Learning every note on the fretboard(without having to think about it)

Ted · February 2019

I have made it my firm goal to learn every note on the fretboard(up to the 12th fret),in the next month or so, off by heart, blind, like I can type. I am taking the advice of the attached video which seems the best way of doing it. But it's challenging playing every note in time with a metronome at 80bpm - will there be a point at which it becomes impossible?

Keiko · February 2019

That is a boring way to do it though.

Here is a better way in my opinion. Get yourself a beginners piano song book (or find some basic songs online). You know the kind of songs: jingle bells, merrily we roll along, that kind of stuff. and for every note you play make sure you play it on a different string to the one you are currently on. Trust me it works, and is more fun than that

Image: http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/plugins/EmojiExtender/emoji/fb/3.gif

eg the beginning of jingle bells is the same not played three times (E if you are in the key of C major), but for each note you want to play it in a different location on the fretboard. Try it. Once you can master a few basic tunes played all over the fretboard you will soon pick up where all the notes are.

sixwheeltyrrel · February 2019

The method described in that video will perhaps contribute in some small way but it's going to be as dull as dishwasher and possibly jeopardise your sanity!

I've never found those diagrams of all the notes on the fretboard particularly useful. The method in that video is one of a number of similar approaches based on tackling it parrot fashion one note at a time. I guess that may work for some but I've never done it.

Touch typing and playing a piano both benefit from a static/consistent layout. On the other hand a fretboard is more like QWERTY in one position and Dvorak a few frets along.

I would suggest getting familiar with the way the notes sit in relation to each other by interval, the octave patterns across the strings, the fourth/fifth, major/minor third etc.

For example in standard tuning, the interval between the notes on any pair of strings (from low to high) is a fourth except for between the third and second strings where it's a major third.

fastonebaz · February 2019

Print out a fret board, write all the notes in it stick it to the inside of your toilet door. You'll learn it rapidly from there if y you don't take your phone in with you.

Winny_Pooh · February 2019

As stated. Learn to read standard notation and play music on the guitar. Knowing the notes will inevitably follow.

octatonic · February 2019

Just start transcribing songs.

Caffeine_Vampire · February 2019

I’d have said it’s more important to know the relationship between the note you’re playing and the chord you’re playing over ie a major 7th is always going to be a semitone below the root. Knowing where to find a major 6th and the effect it has over different chords is far more valuable than knowing the name of the major 6th note in every key. Knowing where all the notes are kinda happens naturally.

Ted · February 2019

All i can do a the moment is various chord shapes without knowing the notes I am playing. I did think knowing every note on the fretboard would massively increase my repetoire and make it easier to understand scales, keys etc.
I take the point about it being more interesting to learn the fretboard by making music rather than doing it by rote with a metronome.

xscaramanga · February 2019

Horses for courses... I quite enjoy the method in the video. Can be used to build timing and note knowledge at the same time too.

But yes, learning to read music is excellent. If you start with a classical guitar book aimed at children you can blow through it pretty quickly, although those books tend to stick with open position for a very long time. You'll know the first three frets inside out though.

Caffeine_Vampire · February 2019

It’s not a bad idea to start by working out where the 5th is in relation to the root, then work out the major 3rd, minor 3rd, dominant 7th etc. Just add one note at a time but play them over major and minor backing vamps and trust your ears.

Danny1969 · February 2019

I've had a good results teaching students where all the notes are where all the chord shapes are by doing this

Tell yourself all notes have sharps except B and E .... at this point you don't need to worry about whether a note is a sharp or flat

Identify every A note on every string, use the dot markers to help you remember where they are. Just concentrate on A's until you can find all of them across all the strings in 5 seconds or less.
Once you got that find all the C's ...... then all the E's

From there you mind is normally able to fill in the gaps between all the known notes on the fretboard in the same way we drive down the street and know no 24 is 2 doors down from no 20 .... we don't need to see no 24 written on the door if it's 2 doors from a known landmark no 20.

Use fretmarkers to help and also a bit of theory .......... on the 4 larger strings they are tuned a fourth apart so finding a D (a fourth higher than an A ) is as easy as same fret as A but next string. An F is a fourth higher than a C so same fret next string ..... only time this dosen't apply is the B string in relation to the G string as this is tuned a lower third in relation to the G string, not a fourth

Once you know where all the notes are then you learn the simple formula for building simple chords and that is

Root, third, fifth so in key of C then C=1 D=2 E=3 F=4 G=5 A=6 B=7 C=8

So to build a simple C chord we need a C, an E and a G .... you know where those notes are so you can then find shapes you like all over the neck.

I've not been teaching long so I'm still learning how to teach but that method above seems to be quite easy to grasp and students seem to be able to find the notes quick quickly despite only really spending time mastering the location of only a few.

axisus · February 2019

I stared working on this years ago. I've got EADGBE down, everything else I struggle with.

Mark1960 · February 2019

A good / fun way I learnt the notes was to pick a note say E, and going from high to low play all the E's on the fret board descending from 1st string twelth fret to 6th string open, as fast as you can. Once you can do that pick another note and do the same. This way you learn it in small chunks, and also will see the spacial relationship between the note (e.g. C is always 1 fret above B etc.)

Barney · February 2019

A easy way is to find all the octaves first from the bottom 2 strings ...the intervals and fingers used will repeat all over the neck...
A longer term goal is really not to think about any of that and you should be able to to any note straight away

Another way is Learn one new note everyday .. so maybe 5th fret learn each note on the strings accros that fret it would take 5 days ....then repeat... before long you will be able to name them fairly quickly

Maybe put all the notes in a box and pick one out at a time going to that note straight away ...use the octave approach to find the others

Keiko · February 2019

Another fun way to do it is the Brian May delay thing where you build up arpeggiated chords using the whole fretboard. Like he does here from 2:17 onwards. It is a lot of fun messing around with that stuff.

allen · February 2019

I used the method in the first post about a year ago. It worked for me. And didn't take all that long.

ellangus · February 2019

Keiko said:

Another fun way to do it is the Brian May delay thing where you build up arpeggiated chords using the whole fretboard. Like he does here from 2:17 onwards. It is a lot of fun messing around with that stuff.

"Get a couple of delay machines, they don't have to be anything special, perhaps old Echoplexes…"

Yeah cheers Brian.

Keiko · February 2019

Yep and your amps don't need to be anything special either. 3 x Vox AC30's is fine.

Rocker · February 2019

Why is felt important to be able to name every note in the fretboard? The sound each note has must be more important surely. Music is sound and while you can play an E note in a lot of places on the fretboard, tonally they sound slightly different.

Ted · February 2019

Rocker said:

Why is felt important to be able to name every note in the fretboard? The sound each note has must be more important surely. Music is sound and while you can play an E note in a lot of places on the fretboard, tonally they sound slightly different.

Yes it's not about naming. I want to be able to recognize the sound of say an E note on the fifth string or an E on the first string or an A note on the third string and play them without having to think about it.

Roland · February 2019

Rocker said:

Why is felt important to be able to name every note in the fretboard? The sound each note has must be more important surely. Music is sound and while you can play an E note in a lot of places on the fretboard, tonally they sound slightly different.

Well, that’s one of the reasons, so that you can swap strings to get a different tone. When soloing you might also want to target a particular note over a chord. If you know the notes in the chord by name, and you know where those notes occur on the fretboard then it’s easy to do.

It’s also useful when communicating with other musicians. Really, it’s about knowing your instrument.

guitarblaster · February 2019

A method that worked really well for me is using the circle of 4ths on each string. So on each string I will play BEADGCF B flat E flat A flat D flat G flat and do that on each string in that order. I'd do that each time before I practiced and I'd say I know the know the notes really well in terms of being able to find them,

grappagreen · February 2019

There's lots of good stuff in here and I wont add to them other than a couple of things I learnt from my teacher;

1. Always, always do any exercise like this with a metronome. You just can't cheat when you've got a pulse to work too, it shows up areas of weakness straight away and you can push yourself/measure progress easily
2. Start slow - I mean really slow if necessary! Do your exercise at a tempo you can complete it correctly at before you move on.
3. Find a trigger. I ALWAYS do my fretboard note knowledge exercise whenever I pick up a guitar. If you do this without fail you will improve dramatically in a short space of time. It takes me about 30 seconds to complete so there's just no excuse.
4. Say the note names out loud as you do it. Easy? Say the next note name out loud as you play the first one! Easy? Say the fret number out loud as you play. Easy? Say the next fret number out loud. We're moving away from just the exercise now into the area of mental plate spinning.. about one of the most important things to develop imho. Be patient with this; it takes time but its very much worth the effort imho.

Here's the exercise I do when I was working it up to speed..

https://youtu.be/Iw_wArGz5Ms

Si

WeZ84 · February 2019

I have found this site quite useful too - especially when I don't have a guitar nearby to practice on.

The fretboard trainer gives you a game to help learn where the notes are on each string
https://www.fachords.com/tools/fretboard-trainer/

Here's another to help with intervals.
https://www.fachords.com/guitar-fretboard-interval-exercise/

duotone · March 2019

WeZ84 said:

I have found this site quite useful too - especially when I don't have a guitar nearby to practice on.

The fretboard trainer gives you a game to help learn where the notes are on each string
https://www.fachords.com/tools/fretboard-trainer/

Here's another to help with intervals.
https://www.fachords.com/guitar-fretboard-interval-exercise/

Cheers for those @WeZ84 ;

Vinylfan · March 2019

WeZ84 said:

I have found this site quite useful too - especially when I don't have a guitar nearby to practice on.

The fretboard trainer gives you a game to help learn where the notes are on each string
https://www.fachords.com/tools/fretboard-trainer/

Here's another to help with intervals.
https://www.fachords.com/guitar-fretboard-interval-exercise/

Nice - I like that.

stratman3142 · March 2019

People's brains work in different ways.

Right now, after nearly 50 years of playing, I don't know every note literally 'without thinking about it'. Probably because I've not needed that knowledge so it's not been retained.

Having said that, I could give the impression of pseudo instantaneous knowledge, but really I probably only have an instantaneous knowledge of the natural notes by rote, then it's quick to get to the sharps or flats by an offset of one fret. I could go through the process of relearning every note by rote, but it has limited value to my current musical situations and I would rather focus on other things.

I prefer a relational or meaningful learning approach than learning by rote.

An analogy is the multiplication tables. Whilst I could attempt to learn them again by rote, instead (as an example) I would think of something like 9×7, as 10x7 -7=70-7=63.

sweepy · March 2019

I break the fretboard down into octave patterns adding 3rds and 5ths etc, soon makes sense and falls under the fingers

Gianca · June 2021

duotone said:

WeZ84 said:

I have found this site quite useful too - especially when I don't have a guitar nearby to practice on.

The fretboard trainer gives you a game to help learn where the notes are on each string
https://www.fachords.com/tools/fretboard-trainer/

Here's another to help with intervals.
https://www.fachords.com/guitar-fretboard-interval-exercise/

Cheers for those @WeZ84 ;

Hello, I'm Gianca, the creator of these tools. Happy you found them useful. If you have questions, comments or requests, feel free to write me anytime :-)

hollywoodrox · June 2021

WeZ84 said:

I have found this site quite useful too - especially when I don't have a guitar nearby to practice on.

The fretboard trainer gives you a game to help learn where the notes are on each string
https://www.fachords.com/tools/fretboard-trainer/

Here's another to help with intervals.
https://www.fachords.com/guitar-fretboard-interval-exercise/

THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^

the FAChords fretboard trainer really really works just play it a few times a day
even if you know nothing you can use it in practice mode . It really works well
You will just flat out memorise them , no referring to known notes or positions
,just Bang , you will name it

allen · June 2021

grappagreen said:

There's lots of good stuff in here and I wont add to them other than a couple of things I learnt from my teacher;

1. Always, always do any exercise like this with a metronome. You just can't cheat when you've got a pulse to work too, it shows up areas of weakness straight away and you can push yourself/measure progress easily
2. Start slow - I mean really slow if necessary! Do your exercise at a tempo you can complete it correctly at before you move on.
3. Find a trigger. I ALWAYS do my fretboard note knowledge exercise whenever I pick up a guitar. If you do this without fail you will improve dramatically in a short space of time. It takes me about 30 seconds to complete so there's just no excuse.
4. Say the note names out loud as you do it. Easy? Say the next note name out loud as you play the first one! Easy? Say the fret number out loud as you play. Easy? Say the next fret number out loud. We're moving away from just the exercise now into the area of mental plate spinning.. about one of the most important things to develop imho. Be patient with this; it takes time but its very much worth the effort imho.

Here's the exercise I do when I was working it up to speed..

https://youtu.be/Iw_wArGz5Ms

Si

Nice job!

I couldn't quite make out what you were saying, but when I learned that exercise I do it according to the circle of fifths so it serves the purpose of learning that too.

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Learning every note on the fretboard(without having to think about it)

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