Recommended: Guitar Fretboard Workbook

oldhippiegal · #1 08-12-2010, 11:55 AM

by Tagliarino. I know that years ago, people recommended this here, but I wanted to add my recent experience. I've had this for maybe 10 days, and it makes a world of difference in knowing the fretboard. You have to think and draw and play to do the exercises, including exercises on counting up and down...but the odd thing is, you do that as instructed and a couple days later, you hit a random note, and you know what it is without thinking or counting anything. The shapes stay in your head (and I'm not the greatest visualizer of shapes in the world) but the instant recognition seems near magic to me. I'm only through Chapter 6, but it has already been worth the seven or eight dollars I paid for it.

tbeltrans · #2 08-12-2010, 04:08 PM

Thanks Oldhippiegal. That looks like a very good book that would fit in with any other stuff we might be studying at the moment. Count me in.

Tony

Ryler · #3 08-12-2010, 06:39 PM

I found it helpful, too.

Bong Twang Ping · #4 08-12-2010, 06:50 PM

+1

I'm working my way through it too, makes sense of so many things that had confused me in the past.

I'd also recommend his "Chord Tone Soloing: A Guitarist's Guide to Melodic Improvising in Any Style".

Bong.

Broadus · #5 08-13-2010, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oldhippiegal

by Tagliarino. I know that years ago, people recommended this here, but I wanted to add my recent experience. I've had this for maybe 10 days, and it makes a world of difference in knowing the fretboard. You have to think and draw and play to do the exercises, including exercises on counting up and down...but the odd thing is, you do that as instructed and a couple days later, you hit a random note, and you know what it is without thinking or counting anything. The shapes stay in your head (and I'm not the greatest visualizer of shapes in the world) but the instant recognition seems near magic to me. I'm only through Chapter 6, but it has already been worth the seven or eight dollars I paid for it.

Funny that you mentioned that book. I bought it months ago and put it away. I stumbled across it yesterday and figured it would do me good to work through it. Thanks for the confirmation.

Bill

wgmiller · #6 08-14-2010, 11:04 PM

I, too, bought this book a while back. I must be pretty stupid because I tried working my way through it and it just wasn't clicking with me. Now it's sitting on the shelf. Maybe I should give it another go.

Will

tbeltrans · #7 08-15-2010, 06:37 AM

Different teacher's approaches will match different student's learning styles. That is definitely not a reflection on a person's intelligence.

If this book doesn't work for you, something else will. I have never done well with "here is a tuning, get creative". Yet, there are other people who just fool around with it and come up with truly unique and interesting stuff (and many more who don't). Also, I am not good at memorizing an entire piece and reciting it back to an audience or recording machine. I seem to fall somewhere between these two extremes.

The approach that this book takes does seem to work for my learning style, though it would augment other things I may be doing, rather than being a "main course". Robert Conti's material, though much more involved in actually playing "real" sings as chord melody solos and learning the fretboard through that experience rather than drills, seems to work well for me, and that is my main course, since playing "real" songs well is my goal. Conti said that all teaching/learning approaches should lead to the same place, with that place being that you can play music on the guitar. I believe him.

So, it is really a matter of learning to recognize what works for you. We are all different in many ways, and gauging ourselves by what somebody else can or can't do is not a good idea because of that. I would guess that there is a lot you can already do on the guitar, and it would be a good idea to reflect on how you learned what you already know for clues on how to continue to learn.

Tony

oldhippiegal · #8 09-21-2010, 10:50 AM

Just an update. I've been at this daily, and it's an interesting and useful process. I just finished the triads chapter. The scales chapters took a long time, because I really did all he suggested and even some he didn't (I say aloud the names of each note my first time through scales each day.) I'm working as fast as I can, but still, first time through will take me at least three months (and that's with two years of college theory courses and 50 years of piano-playing under my belt, so I imagine it'd take a year to go through for someone with less theory/experience).

It's helping me with the arrangements I'm starting to do, too (though they are going quite slowly!)

cablesguy · #9 09-25-2010, 02:56 AM

Thx Oldhippiegal and everyone else for the recommendation, just ordered myself 1, been learning and practicing the guitar for a few months now and looking to improve, hope I have the sticktoitivity to see thru this book

Broadus · #10 09-25-2010, 06:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cablesguy

Thx Oldhippiegal and everyone else for the recommendation, just ordered myself 1, been learning and practicing the guitar for a few months now and looking to improve, hope I have the sticktoitivity to see thru this book

Welcome to AGF, cablesbuy. Enjoy learning and playing. As is often said around here, you have to learn to walk before you can run. Be patient with yourself and stick to it.

Bill

surfoxy · #11 09-25-2010, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oldhippiegal

by Tagliarino. I know that years ago, people recommended this here, but I wanted to add my recent experience. I've had this for maybe 10 days, and it makes a world of difference in knowing the fretboard. You have to think and draw and play to do the exercises, including exercises on counting up and down...but the odd thing is, you do that as instructed and a couple days later, you hit a random note, and you know what it is without thinking or counting anything. The shapes stay in your head (and I'm not the greatest visualizer of shapes in the world) but the instant recognition seems near magic to me. I'm only through Chapter 6, but it has already been worth the seven or eight dollars I paid for it.

Thanks everyone, I'm excited to check it out!

cablesguy · #12 09-25-2010, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Broadus

Welcome to AGF, cablesbuy. Enjoy learning and playing. As is often said around here, you have to learn to walk before you can run. Be patient with yourself and stick to it.

Bill

Thx for the welcome Broadus, I will..been hanging around and gleaning nuggets of advice from this forum but never got around to posting until now.