Just wondering what techinques you guys have used to learn the fretboard. I know different scale positions and the roots but when I actully look down at the neck, all I see is is six strings and a bunch of frets. I'd like to be able to look at it and mentally visually all the notes. What would you guys suggest?
You know scale positions and you know where the root of each scale is, right? So you know (or at least can derive) the fretboard from there.
Here's how I am doing it (I'm not yet at the point of being able to instantly name every fret, but I'm getting there):
6th (lowest string): E-shape barre chord root
5th: A-shape barre chord root
4th: shifted two frets up from the 6th string (I visualize the octave fingering)
3rd: shifted two frets up from the 5th string (ditto)
2nd: a 5th below the 1st string or 3 frets up from the 4th string
1st: same as the 6th
Learning the movable "partial barre" chord forms (C and D) in addition to the E and A barre chords is currently helping a lot too. If you know that the A form has the root on the 3rd string, and the D form has the root on the 4th string, and so on, you pretty quickly learn where everything is.
Here's a little online "name that fret" game that I play sometimes: www.fretboardwarrior.com
(Hope this works)
If you have Excel you can download and print this fingerboard chart. It shows the 'natural' notes (not sharps and flats). If you look at a piano keyboard the natural notes are the white keys and sharps and flats are blackkeys. (Just ignore for now notes like Cflat or Bsharp). Then all the other notes will be in between the natural notes on the chart.
The notes arent labeled, so start on an open string (E for example) and use the rule for natural notes, whole steps between all note except E to F is half-step and B to C is half-step.
The chart assumes normal tuning (6th to 1st) E-A-D-G-B-E
http://members.canonphotogroup.com/joem/GRIDNAT.XLS
I would suggest a completely different approach. What you're proposing is not "musical". It's technical, and while you might actually memorize the neck at some point it won't do you much good when it comes time to make expressions on the guitar.Originally Posted by stratking
Rather than "visualize" all the notes, you only need to relate to a few "ideas" because once you learn a few simple things on guitar, you begin to notice how they simply repeat themselves all over the neck. The beauty of this is when you start to "hear" it and then combine your ideas in different places on the neck.
Get out of the context on single notes and try to see/hear it as major and minor ideas or, clusters of 4, 5 or 6 notes.
In the scale examples below, the numbers on the dotted line are fret numbers and the numbers to the far right are finger numbers.
Index=1
middle=2
ring=3
pinky=4
If you look for "patterns" in these scales, you will see how often the 1,2,4 pattern and the 1,3,4 pattern appear. Then you begin to see where they appear in succession such as 1,2,4 - 1,2,4 or 1,3,4 - 1,3,4.
Then you have the 1,2,4 - 1,3,4 expression, the 1,3,4 - 1,2,4 expression, the 2,4 - 1,2,4 and so on.
The important thing is just look at it in smaller, musical expressions at first. Learn your modes in the key of G and then play them all the way up the neck. You will recognize several places where these "ideas/expressions" repeat themselves.
Don't try to grasp the entire over-view of this all at once. It will overwhelm you. Just start by learning your modes, ionian, dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, aolian and locrian. Once you know these modes, (which are really only the same 7 notes repeated several times), all the "patterns/ideas" will suddenly reveal themselves and you can begin to epxress them in a musical context instead of simply, mechanically memorizing them. Everything you do in music should be musical!
E------------2------3------------------------------- 1,2
B-------------------3------------5------------------ 2,4
G------------2-------------4----5------------------ 1,3,4
D------------2-------------4----5------------------ 1,3,4
A------------2------3-----------5------------------ 1,2,4
E--------------------3-----------5------------------ 2,4
E------------5----------7---8---------------------- 1,3,4
B------------5----------7---8---------------------- 1,3,4
G------4----5----------7--------------------------- 1,2,4
D------4----5----------7--------------------------- 1,2,4
A------------5----------7-------------------------- 1,3
E------------5----------7----8--------------------- 1,3,4
E-----------7-----8-----------10------------------- 1,2,4
B-----------7-----8-----------10------------------- 1,2,4
G-----------7------------9-------------------------- 1,3
D-----------7------------9----10------------------- 1,3,4
A-----------7------------9----10------------------- 1,3,4
E-----------7-----8-----------10------------------- 1,2,4
Many of the great players you hear are not great because they have a huge mental capacity for technical memory. They are great because they have found a way to recognize the beautiful simplicity in music.
It's only 7 notes man!
Good luck, have fun!
If you're bored, you're not groovin'.
But Tele-Bob, you still need to learn where to play all of those patterns in a given key, and learning more of the fretboard offers up more choices.
For example, at the jam we attended, you showed me the changes for "Vehicle". Fm to Cm. Well, ok, because I know the 6th and 5th strings, I instinctively go to play those rooted at the 1st-fret/6-string and the 3rd-fret/5th-string, respectively. That's fine, but if there's two guitars playing, it sure would be nice for one of us to play up high instead of getting in each other's way. But if I don't know the higher notes, I probably won't try for those other voicings.
I've recently learned how to play Cm with the root on the 4th string, 10th fret (a barred Dm), and at the 3rd string, 5th fret (a high string voicing of the barred Am form). In order to play these chords, I've pretty much had to learn the notes on those strings.
That's all well and good Jesse, but I'm just identifying a possible starting point here.
Once a person goes through what I've posted above, everything you just said becomes obvious all on it's own. It really is amazing how it happens.
But here again, if we make this a totally cerebral discussion and none of this is actually tried, then there really is no common reference point for discussion, and it's not musical.
By the way, "Vehicle" is Cm to Gm, LOL! What is your point of reference?
(note: The original is in Eb)
If you're bored, you're not groovin'.
Here's what I do. It's a hybrid of the Jesse and TeleBob methods. If I play a new chord, I'll stop and look at the board and determine which notes I am playing. If I play a new melody, I usually figure it out by ear, but then I do the same excercise. It does three things. First I learn (or relearn) the notes on the fretboard. Second, I get a refresher on intervals and chords. Third, once I figure out the intervals I pretty much understand the mode (if one exists) and can find an easier place to play on the neck because I'm lazy. Finally, it's good when playing with others to communicate. It's so much easier to say "play the C sharp on the 2nd" than do the old "make an X chord, now, move your finger, no the other oner one, up a fret."
I'm not a big fan of the patterns approach. I also completely disagree that learning notes on the board will make you too technical. I have ten years of trumpet as my musical baseline and everything I learned in those years of study was based on, A:knowing how to play the note and B: here's a chart. But the weird thing is, when I learned how to play a more traditional instrument than guitar they taught me all the information at first. Then I was instructed to use less and less of it. As kids we were given notes on a staff and made to play them as printed. Then, as I got more experienced, they took away the charts and gave me a fake book. That sort of thing.
Like anything, the more you know, the more uses and applications you can dream up.
Example of how I use knowing the notes- I have slow-down software that can do a frequency spectrum analysis and show me the notes on keyboard representation. That's quite a time saver when learning a part!
"No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim
I suppose this is just a matter of "all roads lead to Rome". I know the first 4 or 5 frets down cold, because that's almost all I played with for most of my guitar playing life. And the bottom two strings because of barre chords. Now I'm learning other chord inversions at different points on the neck, and that's opening up a better understanding of the other strings for me.
I'm just too intimidated by modes to do it your way.
"Vehicle" is Cm to Gm, LOL! What is your point of reference?D'oh!! You're right, and then it goes to Fm in the other bit, right? I haven't played it since the jam, so my memory was mixing me up!
What I'm trying to say is that, learning the scales and then learning to recognize the patterns in the scales, will give a person a quick, handy reference for major, minor etc recognition. By learning the scales, you automatically learn the fretboard, (unless part of your mind is missing), and then being able to recognize the fragments of key types all over the board is essentially, knowing the fretboard.
When I'm looking for a place to play a diminished run, I don't immediately visualize an entire diminished scale. I "recognize" a group of notes somewhere and build my run from that point. It's alot less baggage for me to carry when playing on the fly.
There are many different roads to Rome. Many of them are long detours if the signs along the way are not read.
If you're bored, you're not groovin'.
Did anyone download the FB chart?
T-B, the chart is basically the same as what you have posted but it covers the fingerboard to the 15th fret.
Here's another approach to playing scales:
Starting with C major you can think of the scale as having 7 different starting notes (Dont call these modes yet!). You can play 3 notes of the scale on each string (6th - 1st) so the first one starts on the low E (open) and then the F and G, then A on the 5th etc. until you've played the entire C scale on all 6 strings. The fingering will always be 1-2-4 or 1-3-4 as appropriate. The scales this way on some strings will involve a stretch. Then start on the F (1st fret) and so on up the neck. This way all the notes in the scale interconnect up the fingerboard. This same idea can then be used for the minor scales (you've already got the natural since it's the same as the major). Learning scales this way will allow all 12 keys to be played in just about any position on the fingerboard.
(credit for this goes to Lee Ritenour at a class he gave at Dick Grove School of Music)
Yeah, I stopped short because I didn't want to overwhelm the guy with the whole, entire mess. Plus, I was trying to make the point that the scales I've shown are only 7 notes that repeat over and over again. If he takes the initiative to continue up the fretboard and learn the remaining 4 modes, he will be that mucher richer for having done it itself.
If you're bored, you're not groovin'.
The one class I really, really kicked ass in when I was at school was "Guitar Skills". For some reason I just know my fretboard inside, outside, upside down.
Anyway, in this class we wouldn't even hold our guitars or look at them. It was all about being able to visualize the fretboard in your mind with your eyes closed. The teacher would call out a fret and you'd have to name the notes low to high using sharps and then high to low using flats.
Fer instance:
"8th fret!"
"C, F, A#, D# G, C" and then "C, G, Eb, Bb, F, C"
Another "cool" thing we'd do is move up stepwise. The teacher would call out a fret and you'd name the note at that fret on the sixth string. Then, you'd move up a string and a fret and so on.
Fer instance:
"4th fret!"
4th fret, 6th string: G#
5th fret, 5th string: D
6th fret, 4th string: G#
7th fret, 3rd string: D
8th fret, 2rd string: G
9th fret, 1st string: C#
10th fret, 2nd string...
You get the idea.
We'd play all sorts of silly games like this. It's mechanical and abstract and non-musical, sure. Just like doing push-ups to prepare for a football game. But, like I said, I know my fretboard. And having a rock solid knowledge of the fretboard like that has been an excellent foundation for scales, chords, blah blah blah...
s'all goof.
That sounds like a really cool excersize.
We used to play a root note and then a note relative to the root. The person listening would have to call out the second note as it related to the root.
Pluck--------------------pluck-------------------
"flat 6!" and so on.
I don't think of the actual letters. I tend to work more in terms of numbers. I know where all my notes are on the neck, but I really only use that for identifying the key. Once I have the "one" I expand from there.
To me a Dm7 is, D b3 5 b7. Knowing the corresponding scales, I am able to play the chords and scales with the burden of naming the names of the notes. They simple become intervals at that point. I find it easiest to play that play.
If you're bored, you're not groovin'.
I dig it, TB.
The cool thing about the sort of visualization I used to do in school is that it can be practiced anywhere, at any time. No need to have a guitar there.
You got 15 minutes in a waiting room? You can still practice the guitar!
I used to actually have my pieces memorized and visualized to the point where I knew:
1) every single note in the piece
2) what string/fret I was playing each note
3) which left hand finger was fretting each note
4) which right hand finger was playing each note
I was able to call out from memory an entire piece like that. Probably could still do it for some of them, even though I haven't played them in years.
My brain is just too feeble nowadays for that sort of rigor. I'm lucky to recall my own name and spell it correctly most days. And that's why I'm here instead of touring the world playing guitar. Well, that and I can't play my scales as fast as John Williams.
s'all goof.
Thats cool. I guess I might have had that kind of brain power back in my 20's.
If you're bored, you're not groovin'.
I've got two kids, Bob. They've made me stupid. What's your excuse?
s'all goof.
Drugs and alcohol.
I quit both many many years ago but I'm still shot!
If you're bored, you're not groovin'.
My advice is: get the Advancing Guitarist book by Mick Godrick. One of the best guitar books I have ever read, and it deals a whole lot with fretboard visualization and all that.
One of the most valuable lessons on the book: Learn the scales/intervals on a single string. It will enhance your knowledge of the fretboard a lot. And once you combine the single-string approach, with the "position playing" approach you will be good to go.
But if you are too lazy for that, just learn the penta on every key and you´ll be good to go :P
Man there is a lot of great advice so far. I'm going to have to slowly digest it all but I think these should work out quite well.
Right now I know the basic idea of modes, that it's just a scale starting and ending on a different note. Unfortunately, all I really know is the major and blues pent. scales on the 6th and 5th string roots. The hard part for me is when it comes time to sit down and practice, I have no idea where to start. 9 times out of 10 I spend most of my time noodling around the neck, get frustrated, and stop. I think I definately have a great starting point now. JAM, thanks for the diagram, I'm going to be printing out a bunch of them and applying it along with TB's suggestions.
(slow motion, deep voice)
Nooooooooo!!! :lol
agalamba, please don't take offense, but the pentatonic approach to learning "if you are too lazy" is one of my major pet peeves! I wasted so much time in my years of playing because of the screwed up habits I picked up by not learning the correct notes and how the chords I was trying play over were built from those notes.
Sure, playing pentatonic scales got me doing a few solo things early on, but since it was sort of an abbreviation to the process, I never really put it all together until a few years ago. Then, 25 years later I realize that soloing is only about 8% of what a guitar player does and that rythm is king. I've been playing for 30 years and only now am I finally understanding what I'm playing. If I were religious, I would say "The pentatonic minor scale is the devil's tool!"
I strongly urge that anyone learning to play, learn their full scales first, and then come to the understanding that a pentatonic scale is 5 notes derived from a mode and those particular 5 notes are selected for a specific reason. When I didn't know the reason, I didn't know shit, and my playing sounded like it.
Anyway, sorry for the rant. It's just one of "those subjects" for me since I have wasted so much time on the "penta-approach" to soloing.
If you're bored, you're not groovin'.
Quote:
I strongly urge that anyone learning to play, learn their full scales first, and then come to the understanding that a pentatonic scale is 5 notes derived from a mode and those particular 5 notes are selected for a specific reason. When I didn't know the reason, I didn't know shit, and my playing sounded like it.
End Quote
TB does that mean that each mode has it's own pentatonic scale? I always thought that there were Maj., Min., and Pent. scales, then also modes derived off of the maj. scales.
Hey, your welcome. Hope it helps some and your not overwhelmed by all the information given here.
If you compare the printed diagram with T-B's posted diagram they're not quite the same. The chart is strictly the natural notes (hence I called it "White Keys" on the guitar. (For example T-B has the 7th fret on the 2nd string which is F#).
re: Pentatonics,
You can think of a major pentatonic as a major scale with omitted 4th and 7th scale tones.
If you take 5 notes from the major scale you have a pentatonic scale. The term "pentatonic" loosely translated is latin and means "5 tones".
Penta = five
tonic = tones
If you take the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 7th notes from a minor scale it gives you 5 tones, or Pentatonic minor.
If you then look at the minor chord this scale fits over, you will usually find three of these notes in that chord. The 1, 3 and 5.
There is the major scale, and everything else in music can be traced back to it's origin in that scale. Modes are the pure form that everything else stems from. Don't try to grasp a global understanding of this all at once though. It's overwhelming. Just worry about getting thoroughly aquainted with the major scale first. As you progress it will all make perfect sense. Starting out with an abbreviated method often cheats a person out of knowing what the origin is of what they're playing and that can seriously hold a player back in their development.
If you're bored, you're not groovin'.
Start by learning the natural notes (= the white keys on the piano) and where they sit on your fretboard. They are A, B, C, D, E, F and G - seven first letters of the alphabet, right? Two pairs of them, B-C and E-F have half a step (one fret)between them, the others have a whole step (two frets).
Now play one string at a time starting with it open. Let's try B second. Open is B and after B comes C - let's see... half a step so that's 1rst fret. After C comes D... whole step means 3rd fret, then E whole step which means 5th fret. Then comes F, wait.... half a step means 6th fret. Then G whole step means 8th fret. After G comes A and the distance is a whole step meaning 10th fret and you land on B on the 12th fret. And then you go down the opposite direction.
Never mind the fingering and you can hum the names of the notes as you play them.
Yes this is C major (ionian). Eventually you move on to other keys, adding one accidental at a time: G, D, A, E (B F#) and F, Bb, Eb (Ab and so on).
I think what stratking was asking here (correct me if I'm wrong) was "can you create a pentatonic scale for the other modes (besides Ionian and Aolian)?"
The trivial answer is yes, you can pull 5 notes out of any 7 note scale, but I guess the more complex part is "which notes?" I'm not sure I've ever seen a "Dorian pentatonic scale", for example.
I find it kind of interesting that the minor pentatonic scale claims to be derived from the natural minor (Aolian) scale, but when we use it in blues or rock, if we also use the 6th, we would almost always use the major 6th, not the minor 6th called for by the natural minor scale.
But I suppose in the end, scales are just artificial "labels" or groupings that make things easier for us. Consider the melodic minor scale that has a different key signature going up as it does going down. I suppose there's a good reason for that, but it seems very artificial to me.
And isn't it odd that our ears and brain prefer to hear that half-step between the major 3rd and 4th, and between the major 7th and the octave? You'd think we would prefer the symmetry of a whole-note scale, but I'm not at all sure how that would sound. Probably pretty exotic!
Start with a pentatonic scale, say A starting on fret 5. Add two notes and you've got your minor scale. Move it all down three frets you've got your major scale.
Memorise the patterns (or shapes) of those scales on your fretboard. Then if, you want to do Bb, just move all those shapes up a fret. Move everything another fret up and you're now in B.
What could be easier than this approach? Scales are relative things. It's the intervals that matter, not the absolute note names. I'd concentrate on learning where your first, your third, your fifth is, etc, relative to an arbitrary root (i.e., the scale's notional starting point), rather than where all the As are, all the Cs are, and all the Ds are, etc. Learn one major scale this way and you've learnt all 12.
Modes are truly the root of all evil. (Of course, people will give you seven different roots and seven different names for the same scale, but then the number of the beast is seven, and his name is mixolydian...)
-Mark
Last edited by Plugger; 10-28-2005 at 07:12 AM.
Jesse, here's a really simple trick to knowing all the notes. The first two strings are really easy. We all pretty much get those drilled into our heads from simple root-bottomed barre chords. Up two and over two is an octave. for the 3rd and 4th.The 6th string, of course, is the same note 2 octaves higher than the first. That leaves us with the pesky B string, which is easier still. Play your D chord at the second fret. Your fretted note on the B string is the root. Since that is a movable chord shape, move it up and find the F, G, and A. The C is a no brainer, and now you have C,D,E,F,G,& A wired. Viola! By knowing three chord shapes you've mastered every note on the board.
That last chord shape is the Rosetta Stone. Learn to play the D as a bar chord by moving the first fret C chord up and barre the second fret and then make the remainder of the chord with your other fingers. The root will be under your pinky and middle fingers. Since you'll learn the root notes from above, you now can move to any key and mode. It really is that simple.
Think of modes not as scales, but moods. Don't think of it as changing the rot, think of it as changing the key. Play the C major scale over a C chord. Good, Now, play it over a G7. Whoa! Why does that work? (Because G7 is a G chord with a flatted 7th, i.e, GABCDE F# becomes GABCDEF which are the notes of the C scale.) The C scale the Mixolydian mode of G. very classic rock.
Now play the C scale over an E chord. Conjures up visions of Zorro riding his horse Tornado! Very Flamenco sounding. Now play the C chord over an Am.
That's what playing modally means. Just saying in the same key and starting the scale on a different note IS NOT using modes. It's a common misconception newbies have.
The true beauty of modes becomes apparent when you think in intervals. That is why they work. Look at the intervals of a major scale. Play it all on one string. Call a two fret move a whole-step (H) and a one fret move a half-step (h).
C D E F G A B C
- H H h H H H h
So the whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half set of intervals is a major scale. But looking at the C scale, if we start with G and write down the intervals back up to G, the half step at the end of the scale becomes a whole step. We flatted the 7th! Dominant chords are flatted 7ths! So a C major scale works perfectly over a G7.
If you start on different notes, you'll see where some have a set of intervals where the jump between the second and third become half-steps (A for example). Well, flatted thirds are minors. So using a C scale over an Am should -and does- yield a melodic result.
Play with it using a C scale, and then go from there. Use a paper and pencil and write down the INTERVALS and then look up which mode you're in. But remember, the C scale played over the E chord is a specific mode of E, not of C.
Get this down, and then maybe Bob or one of the other guys here will enlighten you next to chord scales in which the intervals actually relate to major or minor chords in a progression, and you'll be wowing them at the jam in six months.
"No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim
Tele-Bob, I was just kidding mate!! I don´t recommend anyone in the world to do that!! The problem is not so much the thing with knowing only the penta scale. The problem is not knowing how each note you play is directly related to each chord in the harmony. I recommended that book because it teaches valuable lessons for any guitar player. But certainly I believe the place to start if you want to get serious is to study harmony. Then you will understand the chord progressions and how they relate to the melody being played.(slow motion, deep voice)
Nooooooooo!!!
agalamba, please don't take offense, but the pentatonic approach to learning "if you are too lazy" is one of my major pet peeves! I wasted so much time in my years of playing because of the screwed up habits I picked up by not learning the correct notes and how the chords I was trying play over were built from those notes.
That's cool agalamba. It's hard to catch humor sometimes in plain text. Sorry if my response went a little over the top.
If you're bored, you're not groovin'.
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