Do you know the note names on the fretboard?

[timmerman]

I know them all but I do know it takes time and a certain kind of personality to teach yourself this material . The whole art is to have fun FUN with all of this while you are playing [that is learning.....] When you are having a ball, you want more and more and...............until your body tells you that YOU need sleep as well..........................

You could use books to teach yourself this but what about writing down some fretboards and have them around you whereever you are: Put them in your car, in your pocket and...................and whenever you have a "free" moment, just dot down a few marks on your fretboard and say out loud which notes they are. [You could even try to hear these notes in your head as well..............]

People do often not realise what they already know [heh you know more than what you think you know!!] Get to know your low E and A string, the notes that is eh and relate this to your chords and other notes, so your E and A could guide as a reference to the notes on your D or other strings. Heh I could give so many tips but I guess this is not needed now eh? Oh well perhaps people could ask for it..................

Anyway, it is useful to know them, same as your chords [majors, minors] I see it as basic information, once you know it, it will stay with you for the rest of your life as you will be using it your whole playing life.

Eddie

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Some days you just need to make time to..............................

 

[keebob]

The more I know the more I don't know... and I'll never know it all... in some ways that's the fun part. I know most of the notes but it takes a while to get there. Man, I gotta work on this stuff.

 

[Shakuan]

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 finally bought the software. Let's see how long I can stick to it =)

After reading 30 mins yesterday, I can already say that I learned stuff that made me go "oh that's it, nice."

And the exercices look interesting. Plus it's easy for me to work with that since I like beeing at the computer. I can really see where I could be in 3 months from now with the help of that software and it makes me happy =)

 

[lpdeluxe]

Names of the notes...

...let's see, Clarence, Bill, Wanda, Charles, Charles Sharp, Charles Flat, um, Fred, did I mention Wanda?

 

[wesley tanner]

i'm dun berklee edumacated, i kno um alllz.

the best way to learn them is to get with someone who knows them and can work with you to learn about theory and the like in a stimulating fun way. I give lessons, but only to people who want to learn. so I guess I'd have to say.... want to learn.

my dad always used to tell me "when you're not practicing, someone else is"

think of that in the nicest possible way.

 

[snipeguy]

Anyone remember Roy Clark Big Dots?

 

[XLR]

I think that knowing the notes can mean two different things. 1) It can mean that when you see a note on the staff you know what string and fret to play to produce it. 2) And it can mean that when you see music notation you can hear it in your head like it's words and sentences done in pitch and rhythm, then have your fingers make it happen on the guitar. I think reading notation is kind of a bitch until you get so you can do it the second way.

Tim

 

[timmerman]

...let's see, Clarence, Bill, Wanda, Charles, Charles Sharp, Charles Flat, um, Fred, did I mention Wanda?

Wo Ho this is sooo great, that is just what I mean

Could we have some more of that please!!

Eddie

 

[Garry Sharp]

...what about writing down some fretboards and have them around you whereever you are: Put them in your car, in your pocket and...................and whenever you have a "free" moment, just dot down a few marks on your fretboard and say out loud which notes they are. [You could even try to hear these notes in your head as well..............]

I went one better - took the strings off and put them in my pocket. Thought it would give me something to do during meetings. I don't seem to be making much progress somehow...

 

[andydeedpoll]

hehehe.

i've just spent ten minutes 'playing' on that fretboard game. its annoyingly addictive, annoyingly educational and annoyingly... annoying

i found whenever i made a mistake i'd shout "stop lying! i'm right...! oh no wait... a G sharp... well thats easy!" and then go and make the same mistake about thirty seconds later

a few months ago i found myself playing bass in church, and have being doing so every week. i used to just read the chord boxes, but as i've got used to finding the right notes from the chord boxes, i've found reading the actual notation much much easier.

knowing what note you're playing also means you can improvise without soloing, if that makes sense. adding the fifth and moving up from the leading note and things can make what might otherwise be quite a simple sounding piece of music much more interesting, but you wouldnt be able to do this if you didn't know what note you were actually playing.

and guitarists/bassists are lucky... you only have treble or bass clef to read. my first instrument is trombone, and i've had to learn bass, treble And tenor clef! sometimes all in the same piece of music!! you flukey buggers hehe

Andy

 

[c7sus]

Yeah. A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, and G#.

E3 to about C6 or so on a piano............

 

[Purge]

Yeah. A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, and G#.

That can't be right. Aren't they 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th,.......? (Can't remember which one's next.)

 

[junplugged]

been practicing reading for a few months and it's been real tough. I felt like a total beginner again....plunk, plunk - oops,....plunk....plunk - oops....!!!!

But this way you also just automatically learn the location of the notes as if it's a piano keyboard, but then you get in to positions and there are 3 identical place for the same note....weird

 

[ibanezrocks]

I remember reading a thing about Joe Satriani in some guitar magazine a couple of months ago, and he recommended that people trying to learn notes find each note at every possible spot on the neck and then go up and down the neck playing that one note in each spot, then doing that for each note.

 

[Vintage28]

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.

i though the same thing when my grandpa was teaching me. till i watched him play, watched his fingers. i sat their and watched him make up his own cords by knowing that these 3 or 4 notes make up this cord. i watched him play a differnt c cord all the way down the neck of the guitar, then i was sold. i needed to learn.

 

[HangDawg]

Hmmmm not bad for my first poll.

 

[punkin]

Good poll...I've enjoyed watching the responses come it. I teach guitar part time these day but did graduate with a music ED degree...can't tell you how many kids I've had that show up after playing a few years getting lessons else where or trying to learn on their own that struggle with moving on.

It's the whole short cut mentality. The problem with these short cuts is that you can get someone to play some familiar tunes quite quickly...the player gets a sense of accomplishment and comes back for another lesson to learn another tune but, they really don't know what they're playing or why certain notes are used while other's aren't. The problem is that these players seem to "peak out" pretty quickly.

I'm hearing the "self taught success strories" already but, my experiences have been that learning chord structures, progressions, sight reading exersizes and knowing the notes of one's particular instrument make the difference between a novice/recreational player and a capable technician/musician/artist.

IMHO

 

[XLR]

i though the same thing when my grandpa was teaching me. till i watched him play, watched his fingers. i sat their and watched him make up his own cords by knowing that these 3 or 4 notes make up this cord. i watched him play a differnt c cord all the way down the neck of the guitar, then i was sold. i needed to learn.

Thinking about the influence a mentor can have made me think of my first guitar teacher, John Griggs in Norfolk, VA. I was 5 and he was very kind to me while teaching me how to read. I think the good feeling I had in my lessons at the time still influences how I feel every time I'm reading print music. And I spend a lot of time reading every day. Hadn't really thought about that before, so thanks Vintage 28.

Tim

 

[Toonsmith]

I don't understand this poll or the responses here at all. I've been playing guitar nigh on to twenty seven years and I can tell you exactly what note I'm playing the moment my finger touches the fret board. Even when my fingers are resting above the fret board I now where I am in relation to notes I am playing and where I need to be to get to the next note.

Is it really that hard to know the notes on the guitar fretboard? I never really found it all that difficult myself. And now it's even more than second nature, it's in my subconscious.

 

[XLR]

I don't understand this poll or the responses here at all... Is it really that hard to know the notes on the guitar fretboard? I never really found it all that difficult myself.

IME players' natural aptitudes for notation and terminology vary hugely, just like with technique and the musical ear.

That said, I think the gut level motivation for becoming a really good reader depends a lot on how you're going to use it. I mean, if you want to have a gig every night where you have to read pages and pages of print music, you're going to be motivated to get really good at reading. If a person performs music that isn't generally notation-based (rock, folk, flamenco, etc.) they might learn to read to understand music more, but it's a different thing. Not that either one is better, they're just different situations.

Tim