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

Ted

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

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   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

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

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

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

octatonic

Just start transcribing songs.

Caffeine_Vampire

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mark1960

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

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

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

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

ellangus

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

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

Rocker

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

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

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.