Learn the fretboard easily!

the fretboard. the matrix of music on the guitar. many students of mine, young and old, beginner or advanced, have similar problems memorizing all the notes on the board. with this article i hope to give you a logical and systematic way using things you already know about the guitar to help you memorize the entire fretboard quickly and easy.

before we even look at a fretboard diagram, let's lay out the material we intend to learn - the notes themselves. western music divides the spectrum of an octave into 12 pieces, and we label them in alphabetical order from A to G...

A B C D E F G

but that's only seven of them. the rest are hidden between the letters as accidentals, as in, we accidentally forgot to use 12 letters, so we used 7 instead. what can i say? you should know by now that music is very foolish at times.

accidentals take two forms - some sort of sharp (#) or some sort of flat (b). sharps and flats work similar to test grades. if you got an 86 on your math test, some teachers will call that a B+. others will call it an A-. replace the +'s and -'s with #'s and b's and you get the musical version of this system.

therefore...

A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G#

or

A Bb B C Db D Eb E F Gb G Ab

but wait! why are there no accidentals between B and C and E and F? just because, is my answer for now. i will leave you to ponder it. if you need a handy sentence to remember the 4 notes that have no spaces between them, simply remember that Big Cats Eat Freely. see what i did there? don't like it? well one of my students made it up, so blame him.

it is also good to note that each fret on your guitar will take the place of one of each 12 notes, in order. if you fret an A note, and jump up one fret, you end up with A#/Bb. if you fret an E note and go down one fret, you end up at Eb/D#.

armed with the names of all 12 notes, and the notion that each fret spans exactly one note (haha!), we can begin!

let's start with a standard fretboard, running from open to the 12th fret:

 oh no! it's so scary! there's no hope!

yes there is. you already know 6 notes. they are situated at the nut of the guitar - the open strings! see them on the left? good! 6 down, a bunch more to go...

...but wait! if you have memorized all 6 strings, you also know the same notes somewhere else, right? RIGHT? i hope so...

at the 12th fret (double dots on most guitars), the octave begins anew. in other words, we have the same notes at the 12th fret that we do at the nut. good! we know 6 more... 

 moving right along now! what other notes have we already memorized? how about the ones we use to tune with? most guitar players are familiar with the '5th fret' rule for tuning... take an in tune string, fret a 5th fret note, and check it with the next higher open string, and you should have the same note. if you are aware of this (and i think you might be if you're my student!) you know all the fifth fret (and one fourth!) notes as well...

 

 delightful. we're getting there, trust me.

here's another trick that i teach all of my students. just like we use the 5th fret for a shortcut to get to the next string, we can work in the opposite direction and use the 7th fret to name the notes on the string thats one lower than where we fretted. in other words, on the high E string, fret a 7th fret note (B) and realize the string before it should be the same thing. memorize your 7th (and one 8th) fret notes and you'll have this...

 ahh, now we have a great start for knowing all of our notes. how, you ask? it's pretty simple really. refer back to our chart of notes, represented in sharps for fun...

A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G#

if you look at the 4 positions we have laid out on the fretboard already, you should be able to find any note on the fretboard no more than 3 frets away from any of these positions. counting 3 notes up or down is WAY better than starting at the open string every time like you used to do it, isnt it? (yes, dont lie. you've tried it before).

let's try one. 4th fret on the E string. you already know that the 5th fret is an A note. count down 1 note......

Ab. boom.

let's do another. 10th fret on the A string. you already know that the 12th fret is an A note. count down 2 notes....

G. how easy is this?

one more - 9th fret on the G string. you already know that the 7th fret is a D. count up 2 notes...

F.






no, i'm kidding. pay attention! it's E.

not so terrifying now, is it? memorize your four positions first, then practice counting up and down random unknown spots on the fretboard until you've got it. it shouldn't take you long to get the whole process down, and once you do, you'll be flying around the fretboard in no time.

if you want some more reference points on the guitar, here's another example citing all natural notes on the fretboard. if you want to come up with your own system, feel free!