Do you know the note names on the fretboard?

  • Thread starter Thread starter HangDawg
  • Start date Start date

Do you know the note names on the fretboard?

  • I know all of them instantly

    Votes: 90 19.3%

  • It takes 1-2 seconds

    Votes: 195 41.8%

  • I only know the open strings and the most common.

    Votes: 47 10.1%

  • More than 1-2 seconds. I use a known note and go from there.

    Votes: 104 22.3%

  • What are notes?

    Votes: 27 5.8%

  • What's a fretboard?

    Votes: 2 0.4%

  • Who are you calling a broad?

    Votes: 2 0.4%
  • Total voters
    467
HangDawg

HangDawg

bUnGhOlIo
So how many of you are masters of the fretboard? How did you learn it? I hear that alot of the self taught never bother to learn the entire fretboard.
 
Don't they sell stickers that label all the frets. I think I may need to get some of those. Notes only take all but a second of thought, but when I'm trying to figure out chords voicings, it takes forever because I can't focus on figuring out multiple notes.
 
http://www.guitarscalesmethod.com/

A little pricy, but worth every penny. One of my friends is going off to LA Music Academy to study guitar, and he worked with this program for several months. The difference was night and day! I'm slowly working through it myself, but I don't have as much time to devote to it. The guy who wrote the program has a very organized method of learning the fretboard, breaking it down into various boxes and whatnot (haven't gotten through all of it yet). They have a free trial, so you may want to check it out.
 
reshp1 said:
Don't they sell stickers that label all the frets. I think I may need to get some of those. Notes only take all but a second of thought, but when I'm trying to figure out chords voicings, it takes forever because I can't focus on figuring out multiple notes.
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I put stickers on my very first guitar (a crappy Harmony acoustic) up to the 12th fret. It worked well at the time. I played piano before, so I always just thought of the fretboard as 6 keyboards stacked up.

Now, I don't think so much about notes, so it would take me a second to orient myself to which ones I'm playing.
 
I picked up this book called "Fretboard Logic" a year or two ago and it taught me everything I really want to know about the fretboard and more....and I didn't even finish the book. I really don't see the point in memorizing every single note of every single string.
 
Artist Unknown said:
I picked up this book called "Fretboard Logic" a year or two ago and it taught me everything I really want to know about the fretboard and more....and I didn't even finish the book. I really don't see the point in memorizing every single note of every single string.
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I have that book too. I didn't see the point either until a friend of mine, who is a guitar instructor and a freakin animal on guitar, just couldn't believe that I didn't know this most basic thing about the instrument I've been playing for 25 years. There's just no way you can reach your full potential until you know the fretboard like the back of your hand. I played a long time without this knowledge but I'm got to a point that I wanted to advance and this was the first step.
 
Although guitar is not my main axe I spend a fair amount of time learning the notes (Knowing every note on a keyboard has been very valuable, and logically the same applies to a fret board).

I know about 70% of the notes immediately the rest may take a second or two to figure out.

When I only played drums (decades ago) I taught myself all the notes on keyboards & fretboards (which is relatively easy), simply to allow myself to communicate with other musicians - after that it is simply a matter of playing enough so you don't have to think about it.
 
When I first started learning guitar before I learned anything else my teacher made me learn all of the notes everywhere on the fretboard, so I don't mean to brag or say that I'm great, because I've always known where they were even before I knew a chord.
 
I just discovered this site today, so... Howdy!

I started playing mandolin at six yrs old. That was in '58. (Old dude huh.) My dad was a really good country fiddler and needed someone to play music with so he bought me a mandolin and taught me to play, notes and all. At seven he bought me a cheap Mexican guitar and taught me that. I took piano lessons for eleven years from age nine all the way through high school, even after I started playing bass, at fourteen.

By the time I started on bass the notes on any fingerboard were just second nature and didn't really require any thought. I never thought about the notes while playing, that just confuses me, but I can call or sing the note names of everything I play, even the first time.

Knowing the notes is only necessary if you can't learn by ear. Sheet music is only used to teach the song. If you can learn by ear then you should learn the notes.

Glenn
 
sile2001 said:
http://www.guitarscalesmethod.com/

A little pricy, but worth every penny. One of my friends is going off to LA Music Academy to study guitar, and he worked with this program for several months. The difference was night and day! I'm slowly working through it myself, but I don't have as much time to devote to it. The guy who wrote the program has a very organized method of learning the fretboard, breaking it down into various boxes and whatnot (haven't gotten through all of it yet). They have a free trial, so you may want to check it out.
Click to expand...


That program looks very nice. I'm seriously thinking about buying it. Been playing for 5 years and I'm not where I'd like to be... If that thing gives me control of the fretboard in 3 months... I'll be a happy musician.
 
Self taught, and I learned all the notes. Any guitar player who plans on being worth a shit owes this to themselves.
 
Shakuan said:
That program looks very nice. I'm seriously thinking about buying it. Been playing for 5 years and I'm not where I'd like to be... If that thing gives me control of the fretboard in 3 months... I'll be a happy musician.
Click to expand...
The hardest parts about it (as are with any method) are:

1. Making a habit of sticking to it. Nothing's going to help if you don't regularly work on it.

2. Being patient enough to work over EVERYTHING and not try and skip stuff, and not try and play faster just because it sounds cool, even though you're missing notes. I made a rule when I was practicing piano that I would not speed up a piece until I could make it all the way through at least 5 times in a row with no or very few mistakes (depending on length and difficulty of piece).
 
I'm completely self taught. But after 35 years of playing I have the fret board memorized so I not only can look at someones hands and know what they're doing note wize, most of the time when I hear a guitar (even recorded) I usually can visualize what key and position is being played.
 
I can site read, but pretty much only in the first position. The remaining notes I can get from my training in intervals and relative pitch, typically by finding the equivalent note on the sixth string where I can instantly identify the pitch.

Like Track Rat, much of it for me is intuitive.. I can guage the key and position the guitarist is playing in through a combination of the sound of the guitar and a general idea of how the guitarist is playing it.

I think it's more important to know guitar this way, because you'd be surprised of the number of errors found in transcribed music. More often than not, if it looks impossible on paper, it probably is mistranscribed because the guy who transcribed it has no real knowledge of how guitarists approach their instruments.
 
I look at it like learning the "ABC's",only the musical alphabet has sharps
and flats,except the intervals between B and C and E and F.If you know
the name of each string,then the rest is easy.
 
I have no idea what note I'm playing at any given time - I just do it by ear. Guess I'm "not worth a shit." :D
 
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