memorizing the fretboard and such

[classicalguitar]

I've been playing guitar for some months now and I've improved alot I think. But there's one thing that keeps coming back to haunt me; memorizing the fretboard. It seems impossible to be able to say where what note is on the guitar though I know its not, so Im asking for help from anyone who knows what they're talking about.

[Jed]

Whether or not I know what I'm talking about is a bit of a contested issue. I guess it depends who you talk to. Why, what have people been saying ??

Regarding learning the notes on the fretboard, here is one man's approach:

I studied the fretboard in terms of triad arps (2-octave mainly) and triad voicings in all keys / all positions / all possible fingerings. Later I re-examined a significant number of 7th chord arps and voicings. At this point I can visualize where every note is on any / every string on or away from the guitar and can "read" the notes on the fretboard as I or as someone else plays.

I won't say I have mastered the fretboard because there is always room for improvement - faster recall, more voicings to learn, more keys & scales to internalize. But I do know the fretboard well enough that I am no longer concerned about where individual notes or chord voicings are.

In my case it took a lot of work to get to this point, a lot of time spent working on triad arps and scales in nearly every conceivable variation. But the pay-off has been huge. It's the best thing I ever did for my playing. Now I choose where and how I want to play some melody or chord. The whole fretboard has become one continuous playground of options.

Each person really has to find their own way. I needed to have this information beaten into my thick skull with a blunt instrument. Others may not be so resistant to learning these things as I was.

cheers,

Jed

[classicalguitar]

thanks


Another question, how do I go about learning to sight read?

I know how to recognize the basic EFGABCDEF notes but playing them, and recognizing the ledger line notes is a trick. Any advice?

[Malcolm]

Jed is much more detailed than I, not saying that is wrong or my less detailed approach is correct................ we just go about it differently.

I tend to use patterns, Jed thinks notes ---- so I need to know where to place my patterns. To do this I've memorized the 5th and 6th string nut to 12th fret and then it just repeats itself as it goes on up the neck.

In doing that I've also learned the 1st string as it is the same as the 6th. Now that will place any of my patterns. After I place my pattern I tend to think in intervals, i.e. 1, 3, or b3, b7, etc.

Now for standard notation I have to think notes and where on the fretboard will I find my notes: So I use this:

e||--F---|------|--G---|------|--A---|------|--B---|--C---|------|--D---| etc on up the neck.
B||--C---|------|--D---|------|------|------|------|
G||------|--A---|------|------|------|------|------|
D||------|--E---|--F---|------|------|------|------|
A||------|--B---|--C---|------|------|------|------|
E||--F---|------|--G---|------|------|------|------|

Nut to the 12th fret gives us three octaves -- lot of duplication -- then if we have 24 frets we get one more octave. Again lot of duplication. So I use the nut to 4th fret in all 6 strings for two plus octaves then the 1st string up the neck for anything else I need.

Ledger notes below the clef are on the 5th and 6th string - in that nut to 4th fret area - and ledger notes above the clef are on the 1st string. I really do not use the bass clef all that much. I use lead sheet music - treble clef with chord and lyrics, it's much easier to use, easy to find, and does what I need.

Now this way I do not know where every note is but I know where the ones I need are.

I think everyone has to work out their own method.

How do you practice reading standard notation? I learned with flash chords. A set of flash chords runs about $4. I had several spread around the house, so any time I had a few extra minutes I would grab one and sight read my way through those TV commercials. After you can identify the note name in the same amount of time it takes to say your name - no easy task - then you must sight read and find the notes on your instrument some every day or the rust develops.

Have fun.

[magpie74]

Another question, how do I go about learning to sight read?

The key is to think of music the way you would any foreign language. Learning the alphabet isn't enough -- you have to incorporate vocabulary and syntax, and you must do so repeatedly, for as long as it takes to become second-nature.

Think of how you learned English. If you were like me, you had already taught yourself the nuts and bolts of the language before your first day of school, not to mention that you'd been speaking the language for years prior. But it was the repetition school offered -- five days a week, forty-odd weeks a year for twelve years -- that really drove the point home. Naturally, as your reading ability improved, you were given more and more difficult material to digest until finally you could read anything put in front of you. Music is not that different.

Despite many years of public education, I never felt as though I had "learned" to read music until I began teaching. Before that point, I understood "how" to read the music, but was so pathetically slow at doing so that the skill was of little value. But as a fledgling instructor, I found myself teaching "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "On Top of Old Smokey" to six-year-olds for several hours each day. By once again approaching the subject from a child's perspective, it all began to make sense. It would still be a couple of years before I could consider myself a proficient sightreader, but the discipline of reviewing that primary material set the foundation for the more sophisticated reading I would attempt in the future.

My advice is to invest in a series of method books. I was using "Standard Guitar Method" at the time, which had nine or ten books in the series. Honestly I don't think I had a student who made it past book five, nor did they need to -- by that time you'll either understand it or you won't. The songs are hokey and the teaching method is from a bygone era, but it's the material we're after here. Digest the books as thoroughly as possible, but be careful not to memorize the exercises. You'll get more value from reading twenty exercises one-time-each than from reading the same exercise twenty times over. When you feel your skills are sufficient, switch to Leavitt's "A Modern Method for Guitar, Volume 1" and follow his instructions precisely. I guarantee I played through that book five times before I was ready for Volume 2, and by that time I had already surpassed my sightreading expectations. From there, it's just maintenance -- teaching keeps my skills sharp, and I read the odd selection from a guitar magazine now and again to make sure I still have it. Whatever your approach, the key is to practice reading new material every day. This isn't one of those subjects where you can cram the night before; it requires constant, continued effort.

Hope that's been of some help. Happy reading!

[Mike7771]

I've been playing guitar for some months now and I've improved alot I think. But there's one thing that keeps coming back to haunt me; memorizing the fretboard. It seems impossible to be able to say where what note is on the guitar though I know its not, so Im asking for help from anyone who knows what they're talking about.

When I was trying to learn the fretboard I learned the notes on the first 12 frets of my low E, A and D strings. from there I just went about learning all the ways I could make a octave. Through learning these two pieces of information I was able to get the entire fretboard in no time.

[classicalguitar]

Jed is much more detailed than I, not saying that is wrong or my less detailed approach is correct................ we just go about it differently.

I tend to use patterns, Jed thinks notes ---- so I need to know where to place my patterns. To do this I've memorized the 5th and 6th string nut to 12th fret and then it just repeats itself as it goes on up the neck.

In doing that I've also learned the 1st string as it is the same as the 6th. Now that will place any of my patterns. After I place my pattern I tend to think in intervals, i.e. 1, 3, or b3, b7, etc.

Now for standard notation I have to think notes and where on the fretboard will I find my notes: So I use this:

e||--F---|------|--G---|------|--A---|------|--B---|--C---|------|--D---| etc on up the neck.
B||--C---|------|--D---|------|------|------|------|
G||------|--A---|------|------|------|------|------|
D||------|--E---|--F---|------|------|------|------|
A||------|--B---|--C---|------|------|------|------|
E||--F---|------|--G---|------|------|------|------|

Nut to the 12th fret gives us three octaves -- lot of duplication -- then if we have 24 frets we get one more octave. Again lot of duplication. So I use the nut to 4th fret in all 6 strings for two plus octaves then the 1st string up the neck for anything else I need.

Ledger notes below the clef are on the 5th and 6th string - in that nut to 4th fret area - and ledger notes above the clef are on the 1st string. I really do not use the bass clef all that much. I use lead sheet music - treble clef with chord and lyrics, it's much easier to use, easy to find, and does what I need.

Now this way I do not know where every note is but I know where the ones I need are.

I think everyone has to work out their own method.

How do you practice reading standard notation? I learned with flash chords. A set of flash chords runs about $4. I had several spread around the house, so any time I had a few extra minutes I would grab one and sight read my way through those TV commercials. After you can identify the note name in the same amount of time it takes to say your name - no easy task - then you must sight read and find the notes on your instrument some every day or the rust develops.

Have fun.


Thank you a million times over, the chart above was extremely helpful. Now what do you know about the tremolo and arpeggio?

[jessmanca]

The best way to memorize the fretboard it to learn it by months of sight reading. You will learn to read music, the names of the notes, the fretboard, and theory will make a lot more sense too.

How do you learn to sight read? Just take some lessons from someone who knows what they're talking about. Most schools from middle school through college offer entry level guitar classes these days, or you can find a private teacher.

It's possible but definitely not reccomended to learn sight reading on your own through books and computer programs. But you want a teacher to show you the proper fingerings and explain all the little idiosyncracies.

[R34]

I strongly agree with magpie74's recommendation for Leavitt's "A Modern Method for Guitar, Volume 1". It is an extremely extensive and intensive method book applied to guitar. I don't thing that it was necessarily all that fun, but was definitely effective in teaching me fretboard note names and sight reading. Each volume enough information/material for hours and hours of practice and I felt the same way as magpie described, that finishing the first volume exceeded my expectations. my method book came with a dvd-rom too, which has teacher to guide you with the book, play examples for you, and to play duet parts to exercises that you are sight reading.

If your not really interested in this though, when i first started out, i memorized the 6th string, and only the natural notes (no #'s or b's). Then I memorized the 5th string. I used that info to figure out any flats or sharps.

One thing that was also useful was two different exercises i did each time i picked up the guitar, before i did anything else. THE FIRST EXERCISE: I spent 5 minutes on each string, starting on the open note, and played each natural note ascending until i reached the octave then worked my way down. I also sang the note name along with each played note making sure i pay attention to which fret that note was on. Within that 5 minutes each string, i also did 2 notes up, one note back until i reached the octave, and then worked my way back. did that a couple of times and then did up 3, down 2. Then i kind of free styled around until it was time to switch strings (i set a timer along with a metronome) I used a diagram i found online to figure out the natural notes originally. THE SECOND EXERCISE: using a metronome, i would choose a random note on the 6th string, then play the same note on each string (6th down to 1st) along with the beat. Then chose another note and did the same. I did this for about 5-10 minutes making sure to hit every note at least a couple of times. each day i got faster and learned the notes better. good luck!