Learning The Fretboard (And How It Helps)

Ok, so I feel like this area is often overlooked. It might just be me projecting though…

Learning each one of the notes on your each string guitar is important. If you know what you’re playing, that’s yet another step in the direction of knowing what you’re doing. Sure we’ve all got out own understanding of how music works, but if you’re going to work with others (or even compose solo) then it’s important to familiarise yourself with the language of music. Musical knowledge is the gift that keeps on giving. You can expect nothing but great returns if you invest in it, especially early on.

I want you think of this like riding a bike. We’ll start with a diagram to help you memorise the notes, and then go over of few handy methods for getting them to stick. When we’re done, I want you to practice these over and over until you’re able to take of the stabilisers and recall each of the notes on your fretboard without the aid of a cheat sheet. It’s entirely possible, but it might take you a little time (and some hard work).

How It Helps

Memorising your fretboard is more than likely going to be a bit dull for you. Try to stick with it though, because once it’s memorised it’s an incredibly powerful string to your bow.

Once it’s done, you’ll have a much better handle on what you’re actually playing. This will help with all sorts of things: Soloing, songwriting, jamming with others. Stick with it and you’ll find that you’ll find that it’ll pave the way to opening all sorts of doors for you as a musician.

Spend some time familiarising yourself with the concepts I cover in each of these posts. As you learn more, you’ll find that they synchronise up to give you a deeper, more flexible bed of musical knowhow. This post in particular is a good starting point if you want to begin on this path. Learning this stuff is all well worth it.

But How Will I Remember All These Notes?

I get it, it seems intimidating, but think about it like this: There’s only 7 notes to a scale (8 if you count the Octave). They go up and up the neck the neck for ever and ever. Familiarise yourself with these 7 and you’re basically there. We’ll use C Major as the starting point (C D E F G A B).

Starting from the note of each open string, work your way along until you get to the octave, then repeat. Simple enough.

You might have also heard of the 12 tone scale. What this basically means is all the available musical tones, going along the neck chromatically. If you were to play C Major again, but include each of the chromatic notes, you would be playing each of the 12 tones (C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B). Less musical, but you’re including all of the notes rather than just the diatonic ones.

**If you’re not aware of this: Sharps and flats are the same note. (G# = Ab and so on). You’ll probably see both included in separate examples. Just make sure you remind yourself of this when starting off, it tripped me up for a little while early on.**

Also, start off by taking note of the Octaves as well: Fret 12 of your guitar are the Octave notes when going along a single string, whatever the string is tuned to. Play each of the strings open to start off. This gives you E A D G b e.

Now move up to fret 12 and repeat this. You’re playing the same notes, just an Octave up. The 12 tones repeat again up to fret 24 (If you’ve only got a guitar with less frets just subtract a few notes).

Lastly, and probably most importantly, memorise your marked frets. if your guitar looks anything like mine then you’ll inlay dots on frets 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 15, 17, 19 and 21. Memorise each of the notes on each string, one at a time, starting with your low E. Your guitar might have different inlaid frets, but if this is the case, just memorise them. Use the diagram if you need to.

Count along the inlaid frets and call out the notes as you go. Keep going until you get to the Octave note on the same string. Check the diagram above if you get stuck. Once you’ve memorised the inlaid frets, you’ll only ever be a fret or 2 away from a note you need. There’s no shame in starting at one of the marked frets and counting several notes up or down to target the note you need (Don’t forget to include the sharps/ flats). You’ll memorise each of the notes in time.

More Tips

Octaves

Octaves are also a handy way of memorising notes. Here’s a diagram that marks each of the notes in C notes in C Major across 3 Octaves.

This works for any of the notes, anywhere on the neck. The same shape can be transposed to whatever position you want.

Pick a note at random, find it on the E string and then play it again on the higher strings across the next 2 Octaves. Think of it in a similar way to the marked frets thing: As you get more familiar you eventually won’t need this hack, but it’s perfectly fine to use until you get to that point.

Note Hunting

Once you’ve spent some time on this pick another note at random and try to play every single instance of it on the neck. All possible C notes, for example. This one is tricker, so familiarise yourself with the aforementioned tips before you start on this one. You’ll most likely start off slow and hit a whole bunch of wrong notes, but keep at it and it’ll eventually become second nature. Employed the octaves trick can be a great help for this, but you can leave it out if you want a tougher challenge. Don’t become solely reliant on it.