), and you go down two strings, when you go forward two or three, you are back counting up from the nut.

And it all works in reverse, too.

Suddenly, it's much easier to find all the Es, all the As, etc. which eventually, hopefully, when combined with the basic scale/box patterns, will lead me all over the neck and able to put together some interesting fills/mini-solos etc.

Watch this space for more updates!

I'm using this diagram, because the notes are not colored. I started off using different colored highlighters to map my way around. Any diagram of the fret board will work:

https://coloradomusicacademy.files.w...-fretboard.gif

The pattern is that they go up the strings in alphabetical order with a sharp between every note except e/f and b/c.
What's to remember?

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

The pattern is that they go up the strings in alphabetical order with a sharp between every note except e/f and b/c.
What's to remember?

I think she means random access instead of chromatic.

[mr. beaumont]

OP, the octave shapes are one of my favorite ways to internalize the fretboard efficiently....sounds like you are already seeing this...

Re: scales again-- here's an easy one page source

https://piano-music-theory.com/2016/05/31/major-scales/

Folks might mean well, but don't let people scare you off of this knowledge. It's actually great to learn it now as a beginner, rather than learning for years and then needing to go back to go back to put names to things. Just don't learn this stuff INSTEAD of learning to play music...use it in tandem.

Thanks for everyone's input. I'm talking about memorizing the notes on the neck in random order, so I don't have to think about it and can easily and quickly move from one area of the neck to the other while playing.

The theory would be in support of playing music better, never a substitute for it.

There was a great pair of lessons from Steve Stine on 6th string and 5th string bar chords and power chords. The nickel really dropped when he mentioned the concept of cross-referencing. So the F bar chord with root on the 6th string x-ref'd with the F bar chord with root on the 5th string, and from those two places how you can do the two string and three string power chords. That is one of the most useful things I've ever heard about guitar. I was immediately able to put it into practice.

That plus you don't have to strum all the strings. So if you are doing a D power chord, with the root on the 5th string, you would only strum 5-4-3 and try not to hit the other strings. It takes some finesse and practice.

Here are the links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t44ISJpCLTM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t44ISJpCLTM

I like this approach because I think it's easier and more practical to learn the relationships vs. the individual pieces. If you get the relationship, you can move it around the neck anywhere you want. It's the foundation.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by janinep7

Thanks to everyone who replied.

I do know the CAGED system. It's helpful, but not perfect. The concept of movable shapes is what really stays with me from that.

I did some quick math... Considering that the two E strings are identical, and if you memorize to the 14th fret, that's really only 70 items. 5 strings x 14 frets. It's not that bad.

Between learning and memorizing the E and A strings, and the shapes/patterns/intervals for the rest, it probably won't take all that long to commit it to memory.

Then the real challenge comes - what do I do with all those notes???

I memorized all the notes by going through a very different process to what your proposing.
By the time I was interested enough to explore beyond the 1st position open chords I had written down in notes the sequence of tones and semi tones that a major scale is built from and also the recipes for spelling chords from the scale intervals.
That's pretty much all you need , at least for a few years.

So when I wanted to find Dmajor chords above the 5th fret I could see from my notes that I needed intervals 1 3 &5 of the D major scale, and from knowing the major scale tone sequence I could work out slowly in my head that I needed to find the D's A's & F#'s above fret 5 and on open strings, then it was a matter of counting up the scale intervals from the nut one fret at a time.

Takes ages to begin with but after going through that process a few times the note names, intervals, scale tones and chord tones are all starting to get memorized.
I only learned new chords as I needed them to play some actual music but with every new chord position the memorization of it's nearby scale tones ( numbers & letters)came with it as a package.
I don't know how you go about learning new chords but however you do it you definitely need to know which interval every fret position of the chord covers.
"Then the real challenge comes - what do I do with all those notes???"
It's not the notes that matter, it's the intervals, as to what to do with them see my exercise on improvising posted in the recent thread and start to have some fun with it.

[Sadie-f]

I'm starting a process that goes the direction of Andy's suggestion, learning the intervals by ear.

To now, I've been doing a partly random walk of the fretboard, mostly with chords anchored up to F5, occasional forays up to 12. What I enjoy most of all is improvising, and right now that's working with a growing vocabulary of chord progressions. As someone said in the improvising thread, I've found I can sometimes make smooth jumps between progressions. At first, this was using bridges I'd learned, lately I've found the right timing makes a leap that otherwise would not sound right, be a step that says something.

It hadn't been an intention, however I'm finding I can now build riffs on the fly - simple stuff for now, and except for better transitions, it's not a focus.

I've begun working with an instructor who learned from Rev Gary Davis, he's suggested this app for memorizing intervals:

Interval Recognition for Android - http://www.marchantpeter.co.uk/andro...ecognition.php

If you're using iPhone, I expect there's a similar tool.

[hubcapsc]

There's a lot of cool patterns on the guitar. I like this one a lot.



I often think about this pattern when falling asleep at night, and
make chords from it, and other random things. Fret seven is a word, BEAD .

Sometimes people talk about "the cycle of fourths", ida know... they think
from low pitch to high pitch. When you look at the strings from high pitch to
low pitch, you get "The Circle of Fifths"...

Taking the whacky B string into account you have C G D A E and then turn
loose of the C and get B. The order of sharps of these keys is pretty easy to
see right there on your guitar too ... nobody cares about those other keys,
just slap on a capo

-Mike

[Silly Moustache]

Janine, I feel that you are trying to learn the fretboard like mathematical formulae, which it is, kinda, but let's look at it another way.

Q1. Why do you want to play guitar ?
Q2. What do you want to play?
Q3 or is it a scholarly exercise ?

I mean - do you want to accompany yourself singing?
Do you want to play instrumentals ?
what would give you joy?

Some teachers teach "songs" or "pieces"
I teach those lovely people who come to me asking for help -so, I teach "people" rather than Songs or just theory. None of my clients are the same and we progress towards what they want to achieve.

I think it's more fun that way.

I usually ask my new clients to play their guitar for a couple of minutes, any thing they like, even just noodling.
They play some notes, I make lots of notes.

Then we discuss what they want to achieve and how to get there.

We use songs to teach them the guitar, but also the whys and wherefores of music theory as it become helpful.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by Sadie-f

I'm starting a process that goes the direction of Andy's suggestion, learning the intervals by ear.....

I've begun working with an instructor who learned from Rev Gary Davis, he's suggested this app for memorizing intervals:

Interval Recognition for Android - http://www.marchantpeter.co.uk/andro...ecognition.php

Would be interesting to learn how successful you find training with this app to be.
I gave something similar a go but because the sound of the intervals played by the app are not arranged in actual musical phrases it all seemed a bit abstract.
I started my ear training working out the tunes to Christmas carols by ear, and once I had worked out a phrase by trial and error I could see what intervals I had just used to play that phrase and make the connection. Christmas carols worked well for me because like everyone else I am so familiar with these melodies heard practically every year of my life that when I played the wrong interval it was immediately obvious , after a while I got quicker at recognising the intervals and the process started to speed up with less error involved.
It's very much an ongoing process with me but I am much quicker at picking up major scale tunes than I used to be, I think it's something to do with those two semi tone intervals in the major scale that make certain phrases quite distinctive.

[Sadie-f]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

Would be interesting to learn how successful you find training with this app to be.
I gave something similar a go but because the sound of the intervals played by the app are not arranged in actual musical phrases it all seemed a bit abstract.
I started my ear training working out the tunes to Christmas carols by ear, and once I had worked out a phrase by trial and error I could see what intervals I had just used to play that phrase and make the connection. Christmas carols worked well for me because like everyone else I am so familiar with these melodies heard practically every year of my life that when I played the wrong interval it was immediately obvious , after a while I got quicker at recognising the intervals and the process started to speed up with less error involved.
It's very much an ongoing process with me but I am much quicker at picking up major scale tunes than I used to be, I think it's something to do with those two semi tone intervals in the major scale that make certain phrases quite distinctive.

I'll let you know Andy - so far I've been doing a random walk that is closer to your xmas carols, and the method suggested by my instructor sounds a bit in between Janine's route and yours. I agree it's not 'organic' however I routinely hit the situation where I'm trying to work out a melody and can't guess better than random where the next note is. Then as I hunt around, I hit the wrong tones, it pushes what I was working on out of memory, and I restart from scratch. .. so building "muscle memory" for how many steps apart two tones are seem likely to work.

There's a lot of older blues music for which there's no music available, so I'm wanting to get better at constructing music I can play from music I hear.

As I work with it, I'll let you know if it seems to be accomplishing the intended :-).

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Sadie-f

I'll let you know Andy - so far I've been doing a random walk that is closer to your xmas carols, and the method suggested by my instructor sounds a bit in between Janine's route and yours. I agree it's not 'organic' however I routinely hit the situation where I'm trying to work out a melody and can't guess better than random where the next note is. Then as I hunt around, I hit the wrong tones, it pushes what I was working on out of memory, and I restart from scratch. .. so building "muscle memory" for how many steps apart two tones are seem likely to work.

There's a lot of older blues music for which there's no music available, so I'm wanting to get better at constructing music I can play from music I hear.

As I work with it, I'll let you know if it seems to be accomplishing the intended :-).

Every once in a while I get the urge to try to figure something out by ear. If at first I don't succeed, I cheat. If there is a note that I just can't figure out what it is, I would take my phone guitar tuner and have it listen to the note. That works

That's not cheating. That is a stroke of genius!
Why didn't I think of that???
I also want to be able to play by ear. I currently use the trial and error method, but the tuner would be a lot more efficient.

[Horseflesh]

Originally Posted by janinep7

Thanks for everyone's input. I'm talking about memorizing the notes on the neck in random order, so I don't have to think about it and can easily and quickly move from one area of the neck to the other while playing.

Yeah, THAT is the hard part isn't it? Since I know how intervals work, I can write down a diagram with every note on the fretboard... But that doesn't help much when I want to play a C right now without thinking.

I recently started using this iOS app to learn this stuff... It asks you to play a note, and it listens with the mic to see if you got it. It's a pretty good app and it was worth a few bucks to unlock all the features.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fretpr...519679458?uo=4

The related challenge is tying the notes on the staff to the right fretboard locations. I can read treble clef ... but I can't instantly finger a F# above middle C when I see it. If Fret Pro added the ability to train by showing you the note on the staff instead of just naming the note, it would be perfect. (The author is open to feedback ... I made my case for adding that feature and he at least agreed it seemed like a decent idea.)

I also sometimes keep a tuner on to show me what note I am actually playing. The Korg AW-LT100 is a nice tuner that also runs on a AAA battery, so the battery lasts forever and is cheap to replace. Tiny tuners like Snarks use button cells that die quickly if you keep the tuner on during practice.

There is so much to learn to really play the guitar, it is daunting. I don't have enough years left.

Originally Posted by Horseflesh

Yeah, THAT is the hard part isn't it? Since I know how intervals work, I can write down a diagram with every note on the fretboard... But that doesn't help much when I want to play a C right now without thinking.

I recently started using this iOS app to learn this stuff... It asks you to play a note, and it listens with the mic to see if you got it. It's a pretty good app and it was worth a few bucks to unlock all the features.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fretpr...519679458?uo=4

The related challenge is tying the notes on the staff to the right fretboard locations. I can read treble clef ... but I can't instantly finger a F# above middle C when I see it. If Fret Pro added the ability to train by showing you the note on the staff instead of just naming the note, it would be perfect. (The author is open to feedback ... I made my case for adding that feature and he at least agreed it seemed like a decent idea.)

I also sometimes keep a tuner on to show me what note I am actually playing. The Korg AW-LT100 is a nice tuner that also runs on a AAA battery, so the battery lasts forever and is cheap to replace. Tiny tuners like Snarks use button cells that die quickly if you keep the tuner on during practice.

There is so much to learn to really play the guitar, it is daunting. I don't have enough years left.

I will take a look at that app. Sounds like it could be useful. We are so lucky to live in this age of technology. I think these kinds of advances, and simple things like headstock tuners, have made guitar accessible to so many people that might not otherwise attempt to learn to play.

Learning the notes on the fretboard is like learning to read. First, the alphabet, and the sounds of the letters. Then how to put them together to make words (or chords). The how to put the words together to make sentences, paragraphs, etc. (i.e. songs). The riffs/runs/picking and strumming patterns are like the punctuation.

With guitar, and other creative pursuits, the journey is the destination. You can never know it all. The possibilities are just endless.