I’ve come across several places that recommend this video as one of the better methods to internalize the notes on the fretboard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJddQ6Q0UDo
I’ve started doing this. Not convinced yet, but it’s worth a shot.
My question is a two-parter:
Has anyone “completed” this and can say whether or not it worked? Most importantly, are you now capable of instant recall instead of calculating octaves, etc.
It seems that this teaches “where are all the As”, but it doesn’t do the reverse: “What is this note here?” Or does it? I’m not even sure if “what is this note here” something that is useful in the real world, but at least in guitar lesson situations, I’ve had several teachers ask me “what is this note here?”
I’ve started the approach for the As but I need to watch the video again and write down the next steps to progress further. Method seems convincing to me. Every other approach I have tried over the years to learn the notes on the fretboard has failed so I have nothing to loose. Method combines two aspects: small incremental steps followed by repetition. Over the years I have learned that the combination of these two help me make progress on guitar.
As for the “what note is this” that seems to be a teacher question who wants to check if you know the notes on the fretboard - a test not a real-life scenario. If you know where the A is you will recognise the string/fret combination is an A, like most people know that the 6th string / 5th fret is an A without thinking about it anymore.
Haven’t taken his course couldn’t get through the first 2 minutes. The guy talks to much with very little to say.
To answer your question “learning the notes on the fret board” I say knowing the intervals and their relationship between chords and scale will take you further and take less time to apply to your playing than knowing what every note is on the fret board.
Regarding your second question - If your goal is to improvise freely over the whole neck, then I think you need to be able to find any note pretty much instantly and also know your intervals. I think you also need to develop a strong ear and ideally some music theory, but that’s a whole other can of worms!
I’d have to disagree with this statement. To improvise freely you need to know your chord shapes, scales and interval. When learning these skill you will automatically learn where the root notes are all over the neck in relation to the Key you’re improvising over.
As you expand your knowledge of Keys you’ll naturally expand your knowledge of the fret board.
Most people start learning to improvise using 1 or 2 keys usually E and A, so as they learn these scales and patterns over the neck they also learn these pattern apply to every key. So no need to dedicate time to learn all the notes on the neck it will just come naturally as you knowledge of the fret board expands.
So this I can agree with, however I still think that you won’t improvise freely over the whole neck until you can jump to say the minor 3rd of C in any given position - for that I need to know where those Cs are and where all the minor 3rds lie. It evolves over time, I certainly didn’t sit down and learn all the notes as an exercise.
This is of course only my experience, and I’m sure there are other ways to do it.
I have a pretty good knowledge of the fretboard now and mostly just brute forced it using different methods to pick a note for me to find and then setting constraints around where I can find it.
I’ve done:
Random notes (did these one string at a time—so sixth string one day, then fifth string, then fourth etc—or they can be done on sections of the fretboard, like only frets 1—5, then 6—10, or whatever you like.
Scales (so play the C major scale with each note on a different string. Go sixth string for the C, then fifth for D, then fourth for E, and so on. When you hit the edge of the fretboard go back. Keep doing this until you end up playing the C on the sixth string again.
Cycle of fourths on each string. Same idea as the first one, except instead of random notes, following the Circle of Fourths (so C, F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, B, E, A, D, G, C).
All of these basically do the same thing. The latter two have the advantage of also helping me memorize scales and the Circle of Fourths.
Learning CAGED shapes helped, too. I’d do a different key every day (following through the Circle of Fourths) and find the CAGED shape closest to the nut. First I play the root notes in that shape, then the arpeggio, then the pentatonic scale, and then the major scale. I repeat that for all of the CAGED shapes up the fretboard, and then do the same for the relative minor.
I find that I am pretty good at going back and forth between “finding all the As” and “What is this note” now. I admit that I am much quicker at the E and A strings. For some reason the D string is worst for me. B is surprisingly okay.
In Justin’s Practical Music Theory course he gives you 3 or 4 different exercises for memorising the fretboard. The method in this video is one of them.
I think this is the answer.
I’ve tried a couple of times but was never able to stick with it long enough to get there.
I think no matter what method you use, it takes a long time.
For me, a major part of my practice routine for quite some time has been something like: Play the Chord (say G in the open position), Play the Full major scale around that chord, then play the major pentatonic in that same position, then move to G barre in the E shape, play the Major scale around that chord and then the pentatonic, the G chord in a D shape, major scale, pentatonic . . .
I do all that and when I have done all the way down the neck in every scale pattern and Chord shape, then I will put on a backing track in G and play some riff and fill up and down those shapes. I try and make music, but also try and move around in different positions and between those positions.
One day I will do G, the next day E, the next day D, etc etc.
So when @mathsjunky says “you need to find any note pretty much instantly”, I largely agree, but my brain does not generally find the note, it finds the chord in various shapes and I know that the 5 is to the left (upper string) and the 3 is to the right (lower string).
I did watch the linked video a long time ago. The guy is pretty smart and a good youtube instructor as far as I can tell, but I do think there are a lot of Youtubers pushing things like, “Instantly Learn the Fretboard” and I think its all a bunch of click bait, nothing is instant if you really want to learn what you are doing.
There are several approaches to memorizing
combining the audio with the physical movement and visualization of the fretboard all together creates some strong “nodes” in your knowledge network of your long term memory.
There isn’t “one way” that is best, but in most cases, trying more than one perspective, repeating the process a lot (even for a brief time every day) and combining different sources of sensory data are usually a good recipe to memorization.
Warning: don’t put all your effort in learning all the notes and scales all over the fretboard while you neglect rhythm, chords and the songs you use those in. Being able to get a good feel for the rhythm of a song and playing the basic version in simple chords should have some priority of learning all the notes. Otherwise you’ll be an “academic” but no “performer”.
As with everything, expand every piece of skill and knowledge gradually and USE them. If you memorize everything but never USE it…you’ll forget it. USING them is the best way to maintain and SOLIDIFY this knowledge!
If you don’t know what to do with this knowledge you are acquiring, you are doing it the wrong way around. First you need to figure out what you want to achieve, then you can derive what training of muscle memory and what memorization with boost your momentum towards that goal.
In other words: Knowing the notes and the scales is very useful IF you apply the knowledge.
Want to know more about memorization (of songs for that matter but the principles apply):
Live Club Archive Motivation Club #31: (around 04:46) https://youtu.be/GEunAk9163w?t=284
I am part way through this method and it absolutely works for learning the fretboard for muscle memory. Been playing for ten years without really learning any of the notes on the fretboard (barely even the open strings) but after focusing pretty intensively for the last four weeks, I can confirm it works and I can now jump to any note on any string within a second. I’m continuing to work my way up to do it faster. I’ve tried other methods and this is the only one that I’ve had any success whatsoever with.
Few things to note from my experience:
It will help you find a note but it won’t teach you how to identify a particular note on the fretboard. I twinned it with regular sessions on note identification (musictheory dot net has the ideal exercise) and now can do both fairly easily.
Don’t rush it - I spent a lot (and I mean a lot) of time at the slowest speed. This felt like the learning phase to me so I did each exercise until I couldn’t get it wrong (rather than just until I could get it right), which I’m certain helped massively.
I found it helpful to hold each note until the very end of the beat and then try to do the transition as quickly as possible - improved much more quickly when I did that.
On the point about whether this is worth it or whether you should learn intervals or scale patterns instead, it has absolutely improved my playing, no doubt about it - I can now play all over the fretboard with relative ease in a way that I never could before - for example, scale patterns make more sense to me and I instinctively know what barre chord I’m playing without having to work it out.
But I think it highlights a real problem with the way that guitar is taught. All of us rely so heavily on shortcuts that simplify things and that makes sense at the start. But eventually as you progress, there’s so many shortcuts that overlay the actual mechanics of the guitar neck - all five minor pentatonic patterns and the major patterns and the mixolydian patterns and the caged system and all the interval patterns and the major chord and minor chord and sus chord shapes and the million other crutches - that it just becomes far more overwhelming than if we just learnt things properly.
All you really need is to know where the notes are on the neck, the intervals that construct a particular chord type and what those intervals are in relation to each note. That’s it. So if you know a major chord is a root, major 3rd and a perfect fifth and you know what those intervals are for each note then you can make any major chord in any position on the neck and can play in any key. It’s like understanding the source code.
That is an awful lot more work than any one individual scale pattern so I completely understand why beginners aren’t taught like that. But it is an order of magnitude less work than learning every single shortcut - with the bonus that once you’ve learnt this, you will never need to learn anything about the theory of playing guitar ever again.
You make a good point.
At a certain point you need to upgrade your tools to become a professional but it’s hard become “good enough” with tools that are complex and difficult to operate.
I see this in project management as well, where a LOT of architecture is created while eventually, the product only reaches a fraction of it’s planned lifespan, with all those sunk costs for the complex architecture being lost. You are well beyond that point @robinr66 but many, many players will never reach that point.
This guy talks too much, but his method is pretty much the same as most other people’s. So, you won’t go wrong following it.
To me, the best reason to learn all the notes on the fretboard (and be able to find them quickly) is so you know where to place the licks, melodic patterns, scale patterns, etc. that you want to play as the chords change in a progression. So, once you learn all the notes, I think the best practice involves having to quickly switch your brain from looking for one note to looking for another “on the fly”.
After I got to the point that I could play each note on each string, in both directions, I started using this program that someone suggested here on the forum: https://www.metronauta.com/ It presents note names to you in a random order with a metronome playing.
I set it up to run at 50bpm, go through each note for 3 bars (3 x 4 = 12 times), and only play the natural notes. After the count-in, I play the indicated note from low E to high e, then back from high e to low E. When I play the note for the 12th time, I look at the screen to see the next note. I then have to switch my brain to thinking about where the next note is on all 6 strings.
It’s way more challenging and relevant than playing the natural notes in A-G order (how I started) or using the Circle of Fifths to suggest the next note (this was my next step). It also trains you to think “in the moment”, which is what you’ll need to do when improvising.
@barker7
Mitch … if you are embarking on learning notes all along the fretboard, you will already know notes to fret 3. Beyond that, dot markers at 5, 7 and 9 can be a road map to use.
E string - - - - A - B - C# B string - - - - E - F# - G# G string - - - - C - D - E D string - - - - G - A - B A string - - - - D - E - F# E string - - - - A - B - C#
@andreybutov Maybe you were unaware that Justin has this exact exercise on his website so you don’t need to step away from his courses and lessons for that particular task.
See here, where he teaches it to Lee Anderton - see from 32mins 55 secs in the video.
