Why learn all the notes on the fretboard?

octatonic

This ^^^.
Also, why be lazy?

koss59

I depped for a band last night in which the keys player was also a dep. We had to talk through a few intros we played together, if I didn’t know the notes that would be an impossible task in the time frame given.
You also suggest you don’t need to know the notes for soloing and only need to know a scale shape, while I think this is true IF you know every interval I’m guessing most people who don’t know the notes are unaware of intervals too thus meaning you can’t play over changes.

For some reason guitar players are a lazy bunch and I’ve heard excuses for years saying “ Learning to read makes you have less soul” etc etc. It’s all bollocks.

Freebird

If I want to know the notes I use Melodyne. I suppose a guitar tuner would work too  

Grunfeld

Rocker said:

I appreciate what you guys are saying but music is sound. [1] And I believe that as most guitarists learn shapes (for chords and scales) rather than fretboard notes, is there anything to merit knowing what note you just played?  As opposed to knowing that it was in the scale and key you are playing in and that it sounded good?  I really cannot see the benefit in knowing the note names or even thinking about them in a music playing situation. [2]

Also a lot of guitarists don't know the key of the song they are playing and I am not talking about Sweet Home Alabama.  And as for transposing a song to a different key...... [3]

During a break at an IGF course week some years ago, a guy who had played an impressive solo piece asked me to show him the chords for The Fields of Athenry as I am Oirish.  Naturally I thought he was taking the piss, my level of skill on the guitar was nowhere near his, but he genuinely did not know the chords to use.  And the look of bewilderment on his face when I asked him what key he wanted to sing it in was staggering.  I played the chords in several keys, he wrote them all down and he was pleased that he learned 'something' on the course.[4]

Hence my question about knowing the names of the notes on the fretboard.

[1]  Spoken language is also sound and yet here we are using written symbols to communicate.  Can you see how helpful this actually is?  Musicians who can describe sound in symbolic language also find this helpful.  Which is why I'd probably find it more work playing with your band than working with say,  @koss59 (read his post above).  Don't misunderstand:  I can play with both bands but it's going to be way easier working when we can communicate better.  Tbh what you're saying is making me think of a kid who's going, "Oh why have I got to learn to read?  I can talk and it's okay."  Well, the kid doesn't have to learn to read; they'll get by.  But they'll never know what they're missing.

[2]  Think about it a little more. Even when I didn't know the fretboard fluently I wasn't wilfully ignorant.  The two major things that knowing your instrument properly give you are first, the ability to communicate better with others who share the language, and secondly, relating to [1] above, music is not only sound.  There is a technical depth to which you do not have access if your knowledge of music is limited to the notion that music is only sound.  I could see the evidence for this long before I acquired the extra knowledge and skills of learning about my instrument. 

[3]  And if my granny had wheels she'd be a bus. 

[4]  Assuming no BS, (and my BS detector pinged), this needs unpicking:  The guy who played the "impressive" solo piece is a problem here.  Because on the one hand you're saying he couldn't work out the chords to a very simple song ("The Fields of Athenry" is musically very simple so I can't fathom how this guy was struggling with it, in any key), and you're also saying that the pair of you used symbolic written communication (i.e. the names of some notes) to convey how the music would sound when played -- which I'm trying to square with your statement that "music is sound" and the implication that this means knowing the fretboard is superfluous.  

TLDR:  you are wrong.  Or rather, I think there's more evidence that you are wrong on this one.

PS -- why did I reply when I know that these things seldom change anyone's mind?  It's because I'm not trying to change minds.  I am, in fact, procrastinating.  I have a paper to write and I need a haircut and I should do some shopping too.  But this is mostly about avoiding writing the paper.  It's as if a bit of my mind thinks that waffling on a guitar forum is somehow equivalent, after all, words is words... Bollocks.   Think I'd better get that haircut. 

Rocker

I appreciate and thank you for the effort and time you put in to your reply @Grunfeld. ; And all the others too.  In my book, knowing technical details like fretboard notes is not always necessary to be able to play music.  Playing music is not like writing a reply here, for my input to make any sense (grammatically) it is necessary for me to know the keyboard and how to spell words.  But I can play a guitar chord by knowing the shape and fretting the strings cleanly.  Even without knowing anything about why those strings are fretted or left open.

I accept the contributions that players who dep in bands need a way to communicate with fellow musicians.  My musical needs are playing covers of well known songs with like minded people.  We may be technically deficient but despite this, we have a lot of fun playing and trying to do our best.

@Octatonic, I don't think that not learning all the notes on the fretboard indicates a laziness on my part.  I play bass these days and I did learn most of the notes on the bass as this knowledge helps me and gives me options.  Strangely I never felt the same about knowing the notes on my guitar as I tend to operate on shapes.  And the type of music I play is country so the chords tend to be on the simpler style (not many Maj7 chords).

@Grunfeld, There is no BS in [4].  It is all absolutely true.  I was very surprised that an accomplished guitar player did not know the chords for what is a simple, beginner song.  TBH I thought he was having a laugh at my expense but it seems not.  Or maybe he was but it hardly matters now. 

A general point: when teachers, especially on-line teachers, talk about the Major and Minor keys and where to put your fingers etc,, it would be helpful and interesting if they named the notes too. 

LeeCMB

Note names are important to understand what key, chord, scale etc you're playing. Although you don't have to know what key, chord or scale you're using to make great music. 

You can get away with not knowing the notes on the guitar, because the guitar is full of patterns that you can move around. 

I like knowing the notes and what I'm playing. To be honest, when I'm playing, I don't think of the notes by their actual names. I think of them in their relationship to the key. As in R, 2nd, 3rd 4th, 5th - major key. Or R, b3, 4, 5 - minor pent etc. Pretty much the CAGED system. 

Matt_McG

For me it's hard to see why you wouldn't want to know them.

If you are only ever learning things written by other people, and copying them note for note using TAB, maybe you don't. I certainly played that way as a teenager, although I did have a reasonable knowledge of what the various patterns were for scales that worked for certain sounds or certain songs. So I might not have known that the 9th fret on the B string was G#, but I'd have known that if I was playing in E major, that was one of the notes to play (because I was relating it to an E major scale shape that I knew based on the knowing the note names on the E and A strings).

But, if you want to improvise, esp. over anything with any kind of "changes", or write your own music, or understand why a particular player you like chose to play a certain note rather than another note, knowing what the notes are on the guitar neck is invaluable.

Some people have amazing ears, and have the knack of just choosing the right notes, or coming up with the right chord inversion, or voicing, without knowing anything about the notes they are playing. I am sure we can all name some players who were amazing and who knew nothing.

Most people, including me, are not like that. The more knowledge you have, the easier it is to understand what you are doing, and why a particular thing sounds right to you, or doesn't sound right to you.

And it's surprising how much a lot of name players do know, even the ones who profess not.

I watched a video with a big name 80s metal guy, who was going on: "I don't know the names of anything I do. I just play what sounds good man. I don't even know the names of the notes." Literally about 4 minutes later, in the same video, "Well, here, I was doing a kind of whole tone thing, and then I switched to an A melodic minor feel, really emphasising the G#." Uh-huh, dude. You don't know the names of the notes. Right.

Ironically, country seems like one of those genres were good players definitely DO know that stuff. Inside out, in fact. If you get a Nashville numbers chart, and have to come up with a solo, or some cool triad voice leading thing, it's going to be really hard if you don't.