How do I learn the Notes on the Guitar Fretboard?
The mystery of the “fretboard” probably accompanies a guitarist throughout their life.
That’s why I’ve written about it before: The Fretboard of the Guitar.
I sometimes have very advanced students who play the guitar very well and also improvise with it, but actually have no idea what they are pressing on the fretboard.
The reason is, once again, habit.
If you do something long enough (in this case, improvising on the guitar), you don’t really need to know the notes, but rather rely more on your ear and know that when chord X comes, you can play the notes on fret X and string X and it will sound good.
But if something new “reaches” the ears, it requires thorough practice before you can play it, because the notes or the theory are still missing.
Practicing the Fretboard Through Improvisation
As always, there are several ways to learn the fretboard by heart.
There’s the nerd who actually sits down every day and simply practices every single note by heart. Or the app freak who downloads an app and “forces” everything into themselves using the app. 😛
But then there’s also me, who tries to somehow connect everything together. 🙂
For this exercise, you can actually fake an improvisation.
Simply take four chords from the C major scale — it can also be another one, but you should start as simply as possible in a single key.
Let’s just assume that our chords are: C, Am, F, G.
Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? By the way, that’s because I chose the I, IV, V and VI degrees.
Now we actually know that we are in C major or A minor and could therefore simply play the A minor pentatonic over it.
The only difference with this exercise, however, is that we don’t just start playing, but restrict ourselves somewhat.
Restrictions are great if you want to change something about your playing. Strict measures must be taken to get out of the “comfort zone”! 😛
So for us, the Am pentatonic is no longer just a scale, but individual notes that make sense together.
Root Note Exercise
The first exercise consists ONLY of the root note of the respective chord.
So we let a backing track run:
(By the way, I made this backing track on iReal Pro)
In this 4/4 time, we always play the respective root note on the first beat.
Always take a different octave so that it doesn’t get too boring. Try to play really accurately and do it for so long that you can almost do it blindly and don’t have to think “oh no, now there’s a C, where is the C??!!”.
As soon as you have that, play a note from the pentatonic on the second, third and fourth beats. It doesn’t matter what note you play here. The main thing is from the pentatonic.
If that’s no longer a problem either, then start with eighth notes and do exactly the same as before.
It is important to note that the first note is always the root note of the respective chord.
The fact is that you now know C, A, F and G extremely well between frets 5 and 8 and instantly know where to put your finger.
Third Exercise
We now do exactly the same as with the “root note exercise”, but now with the third.
It should be noted here that a distinction must be made between the major and minor third.
You can find out how and where to find the respective third here: All Intervals, Scales, Chords and Arpeggios for Guitar.
Important: Don’t think here: “The third of C is an E, so I’ll play an E now”. Try much more to know and internalize the pattern of a third.
Fifth Exercise
Now repeat the same exercise again with the fifth. Do exactly the same as above. Don’t think about the note, but rather about the interval and its “pattern” on the guitar.
Seventh Exercise
Finally, we do exactly the same again with the seventh. Here it should be noted that we think in seventh Chords and don’t just take any seventh.
- Since C is the I degree, a major seventh is played there.
- Am is the VI degree and therefore has a minor seventh.
- The F is the IV degree with a major seventh.
- And the G is the V degree with a minor seventh.
In general, it should be noted that the whole thing takes several weeks. This is not an exercise that will make you a master of the fretboard within an hour! 🙂
Goal
The goal will be that you at least know these four notes between the 5th and 8th frets by heart and immediately know where these notes are. In addition, you also know which notes belong to it and find them super fast.
What’s next?
All Frets
So that you know the entire fretboard, you can now do the same with all pentatonic patterns.
Sooner or later you will know frets 0–12 (and accordingly also 12–24) by heart.
All Notes
So that you get to know all the notes and not just the four we just had, you can do the same with the remaining chords of the C major scale.
If you have created your own backing track and played through the above exercises with all seven chords in exactly the same way, you will know these seven notes (C, D, E, F, G, A, B) inside and out and even their intervals (root, third, fifth and seventh).
After that, the same should be done with all other keys.
Since you already know all the notes without accidentals (# or b) and interval shapes, this will no longer be too difficult. Nevertheless, it takes a little while because it is not (yet) in our muscle memory.
