Memorizing the Fretboard

[DuelOverheadCam]

One thing that I am always forgetting to do when I am practicing my scales and whatnot is to think about what notes I am playing. This is so overwhelming to me, but I am sick of feeling only semi sure what notes are in my key.

Can anyone suggest what they think is the easiest way to memorize the fretboard. Should I do it by string, by fret, by scale positions? SOoOooOo many notes....

Thanks.

[Asperjames II]

learning the fretboard and learning scales are different...


buy a cheap five dollar yamaha recorder and memorize the fingerings. then write out all the major scales and play play play

[DuelOverheadCam]

Haha, why would a yamaha recorder help me memorize fingerings? I dont know if you mean recorder the instrument or like a tape recorder, because neither makes a whole lot of sense to me...explain?

[Madaxeman]

I feel your pain DOC, going through the same thing myself. I try to say the notes to myself as I play a major scale. So the positions are the same (I use the CAGED system) but you learn keys as well.
For example, the key of C is C D E F G A B. If you play it in position 8 (8th fret) the pattern is the same if you move it to position 3 (3rd fret) but the notes will be in the key of G, so G A B C D E F#.
Here is a link to a thread with some charts in it I made. Hope they might help.
http://www.ibreathemusic.com/forums/showthread.php?p=85247#post85247

[awesomezilla]

do this:

set a metronome to 60
choose a note, let's go with E for example
on every click of the metronome play an E on the neck

do it like this
---------------------------------------------------------------0--12--24---
-------------------------------------------------------5--17---------------
---------------------------------------------9---21------------------------
------------------------2---14--fullbend24---------------------------------
---------------7--19-------------------------------------------------------
-0---12---24--------------------------------------------------------------

then descend

also try it just finding random E's all over wherever you can find them

no cheating and do it till you can do it in your sleep, and increase metronome if its 2 easy... do this with all the notes


learned this from Joe Satriani's "Guitar Secrets" book

[silent-storm]

this has been covered quite a few times, so I'd suggest searching through past threads as well,

Two things I'd suggest, one reasonable, one not so much. Sight reading is directly related to knowing the notes on the fretboard, so that may be a good place to start. You can sight read anything that has notes on it, from classical guitar to piano music to solo clarinet studies, so there's lots of stuff to be found on the internet.

My other suggestion that may not be as reasonable is to just never play another note without naming it. A year or so ago I found myself in a similar situation, but I also had a lot of time on my hands, so I just decided that in order to get this up and running NOW I was going to name every note I played from then on. You start out feeling like a beginer going painfully slow and you have to say each one out loud, but after a while it starts to get internalized and you begin to think faster and not have to say it under your breath. Very time consuming, but it does take you from 0 - 60 in a few short weeks if you are self motivated enough.

[DuelOverheadCam]

I think those are both great ideas, I am going to start at least devoting time every day to speaking every note. I can read music, so I will give that a try too. Great suggestions guys! Thanks!

awesomezilla, I will try that too, it would help to be able to find certain notes in every octave.

[headrulz101]

Memorize it well and believe me, everything will seem much easier when creating major scales and playing your stuff.

[syan]

hey silent,

I'm setting some time aside to play the way you suggested, naming the notes before I play them. I thought about doing this before, because one of my problems is that, usually, my ear is good enough that I hit the right note to start a solo or fill on, but sometimes I mess up. So I started thinking about how to fix it and figured, well, trumpet players can't "see" the notes on the trumpet, so they have to know the name of the note they want before they can hit it. I figured the best way to do it would probably be to do what you said too :P I never actually tried it though... Having just done it for like, five minutes though, I can see how well it works. I already know all the "tricks" to finding what note you're playing, but never really cared what it was, I just could hear it and usually found it. But looking at it this way, I have to think more and I'm seeing how things are layed out better, so this should be cool after a month or two :)

Anyway, everything thing I just said is just kind of background, really. The one question I had was, when you play say, a C#, do you say "C#/D flat"? Or always pick one, either all sharps, or all flats? Or does it depend on other things? I mean, sure if you know you're playing in a certain key, you know if it's sharps or flats, but I'm just playing a lick at random and not always sure what key it's in. I mean, a lot of things might not be immediately in one particular key, or it might change keys a lot and well, you know. heh

So how would you approach this? And you other guys are welcome to make suggestions on this too, I'm just asking silent-storm because I *know* he does this.

thanks

[widdly widdly]

If you are only interested in learing the notes on the fretboard then you could stick with just calling them sharps.

However if you know how to read music or want to learn at some stage, it's probably worth using the correct name for the scale you are playing in. After all, if you learn them all as sharps, then are sight reading a peice that uses flats, it is an extra mental step to find the note you want. It will help you communicate with other musicians as well. If you play in a band and tell everyone "lets play a blues in A#" everyone will look at you funny, but if you say "blues in Bb" they wont.

The note will be called a sharp or flat depending on the key and key signature. For example in F major, there is a Bb. In G major there is an F#. You wont find "normal" scales that have say A and A#, they will have A and Bb.

It's a good idea to learn the cycle of fifths and how it is used to determine the sharps and flats in a scale.

[silent-storm]

well if it's not in a particular key it just kinda comes down to personal preference.

I've never really thought of this all that much. Let's see...I guess I favour flats over sharps for some reason, but seeing as I am usually playing over some kind of chord progression I just relate everything to the chord of the moment. So if it's a C#m7 I'm going to be thinking in sharps. Although for some reasons there are some notes I try to avoid thinking of...such as G# and A#, not sure why, just personal preference. The hardest thing about this method is that just knowing the note names isn't actually all that usefull. Sure you can know the note you are playing, but you have to know it's function at the same time. If the chord of the moment is CMaj7 and you play an E that has to be an E and a 3rd all at the same time, or else it doesn't do you a whole lot of good. A teacher once told me for this kind of stuff you have to be able to know it faster then you can think of it, and that is very true when you are trying to do this stuff on the fly during an improvisation. For some reason having the note also beeing a function has never been much of a problem for me, which is why I ended up choosing to primarily think in notes.

One thing I can say though is that for some reason if something is in say, Gb, I think of Gb, Ab, Bb, Cb, Db, Eb, F, Gb...whereas most people I find would think of it as B, not Cb, even though Cb is more 'theoretically right.' This is something I have to work on because once you start getting into altered dominants this gets uneccesarily tricky.

[Bert S]

A handy thing that I tried which worked fairly well was to print out blank guitar neck diagrams (100's of 'em) and when you have spare moments at work (like this) fill in the notes. It makes you picture the neck in your mind and you start making the connections easier. Fill out the diagram by different keys, by arpeggio's, by any combination you can think of. An added bonus is to study it and circle triads and inversions when you've filled out all the notes. Beats working...

[Ehvam]

If i may suggest something that did it for me- I took a sheet of thick paper and cut it into 22 small peices. I then numbered them form 1-22 (or the number of frets you have on your guitar. What i would do, is when i was riding the bus, or watching tv, or at lunch break- any spare moment, i would shuffle the numbers like playing cards and i would pick one at random and name all the notes on that fret from the top to bottom string. I then would do it for all the numbers. It really helped.

[syan]

thanks guys,

I hate for people to think I don't appreciate their help, so please don't think that. I just don't usually have much time to post replies and stuff and I was really busy this week.


Those all sound like good ideas. I'd love to fill in fretboard diagrams instead of working, but I'm not sure how long I'd be able to get away with that ;) And the idea with the cards sounds good too. Seems like it'd help a lot with memorizing the Circle of Fifths too.

I think I'll try to do both "C sharp/D flat" at least when I'm playing slow, unless I'm playing in a specific key. That way I know both names cold.

As a side note, I never did understand why a blues in A# should be considered weird. Must be a blues thing :P

thanks again

[curiousgeorge]

As a side note, I never did understand why a blues in A# should be considered weird. Must be a blues thing :P



Because it's not a common blues key, and also, A# is also known as Bb which is the more common and theoretically correct version.

[jade_bodhi]

As a side note, I never did understand why a blues in A# should be considered weird. Must be a blues thing :P

I am taking piano lessons for six weeks now. At my request, my piano teacher is giving me the big picture first, and the particles will come later. I asked her about this, and I think her explanation is that A# will have a lot of sharps or flats in it, making it a pain for sight readers, and if the key is B flat, there will be fewer of the sharps or flats on the staff. I may have it wrong, and if so, please correct me. To those of us who don't sight read notes, it really doesn't matter, but as Malcolm rightly points out, knowing how to talk correctly about theory is like knowing correct grammar in language: it will reflect on your seriousness as a musician when you talk to other serious musicians. I ain't all that serious at the moment.

JB

[forgottenking2]

I tried the guitar secrets exercise about 2 years ago, it worked. It's kind of dull in the beginning and it takes forever to do it with all 15 notes but it's worth it. Something I would add: Instead of going the perdictable chromatic route try going to notes a tritone apart (you will have to break the circle to be able to use all 15 notes) something that works for me is going a up a tritone and then up a half step for instance:

C - Gb - G - Db - D - Ab - A - Eb - E -Bb - B - F - F# - C - C# - G - G# - D - D# - A - A# - E - E#

You repeat a few notes but it worked for me. You could go up in 4ths or 5ths and would end up covering all 12 chromatic tones.

I figured I'd add a twist to it.

I hope this helps,