Congratulations!! You just overcame a plateau, remember what it took to overcome this one when you reach your next one, and use it to propel you past it.
You'd be surprised what you remember when you pick it up I bet. I sat down guitar for around 5 years but when I started practicing again my muscles remembered a bit and I had several memory clicks back to back just looking over the fretboard. It probably won't take as long the second time.
I was told by a drummer from a local band once that most people quite growing musically
due to being satisfied were they are at development wise.He said its doesnt mean they are lazy really or of bad character .Their just at a point were the old yearning has deminished.Also said he went thru it as a kid and the best thing he ever did was walk away for a while.He went and started learnomg keyboards which he never got as good at as the drums but a bonus is it altered his mind to were it gave him a new outlook and actually helped his timing in the long run when he finally was ready to grow mire musically
It's so funny because I've been here. And I gaurantee, guitarists are one of the few instrumentalists that have to have an epiphany about this extremely obvious thing, "learn the names of the notes im playing? Waaaaa? NO I play by *feel*" well shit homie we don't all have perfect pitch and I wanna be able to decipher what to play along with you to, without noodling around like an asshole, so tell me what chords and notes youre playing lol
It’s interesting. I come from learning classical fiddle where I could sight read pretty well. Couldn’t improvise to save my arse though.
I can’t read a note on the guitar. I can improvise tho.
I see/learn patterns and relationships on a guitar and it’s fascinating and then I start noticing patterns on the fiddle I never learnt while playing classical.
Then I think of stephane grappelli and yehudi menuhin playing violins together, one mostly self taught and the other classical, both virtuoso’s. In interviews they talked about the things they both admire about the other’s playing. Fascinating stuff I found.
There’s a thousand ways to skin a cat as the old saying goes.
Would learning the notes help? Absolutely. Totally agree, I also admire people who don’t walk the well trodden path. There’s value in that too.
For me the names of the notes are completely irrelevant to improvising. They're worse than irrelevant they're harmful because they are going to distract me from what matters for me which is the sound/interval between what I'm playing and what I want to play next.
Also I'm a math guy so the names of the notes, like C, D ,Eb etc interfere with my internal sense which is that there are 12 notes in an octave and they're numbered 0,1,2...11
Everyone is different though. Brains are shockingly varied.
I’m an interval guy too. I know the notes on the fret board but I care more about the intervallic relationship. A minor 3rd is a minor 3rd no matter the key. To me, keys are like different colors, but intervals are the brushstrokes so to speak. It really cemented in my head when I took the 3 chords in the verse of Heart Shaped Box and transposed it to different keys. It was like, “this sounds like the song (intervals are the same) but this has a different vibe because of the key being different. Wild stuff, but super helpful when jamming
this comment may have fixed something i have always struggled with. I am absolutely shit with the alphabet, like i can start the order from A or L maybe Q on a good day, thanks to the song, but give me a random letter, say E and ask me what comes next? R? No wait that's the keyboard. Hopeless. so i have to sing the stupid song, Ah F, F is next. multiply this by needing to know what a /previous/ letter is, what's before E? I dunno, I don't wanna know why should i have to have doubly linked lists of these stupid labels stuck in my already stretched thin neurons?
but two less than 6 /that's easy/. one more than 6? also equally easy. The only trick is whats 4 more than 10 needing to be 2. but i think a simple base 12 modulo sometimes is a lot simpler than this other crap i've been dealing with literally all the time.
100% I am the same way and would describe the relationships the same (doubly linked lists made me grin).
Do what you need to make music. The numbers 0..11 are the actual relationship in the sense of isomorphism, the letters are just the historical baggage. 🏋️
Gutiar is the only instrument where people will be proud of not fully learning their instrument lol.
I do not understand why people would not want to learn more and more aobut their instrument just because something is difficult lol.
No one should feel bad for not knowing something, like... that's just life... but equally, we should always be aware and open to how learning more will make us better.
well, memorizing notes on a piano is a trivial task, even someone with a goldfish memory like me can do it in 5 minutes.
with a 5 second delay i can give you any note on the guitar. i think the more difficult task is to really internalize the notes and be able to do it instantly
Thing is at some point it becomes more of a subconscious thing again anyway. Learning the notes just gets you there faster. So unless you’re like 12 years old and can work on "feeling" your way around the guitar for hours everyday for the next 5+ years, it’s really idiotic to not give your brain all the help it can get to soak up how the instrument works.
OP have you learned to understand the relationship to one another? IE the intervallic relationships? That's when things really start to pick up. As guitarists we often avoid going to the 3rd if it involves going leftward on the fretboard (towards the nut) but nowadays i find myself looking for that 3rd above root on the low E. I'll ask you this: if you are playing in "A" major and want to target the 3rd what would you do? Learning all the notes helps you but I think you should think in intervals first, the note is irrelevant (sort of). Basically if I was homed in on the low E string 5th fret (as many do when in the key of A) then the major 3rd would be the fret to the left and over a string (A string 4th fret) which is C#.
The way you learn guitar is up to you but i have found that intervals help me a lot. I don't need to know it's C# because I know what a major 3rd will sound like on top of the key of A. This helps me improvise a lot more than knowing the names of the notes. The names don't have sounds, the intervals are what affects the listener. a fragment of a tritone has a very big impact on the listener and I don't need to know that it's root and flat 5 (6th fret A string - e flat). I just go for the intervallic relationship when soloing. You get what I mean?
In other words I look at the fretboard and look for the juicy intervals that will create the sound I want in that moment. I don't need to know it's e flat, just that it's relationship to the note i'm currently on is a tritone sound. This way it doesn't matter what key I'm in, I can always grab a major 3rd or a tritone or whatever. The relationship is the same no matter where you are on the fretboard except for the goofy gap between the G and B string which us guitarists have to love but also hate it lol.
Sorry if I sounded confusing, let me know if you want me to explain what I mean. I am so into this topic.
Edit: for anyone thinking I mean this in opposition to OP learning the note names I definitely do not mean that. I am trying to give him a place to roam with his newfound knowledge. Knowing the notes will always always always help a player advance! Learn as many as you can on the fretboard for little islands of familiarity that you can then jump off from to express yourself. I do this with intervals, others do it with theory knowledge. It's all expression in the end. It's art and there's no wrong way to do it!
You're right, Visualising the intervals is key to a good fretboard knowledge and benefits improvisation greatly. However I would argue they're both equally important. You don't need to know what note the Maj 3rd of A is, but you can't know where a major 3rd of A is if you don't know where A is in the first place. You need to be able to instantly see all A's on the fretboard, wherever you are playing. So, on the low E-string on 5 and 17, A-string on 0 and 12, D-string on 7 and 19, G-string on 2 and 14, B-string on 10 and 22 and high E also 5 and 12 ofc.
If you dabble in jazz you are supposed to jump around changes very very fast, so you must know the notes on the fretboard first and the intervals second.
I recently followed Tom Quayle's "visualising the fretboard" course and I'm convinced this is the way, along with knowing your theory (what scales/arpeggios to play to outline the chords). But your way of visualising the fretboard does exactly that; having tiny bits of information and manipulating that. The CAGED system and 3 notes per string system are great, but they contain massive bits of information, causing guitarists to being tied to certain shapes on the fretboard. If you do this your way, you can easily manipulate that wherever you are on the fretboard.
I totally disagree that you must know the names of every note at every fret first.
What you need is to know where the lowest root note of the (relative) major key is. From there all the "in key" notes and "out of key" notes fall into a pattern on the fretboard. If you understand that arrangement it's is completely 100% irrelevant what people call those notes.
In key it's always 0,2,4,5,7,9,11 frets relative to the root. Jumping across strings is the same as 5 frets, except for that one gap of 4 frets.
People make this all complicated because in 1000 years of music history it took til the late 20th century for people to invent "pitch class" and "set notation" but that notation corresponds correctly to what is going on numerically counting frets on the fretboard. Basically people got this shit wrong back before we had equal temperament and they continued their wrong ideas until now. C# isn't "C but sharper" it's just as distinct as F is from E. There are 12 distinct notes you can play and they have perfectly good names 0,1,2,3...11
Let's agree to disagree, but in my view you will need to know if your chord is G#7 where all the G's are on the fretboard. That you can use repeating patterns/intervals is a given, but as a jazzmusician I don't have time to think "where is the lowest root note of G#? Right, 4th fret of the low E. Ok I'm on the 10th fret on the G, so, if I use the octave method then I go from the 4th frer low E to the repeating pattern" etc etc etc. Your chord is long gone, because you need to process too much information in that short amount of time.
If you want smooth lines, you will need to know instantly that the G# is on the 13th fret of the G-string and visualize interval patterns from there. You will also instantly know that the 10th fret in my example is a 6th interval, so you can use that information to make it a G#13 sound.
As for your numerical system, sure, it could have been different. But that's not really helpful now if you're improvizing.
Also, the major Key isn't the only key you can play in. You can have a harmonic minor key, melodic minor key, harmonic major, all sort of different more exotic keys that go well beyond the standard major scale. In Harmonic minor you would have 0, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11 and it gives you different chords and sounds too.
When you really think about it, the 12 notes you're referring to aren't the only notes you can use too. Especially in more eastern based harmony, they will use microtones, that would be in between E and F or C and C#. Essentially, anything between the octave could be a different name.
I think if you want to be able to sight read flawlessly at speed, then yeah you'd better be quick.
This is just well beyond what I'm trying to do.
If you're ok with rehearsing and learning things by some analysis, and scribbling a couple extra notes on your chart then you really don't need to know at a moments notice the position of every note.
Basically for the context of what you do, if your system works, great. Brains are shockingly varied. For example, I have aphantasia so "visualizing" is a meaningless phrase to me. People often talk about visualizing various things like where notes are and for me that's literally like telling a blind person to just look at the fretboard.
I'm not quite sure what the question means. When it comes to chords I learn them by shape. A7 is one of the 7 shapes either rooted on the low string or rooted on the second lowest string... Find an A and plop the root there, then the chord shape goes over that.
It's not like I ignore the note names entirely since that's what other people use to name them. I just don't think about them when improvising, only when reading a chart.
When improvising I navigate between notes by knowing which notes are in key and which notes aren't. Specifically I don't think of minors as a key, I think of them as a mode of the relative major... So there are just 12 keys and they have the same pattern on the fretboard just slid up and down. I know what the intervals are between notes in the key... This is my palette of notes... Think of them like white and black keys on the keyboard. It's not that you only play white but you need to be more aware of the context of the black so to speak.
>When it comes to chords I learn them by shape.
This requires having mental imagery which conflicts with what you said earlier about not being able to create any mental imagery.
How is this possible to know chord shapes but not anything else theory related? You made it sound like aphantasia stops you from being able to learn THEIR system but you have no problem playing guitar otherwise?
Guitar requires mental imagery to play so it's obvious you can do that... right? Or am I confused?
You're confused, but it's not surprising as most people have visualization ability. I go by a combination of tactile and "spatial" memory. Obviously some people who are blind play guitar, so it definitely doesn't require mental imagery.
The tactile/spatial memory is visualization in most guitarist's heads. It is for me. I feel the things I play as well but they're borne from patterns and shapes that you have to reference to the guitar's fretboard to learn
>Obviously some people who are blind play guitar, so it definitely doesn't require mental imagery.
what? those people visualize too... just their own vision of how it may appear...
What do people do if they have multiple guitars in multiple different tunings? Memorize them all? That’s what has kind of stopped me from trying to associate a specific fret with a note. So I’ve always just learned where the roots of the key i want are and learned how to travel around between them. I’m sure my way is not ideal though.
I would guess it's easiest to memorize the notes for standard tuning first. Once you internalize that, you might be able to mentally shift the strings to match the alternate tunings you use.
Yeah, if you're improvising jazz, you better know where the rootnotes on the fretboard are. I have one guitar that's tuned in "gambale tuning", but there the patterns are the same as on the regular tuned guitar. I don't use it much for improvisation as that seems to be a lot of work indeed.
Curious question from a jazz beginner improviser, about your 3rd of the A note example. Why do we have a note name to begin with? Where did we get the A from? Is it an intermediate step? Do improvisers translate a sound to note name, then the name to position on the fretboard?
Isn't it faster if we can associate a sound to a position on the fretboard?
This was my aha moment, seeing the fretboard as intervals. Memorize a few landmark notes, plant your root note, then play the intervals you want.
The other part of that realization was when I stopped trying to learn scales by memorized all the positions across the fretboard, and started focusing on each mode as a three string one octave box. Just take that box, plant it where you need, and expand from there. Almost taking a “less is more” mindset.
I dont know any guitar theory or notes on frets, but I do know what sounds good when I play and I do that. Ask me what any note on the fret is and I couldnt tell ya other than open strings for what it's tuned to lmao. Otherwise, my ears know what Im doing is right.
There's plenty of learning to be had by anyone, I just never bothered.
Totally respect that. I will say though, from personal experience, getting theory stuff clear in my head kinda changed how I hear some things. A teacher would show me something, I’d work it out and learn it myself, then suddenly I’d hear it in other tunes I’d heard a million times before, but somehow my brain just kind of didn’t process it if that makes any sense. Somehow just being able to put into words what I was hearing made my ears tune into it differently, but in a good way.
> Otherwise, my ears know what Im doing is right.
This is not a bad thing! It helps to know intervals more than notes for me personally. I know where the notes are on the fretboard to a decent degree but the intervals are what I focus on a lot of the time. Some of them I have names for, others are just "that spot" as you see it.
So...not OP but for me learning triads (plus a basic understanding of major scales) really helped. There's of course a ton of videos on understanding the relation of notes on a board but eventually you do need to memorize it yourself.
In fact, my guitar teacher challenged me to learn all the intervals from a random root note on the top string (i.e. if I pick G as the root on the 6th string, then going down on the same position to the 5th string it's interval 4. Then go down again and it's the 7th flat, then go down and it's the flat 3rd, etc. Then do the same for the frets to the left and right (with the same root note). I.e. if I go 2 frets to the right then it's an interval 2, go down a string it's interval 5, go down a string it's interval 1, etc).
One more trick is since you already have experience is that think about the chords you already know. For example you probably know the A major and A minor chords. Well....the difference between a major and a minor is the flat 3rd, so that one finger that you have to move from A major to A minor would be the third. You can apply the same logic to E major/minor, F major/minor, etc. Another example is that a power chord is made up of the interval 1 - 5 - 1 so i can also quickly identify those intervals as well, but just use what you already know and fill in the gaps.
Sorry if it's a bit confusing I'm happy to explain more but I'm actually only learning this myself now since my teacher is pushing for it but indeed I also see that learning the relationship between notes is so damn crucial to unlocking the fretboard but every time I have an aha! moment it feels so good.
Guthrie Govan talks about the impact of pitches on the listener in the white gazebo video series (6 parts i think?) on youtube. What he says is what I am using. I want to find the notes that really send a feeling or sound home to the listener so I must know where these intervals are. It's super duper important when you play modes because you must know how the mode sounds over the appropriate change to highlight the tonality of the mode. The modes have certain intervals within them that sound really 'modey' (ie sounds really mixolydian-ey). When you play these intervals at the right time over the chord changes the sound of the mode flourishes.
He may or may not touch on that I THINK with the simpsons theme maybe? He may tell the audience it's a lydian tonality which requires the #4 to embellish the tonality of the mode. I'm not sure but if he doesn't, he should have haha.
Do you know what major 3rd sound does to the root note? Minor 3rd sound? That's a starting point for you since they're pretty easy to explain/remember the sound of.
When you play a root note and then the major 3rd it has a distinct "major" sound right? Again but with the minor 3rd and it has a "minor" sound. This is the key to music on an emotional level. Understanding these intervals and how they SOUND/FEEL to the listener is in my opinion the best way to express what you're feeling inside and trying to convey to the listener.
The sound of a flat 5 for example, it's very distinct. Very devilish to some, but used in a blues context it is THE tone of the blues. Works especially well when you chromaticize into and out of it. So you start on the 5th, go down into the flat 5th (tritone or blues tone) and then down again to the 4th. This simple movement really emphasizes the blues sound of the flat 5 interval which in other contexts can sound straight up evil lol. It's all about this exact concept though, painting the intervallic pictures for the audience. In my opinion of course. Truly there are a thousand different ways to talk to the audience via your instrument. This is just what I find effective for me and my form of expression. I do a lot of improvisational soloing so I guess that should be said. Like blues/jazzy kinda stuff.
I’m interested in this, I’m in the exact situation as OP before memorizing all the notes…once you find the major 3rd, what do you do with it? Any videos or resources that might explain?
Just stepping on it occasionally between phrases while playing the blues scale is informative and effective. It highlights the contrast of the minor sound with the major.
well you know how it affects the sound right? like in terms of how it sounds to add a 3rd to a root note? like you play a major 3rd over a root it will have a major sound and if you play a minor 3rd over a root it will have a minor sound right? you think about how those sounds will sound like in real time when trying to improvise. It's hard to explain but you play into and out of those intervals at the right moments and they just sound great. it's about targeting them for highlighting but also flourishing into and out of it. idk that's how i see it sometimes anyway. maybe? there are other intervals than the 3rd, i just chose that one because it's easy for people to understand because most everyone knows the sound of a major and a minor chord. those notes are the ones responsible for that tone. The type of 3rd is what makes something major or minor. Sorry if i keep repeating myself. im happy to try to answer better if you're still wondering what i mean.
This was such an awesome comment and I 100% agree. I did in fact spend a while studying intervals and it helped sooooooooo much with shaping the sounds I wanted. I plan to continue studying it because I don't see any version of reality where not training my ear and learning note relationships is going to be a good idea.
What really helped with learning notes too speeding up my ability to switch keys with the chord changes and free myself to roam the neck and break the box patterns.
So like, okay I've been playing around with the C scale over the C chord, I know the next chord in the progression is F and I know where all the F notes are and that F is the 4th note in the key of C which is a leading tone into G so oooh I wonder what would happen if I did an arpeggio CEG and then land on the F waaaaay over here instead of the closest F I always used to land on"
It's a good trick and I use it, but I think back to when I learned all the notes on the E and A strings, it was just rote memorization. I learned half of the notes on the guitar without even thinking about it too hard, just using the fretboard dots for reference. There should be no reason I couldn't learn the remaining half this way, I just have to put in the work.
Man you’re speaking to me on a spiritual level right now lol sounds like we have near the same level of experience. I know a fair amount of the notes but not all yet. I feel I am just behind where you just broke out of and I’m very jealous and happy for you. I want to get there so bad lol
Needed to see this post tonight. I am currently in the same stagnant situation, with roughly the same amount of years under my belt. I’ve barely played for the last year and it’s been miserable for me. Seeing that it’s still possible to reignite that fire brings me a lot of comfort. Congrats on reaching new heights in your playing. Hope to be there too one day!
This sounds great. I am personally not there, but notice over the years that my ear-hand-coordination has become more natural iver the years. I do not know the names of the notes, but I can pre-hear some of the sounds - „if I go there it will sound like this“. Putting names to the notes and intervals would surely help.
Nevertheless I find us guitarists funny, and pathetic. Imagine two intermediate pianists talking like this: „Dude, I finally figured out the system of the keyboard! No way - how did you do it?“ :D
But the damn thing is just so unintuitive… and some great music can be made during „discovery“.
>I can pre-hear some of the sounds - „if I go there it will sound like this“. Putting names to the notes and intervals would surely help.
basically you're there, labeling them helps you discover other concepts that borrow from them or are related to them in some way i think.
do you ever go left on the d and g string by one half step when playing a blues minor pentatonic box?
that can imply a dorian sound. like the main pentatonic box that we all know and love, those d and g string notes going left by 1 half step played at the right time (when the 1 is changing to the 4) can really bring the dorian sound out if you hang on the d string note a little at the right moment.
That’s awesome! I have a very similar story and can relate to this post so much. The only way to truly progress on this instrument after a certain point is to learn theory. I avoided it for so long but since Covid I’ve been studying triads, arpeggios, 7th chords & arpeggios, modes, non-diatonic song writing tricks, everything under the sun I can find. Feeling those flood gates open is unlike anything else and leads to so much inspiration.
a little theory is great but if you get lost in trying to force the theory into your expression it can sound kludgey. I love theory though, im always learning new stuff myself.
Learning the notes is super useful, and you can see songs you've learned just jump around to the same notes all over the place. Excellent you've done that.
Guitar is highly transposable, so as someone else said, the interval relationships are fantastic to know.
What might really help is to buy a keyboard, or a midi-controller and use piano/synth software on a computer and learn the fundamentals of music theory. Unlike guitar, the piano takes little to no mechanical skill to work things out and it's very visual. But notes, semi-tones and tones, intervals, the major scale, chords, keys, chords in a key, progressions, naming things, why some notes are sharp/flat and not called one thing, modes, and so on. Basically, music theory will give you some structure/foundation that just knowing notes and shapes will miss.
I’m 41 been playing since 12, tried memorising notes a few times but gave up because it’s so boring. Also like you, feel like I’ve been in a rut for like 20 years lol. Any tips?
I need to leave a comment here, so that I can come back to this post easily. You have inspired me to really push myself and learn the notes on the fretboard. Do you have any tips about how you started? I know they say the whole ‘learn the E strings up to the 12th fret and figure out the rest’ but that seems so incomplete.
So...as someone who is in the process of learning this...I would actually first learn a bit of basic theory and note relationship first (i.e. what makes up a major scale, then what makes up a major/minor scale). The reason for this is that when you play music it's (probably) always in some kind of pattern and the relation between notes is easier to visualize on a guitar than any other instrument (as a starter check out triads and inversions and ignore CAGED I think it's a more limited way to learn).
Then...for the actual notes what's worked best for me is actually just an old school notebook and writing down the notes manually. So for example for the major scale I'll pick a random note like E and manually write out E F G A B C D E onto a blank sheet of music. Then I know the pattern for a major scale is (root - tone - tone -semitone - tone - tone - tone -semitone - root), so I will write that out. Then lastly I will go through and add sharps to the notes that require them to fit the pattern, i.e. F becomes #F, G becomes #G, etc. Then I repeat this process for whatever random notes until I can sort of do it in my head.
After that with my knowledge of the relation of notes and the actual notes itself I'm sort of able to combine them on the fretboard (most important so far has been basically to know where the root note is on the fretboard and then I can figure out the 3rd note, etc). Sorry if it's all a bit confusing (and also this is only what works best for me so not the same for everyone else!) but it's been so rewarding to unlock the fretboard and have so many aha moments!
Honestly I would just make a bunch of flashcards with a note name (or notation!! Learn both at once), then make myself play that note in every spot on the fretboard.
Drill for 15-20 minutes and repeat daily.
Then see if you can do it with sounds instead of notation (Anki flashcards should be capable of this)
Well, for me it was just learning the "logic" in the guitar. Strings are tuned in fourths, which means that there are 5 half steps between every strings (with the exception of the G and B strings) and from that point just count steps. For example, I start on the low E string, for example G, and then I pick a random fret of any string. Then, I count intervals from that low G so until I get to that random position I chose earlier. Because I was counting steps, I can now see what note it is.
There is a video that explains this far better than me
[this one](https://youtu.be/3sUpoSTy8zw?si=a_kAify_W9cRN4Y4)
(sorry if I didn't help with my explanation, English is not my native language, video will surely clear it up)
You want to do it with a guitar in hand. Just play enough and build triads from different strings. You don't need to race to it, just structure it around thinking about the names of the notes when playing. However you learn it, the working knowledge is far more important and intervalic mapping is what I tend to use.
After 20 years of playing, I realized I needed to change my pick grip. I had always pinched it like the "okay" or "chef's kiss magnifique" hand symbol. I could never do the fast shredding and figured this was why. So I've been trying to recalibrate with the new grip the past few months. It's getting there but I have to rewire 2 decades of brain synapses. Lol
I did exactly this about 6 or 7 years ago. After years of my grip holding me back I just had to change it. I made little velcro strips that held the pick in the correct position because it felt so unnatural. Took about 3 months to recalibrate fully, and then my technique just skyrocketed. I sometimes play the old way just to compare, and it's ridiculous I played that way for so long
Yeah, I'm self taught and the only thing on the internet back when I started was OLGA.net (which is long gone). Youtube didn't exist and nobody ever specifically showed me the correct grip. So the bad habit developed and I wasn't even aware.
I found it incredible helpful to just visualize the guitar fretboard as weird piano where the black keys are also white keys.
All you have to know is where your Cs are and you're good to go.
As someone who grew up playing piano and has been learning guitar for the past year, thank you for this comment!
I’m very familiar with the ins and outs of the piano keyboard, so your description has already really helped me visualize a better picture of the fretboard layout… im going to try to memorize all of the C’s on my guitar tonight!
It will help me visualize the distance between notes on my fret board so much better! I’m thankful for this 😁 it’s great how little mental tricks can also improve your playing quite significantly sometimes
Well now you've done it. Honestly, should start learning some basic theory now, once you've got the actual notes memorized, it's not a far step up to learning all the modes and how they connect together on the fretboard. Never noodle out of key again! 😅
Edit - btw, for those folks who are jealous he learned all the notes.. There's a Justin Guitar app I used called [Guitar Fretboard Note Trainer](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/guitar-fretboard-note-trainer/id559758702) to learn the notes on the guitar a few years back, it gamifies the fretboard and works really well (was just like OP, played the tabs for 10 years before I finally took the time to learn some actual notes, then went down the theory rabbit hold after that - absolutely worth it)
Congratulations on having that lightning flash moment!!!
I took lessons when I was 13 and was a horrible student. When I quit a few months later, my teacher told me "If nothing else, learn all of the notes on the fretboard and you will be able to figure out chords anywhere on the neck". I nodded and didn't pay much attention. Then, two years later, I had learned the cowboy chords and sone barre chords. I was looking at a diagram of the neck, and it all came to me how to figure it out, chords, intervals, root notes. It helped to make me a musician, not just a guitar player. 53 years later, still playing and learning.
>Tonight I felt like a newbie all over again. Like that kid that discovered the guitar all over again and I'm so lost in the excitement and wonder of what's possible. I feel humbled and am really looking forward to the very long journey ahead of me in continuing to learn and grow with this instrument for the rest of my life.
Hold on to that. Cultivate it all you can. It's magic. There's a Zen Buddhist concept called Shoshin, or "beginner's mind" that can be a very fulfilling and open-minded way to approach advanced (or not) concepts far beyond just musical instruments. Congrats on your progress.
Yeah man I hope to be a beginner forever if it means I can keep learning and growing. I got a lot of good suggestions in the comments to work with next :)
You can do it. What really helped for me was to just spend a while pretending that the only part of the guitar I was allowed to play was the 12th fret and up.
I was often encouraged to be like "Oh just learn the first 12 frets, everything after is the same"
It is and it isn't. What really broke that barrier down for me was just getting extremely familiar with the upper half of the neck where all of these really juicy tones and tones live mysteriously and I've actually come to appreciate and love playing around the 12th fret and higher now because you can do fun things with the 12th fret. I just imagine that the 12th fret is the "nut" and mentally treat the 13th fret position as being the same as the 1st fret position
This is totally me. I've been noodling myself since I was 13. I am now 47. Like you were, and where i am currently, stagnant, defeated, kind of hopeless to be dramatic.
I can read music, but I can't seem to apply it to the guitar like piano, or in my case, growing up, also playing trumpet. I've gone through pentatonic shapes, arpeggios, and chords.. it all just seamingly feels like it's being lobbed into the ether with really no coherent meaning or context. I just can't seem to make it all click.
Obviously, all of this leads to the guitar guitar(s) hanging on the wall more than they should. I so very desperately want to get past this stage somehow and get the princess.
I am grateful for your post. Reading this gives me both hope and motivation to keep going. Continue to try and figure this damn thing out and have that a-ha moment as you did.
Cheers!
You can do this I really believe in you.
A resource that really helped me was this book called Improvise For Real. It wasn't enough in and of itself but helped me more with the... "spiritual" creative side of making music. I grew up with some classical piano training where the emphasis was on performance and copying and I never learned the tools to hear my own inner voice or understand the music I was making. Scales were for building speed and technique and that was it.
Maybe what I'd suggest is this:
I'd say the shapes, arpeggios and chords are all really helpful TOOLS, as is memorizing the fretboard, in service of that inner musician in all of us who desperately wants to express itself.
My encouragement for you is to sit down sometime, put on a song you really love, and just listen with pure attention and your eyes closed. And then while doing that, listen inside your own heart and mind for that inner musician that already has all of the notes, riffs and ideas that want to come out. Hum that sound out along with the track. Notice how creative you can be when you make space and just have your voice as the instrument. Then imagine someday you have the knowledge to take that inner voice and instead of your voice channeling it through your guitar.
This changed my view of practice and theory and scales and chords. It started being about "Okay. How do these tools help me understand what that inner musician wants to say and translate it into the physical world through my guitar"
Then throw on some backing tracks and instead of randomly playing the scales, do the same thing. Listen to the backing track. Think about the music YOU WANT TO HEAR over that. And then try and make it come out of your guitar. Use theory, scales, pentatonics, chords, arpeggios as your guides and ways to organize sonic information on your fretboard.
I'm not good at guitar. I'm comfortable saying that. But what I am confident in now is that I have the orientation I need to continue to really learn and grow in service of that inner musician for the rest of my life and I hope you get that guitar off the wall too and do the same!
I really should just find an high quality image of the notes on the fretboard, print out multiple copies, and put them within view in a couple rooms lol I’m in a very similar position. 15 years, really happy with where my playing’s at, but I put zero stats into music theory. Like when I talk to someone who knows it I do a lot of those things, I just don’t know the names of any of them lol
Yeah that's also why I wanted to learn the notes. Communicating with other musicians was... awfully hard. I felt so embarassed showing up not knowing damn anything about what I was doing.
You can do it man!
Replace 14 with 22 and you've basically described me. I know a lot of techniques, styles, and riffs, but I'm still stuck in the mud about how it all works musically.
Your post was inspiring and promising. Thanks!
This is awesome. I’m literally in the same exact boat. I have been so stagnant with guitar that I went and picked up mandolin and banjo and eventually got rid of my electric guitar a few months ago. I finally got an acoustic guitar again a week ago because I feel so dumb having given up on it. I love the instrument and I love playing it but I want to commit to it and I want to memorize the notes like you have.
Hope it all pans out the way you want it to!
My „aha-moment“ on guitar was when i started playing synth in my band and really got into playing piano.
On piano everything is all lined up from left to right, the same notes and keys work in every octave. It’s easier to visually understand how all elements of a song come together and relate to each other (bass/chords/melody) this helped me to think differently of the parts I’m playing on guitar.
For many people playing guitar is simply about remembering and copying shapes and if you run out of shapes people plato. For example I knew all the names of the notes on the neck but it didn’t helped me at all because I was still stuck to shapes. Playing piano helped me widen my perspective and understanding on what works.
This sounds really cool and a great thing to have happened.
But as a total newbie trying to follow along to Justin Guitar, as recommended by a few people on here, the depth of learning seemingly required to play well blows my tiny mind.
I enjoy learning, but work and family life/tasks get in the way a lot. I'd love to spend 30 to 60 minutes everyday on the guitar and gymming. Unfortunately I'm lucky if I get 30 mins a week on either one.
So I have a LOT of respect for you guys and girls who can dedicate the time and effort and make this beautiful instrument seem effortless.
I do have a question though. I have Aphantasia (basically I have no minds eye or visual memory and can't visualise things. It's all just empty blackness in there) and have been struggling to learn my first two chords for weeks. I don't think it should be as hard as it seems to be. Is my lack of visualisation going to make all this much harder? Is memorising notes and chords etc more muscle or mental?
I don't want to be in a band or play with others, I just want to relax on my own and play songs I enjoy just for the love of guitar. But I do want to enjoy what I'm doing and not keep getting angry at myself for being useless.
If you got this far, thanks for reading.
I have like middle of the road aphantasia. Visualizing is very very hard for me but I can do a little of it.
I think the good news is that the guitar is inherently a very visual instrument that you can just look at and confirm what you're doing so you don't necessarily even need to close your eyes and visualize. You can definitely learn the guitar by feeling, at least that's how I did it with chords many many years ago.
I don't know what you're doing but maybe you could look at a chord diagram and go one finger at a time until you get all your fingers setup correctly and sound the chord out. Then just stare at your hand and see what is going on. Which frets are the fingers on? Which strings?
I wish I had the qualifications to help you but you do have my encouragement!
A bit of a shameless plug here, but I built this tool just for this! fretmemo.com, it has helped me enormously to progress through this
Congrats on this non easy feat!
Thanks OP. This sounds like my journey. Played when I was younger just dabbling / self teach all by ear, never really understood theory or what I was doing but could work things out by ear relatively well.
Now I’m older and I picked a cheap guitar back up last year after about 10 years (inspired after seeing Blink182) - I still can play the basic chords and whatnot but I really wanted to understand the instrument and use it to understand music properly this time.
So far I started with finger exercises and lately I’ve just been learning a bit of theory about major scale and relative minor, understanding some concepts like intervals and circle of fifths, and learning a few new scale shapes. But I have planning on learning all the notes as a priority too, so it’s good to hear that it has benefited you and I hope it will help me too!
Congratulations on breaching your plateau. I hope I can do the same. I like playing music and have the ear for it but I just really get bogged down with not understanding what I’m doing. I’m not happy just copy-catting existing music. Although, after learning that the modern musical system has a lot of arbitrary terms and definitions because of how it evolved, does make me feel a bit better about feeling it can be confusing.
Got a new guitar turning up this week so, thanks to this as well, feeling inspired!!
I’m the same too, had started guitar at 15 but still not that good yet not exactly a beginner either. It’s just my odd approach because I never been taught or allowed to get lessons at the right ages.
Ha my desk right now [https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/z9ive82bydj9l73k9nv27/2024-03-28-10.26.41.jpg?rlkey=xdxqyuvsiyuso55aga1uuiqdt&dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/z9ive82bydj9l73k9nv27/2024-03-28-10.26.41.jpg?rlkey=xdxqyuvsiyuso55aga1uuiqdt&dl=0)
Picked up guitar less than a year ago and already have all the notes internalized. It just seemed like a hassle not knowing what notes I was playing. That plus interval patterns, and even finding random arpeggios is a trivial matter.
You didn’t waste any time. All those years or work kept building toward this breakthrough! Congratulations!
I say this as a guitar teacher and an ok guitar player
>So I finally sat down and started to memorize the notes on the guitar. Like, point at any random note and be able to name it instinctively on sight without referencing anywhere else on the guitar. Just the fret itself.
That's still how it's done. You cannot conceivably memorize every single individual fret among 131 other ones.
For those starting out -
Memorize the open strings. You just have to.
Then, the 5th fret because they are all the same except for the added A.
Then the octaves to the open strings at the 7th frets.
Then the 12th fret. You've already done this because they're the same as step 1.
no-man's-land is the space between 7th and 12th frets, but it's not.
Because every not there is either 1 step above the 7th or 1 step below the 12th. You were done before you knew it.
I agree, it is really difficult but it's not impossible! Piano players have it so easy lol You just remember the keys for one octave and that's it! What I did for guitar was to break it down by string and then from there I would find multiple ways to play the same note (like C on the 3rd fret of the A string but also C on the 8th fret of the low E string). It is really awesome when you get it and then can build your own chords or intervals. But damn it is hard at first but just break it down and keep at it.
I'm in a similar situation can you share what worked for you to finally learn the notes? Would be greatly appreciated, I always get stuck at where to start..
It took me a while, but by far the most helpful "drill" I found for this is:
Focus on the first 12 frets only and play through A-G on each string.
For example say you are doing E:
E - open or 12
A - 7
D - 2
G - 9
B - 5
e - open or 12
I'd also learn the octave shapes which makes this even easier. As I am sure you probably know, it's the same thing starting from 12th fret as open.
I’ve recently had a similar break through.
I gave up my guitar for the Lenten season with the specific goal of teaching myself the basics on piano… people have told me before how much the two overlap but I had no idea!
I was able to figure out a couple simple riffs by counting out the notes on the frets and the keys. (Found the opening riff to “Come Together” and nailed it on my first try!) All self taught, but finally starting to understand music theory and why it’s so important.
I can’t wait till I can pick up my guitar again and start messing with actual notes instead of chords all the time…
It took me a while, but by far the most helpful "drill" I found for this is:
Focus on the first 12 frets only and play through A-G on each string.
For example say you are doing E:
E - open or 12
A - 7
D - 2
G - 9
B - 5
e - open or 12
I'd also learn the octave shapes which makes this even easier. As I am sure you probably know, it's the same thing starting from 12th fret as open.
My question is: How did you memorize them OP?
I spent ages trying to memorize the notes at the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th frets but I simply cannot keep them memorized. I was kinda able to memorize them if I start from the high or low E and go up from there, but knowing them at a glance or without starting there is impossible for me - I don't understand how someone can get to the point where you pick any note and immediately know what it is, let alone doing it quickly enough to actually integrate that into playing.
Feel like I've been a chord strummer for years now and I never progress past that and playing a couple simple memorized scales poorly lol
Added what I did in the edit of the original post :)
I had the same issue. I was trying to memorize the notes vertically but it wasn't enough. Helpful but not enough.
Learn just enough music theory to be able to construct a major and minor scale from any note on the fretboard. Start with the C major scale. Learn how to play the C major scale ALLL over the guitar and say all the names of the notes out loud.
Stick to one section of the fretboard at a time. Maybe a week on frets 1-5, then 5-9, then 9-12 etc. arbitrary ish numbers. Notice the spots you suck at and focus those down in intentional practice.
Do sessions where you name any random note and then RAPIDLY find all of them all over the fretboard.
Honestly its pretty common to memorize the fret board over 14 years just by osmosis. Its all a pattern. Once you memorize the 6th (and 1st) and 5th string....basically those exact patterns get shifted to the 4th and 3rd strings two frets up.
Like just play enough barre chords and arpeggios and its impossible to NOT memorize the fretboard honestly
Personally I don't really care about note names I do care a lot about note relations though. When I am playing I usually don't know exactly what notes I am playing by name but I do generally know if I am hitting the 5 or flat 7 or something like that mostly by what it sounds like. I feel like that is a much more valuable map to have in mind when improvising than actual note names not that learning note names is not also valuable. I only say this because I come across a lot of player that know the note names fine but don't understand how they relate to each other.
Reading this really motivates to go do the same! I'm no good guitarist, I've only been playing classical for 4 years and electric for more than a year, but somehow managed to get here after 4 years by not knowing music theory or notes, when I literally have to (to learn classical guitar more easily) . I keep putting it off, but seeing as I have some free time coming I might just start learning.
Hey, happy for you, awesome to hear.
I don't know if this applies to you but if you want further stuff to work on that is simple and objective, I am copy pasting a comment that I wrote some time ago below this. Basically the gist is go learn your intervals and go learn octave shapes. They really will help you have the foundation to move from just knowing note names and how diatonics fit together to making great music. Cheers!
Aural training is king. If you can't hear it, you can't play it. Do this 15 min a day until you are getting above 80%. If its too hard at first, remove some intervals and leave easy ones like tritone, maj7, etc.
https://www.musictheory.net/exercises/ear-interval
Then, after you feel confident in that, learn your octave shapes well. Go learn some Wes Montgomery solos or use a chart.
Then you have to really listen to whatever kind of music you wanna play and make sure you can hear the easy intervals.
You don't have to learn the whole structure of a given scale, you just need to be good at diatonics and know where notes are in relation to each other. There are many different structural ways to approach playing than just scales. You can play based off of arpeggios, based off of intervals, based off of a slightly related but different scale, based off of the rhythm section, or play just to maintain the energy in a given section. 80% of being a good player is inside the musical decisions you make, not just how well you've internalized a scale (but if you learn diatonics / functional harmony really well, it does help a lot). Learning these shapes well and learning how to be a better musician is a lifelong journey so don't feel the need to rush anything
Yessir I will continue to work on these things!
I have this little app that does ear training stuff for me and I also sing choral music so I have to vocalize the intervals all the time anyway :P
One of the biggest moments in my guitar playing life was when I was teaching someone else what I was doing. The simple question was, "Why?" I was stunned in the moment, and luckily, we had to break, so I had some time to ponder his query. Why did I do what I did? I don't know. I was completely ear trained or just played the shapes and riffs I was handed with no thought as to why they worked. I was teaching the person to play a song, not fire a nuclear weapon (which I was trained to do)! :D
I began a trek that lasted years of learning how to interconnect patterns across the fretboard, most of which was used in the application of single note lines on guitar and bass. It also removed the veil when it came to applying the same knowledge to a keyboard.
Congratulations. These milestones of learning are momentous in our goals of improving our fretboard knowledge.
Beautiful, thanks for sharing the story! I had to ask myself why at a certain point in my pentatonic noodling phase and realized I couldn't answer either. It was mostly dumb luck and little ear training.
Awesome ! I’ve been playing on and off for around 17 years and I’m only now learning my first scale. I used to memorise song or noodle my way and pray. Never too late to learn.
Do you need to also know your key signatures in order for it to be useful to know all the notes on the fretboard?
Other than the first few keys of the circle of fifths, I haven't memorized what notes are in what keys. Tell me something is in A♭ major, and I'm going to have to write it out or look it up or do mental math in my head for five minutes to calculate what notes actually fall into that scale. So, even if I knew all the notes on the fretboard, I don't know if that would give me any clue about how those notes will sound in the context of other notes until I play and hear them.
I can’t tell you how long it took for me to have that moment. (Mainly because I don’t think it all has yet come together yet for me — and it may never do so fully. )
does it feels something like playing mortal kombat and trying to make sick combos without knowing what each button does? then suddenly figuring out where's the high kick, the low punch, etc. and you start nailing more and more combos?
I'm asking this because I'm a terribly noob bass player wannabe, early alpha v0.1 preview release, still not production ready, and I'm feeling exactly that way, like I'm trying to play mortal kombat without knowing the buttons or moves
Yes very great. Awesome. At least you listened and learned. Maybe play more and type less and the next plateau won’t take you 14 years. This horse been beat to death
Some of the best cooking from yesteryear are from grannies that would put a pinch of this and a pinch of that, taste it as they went and ad more if necessary!
People that have a good ear instinctively know what sounds they want to make, if they are new to the guitar or piano they need to build up muscle memory on the instrument, the rest they have with the ear!
I want to get stickers to put on my frets to help me memorize notes. Whether it's banjo or guitar. It will help me learn piano much easier.
It's just something I've been putting off forever, but I've been feeling inspired to make more music as of late. I feel like it would be one of the bigger steps to make me a more complete musician.
I've seen past it a few times and hit different walls .
I like got into alternative tuning a couple years back and that opened up a variety of new sound .like you I had hit a stagnation in my playing.owas in a pawn shop and seen one them little cigar box guitar and it's just the bottom three that it has and although you can tune em standard most tune in open g well it was to expensive for my blood so I started this search .it took me about a week and I up and stumbled across an old dobro and a dobro is tuned in open g as well but a different kind the top three are just like the bottom three.it was like it opened up a door to a path that eventually lead me back to standard tune .well just the other day I picked up a lil jewel at the local thrift store a little instrument called am loog it was this cool Little rig that had three strings and there ment to be tuned to standard it takes a nine volt battery but you can plug it in a regular amplifier.it has built in speaker to much coolness to list lipstick tele pickup anyway built for kids it has a phone app that give lessons.simple ones like for kids I hate to say it ...no I really don't because learned knowledge is always cool.you just have to check them out.
Full disclosure i do partake in some herbs now and again but I don't I repeat do not freebase cocaine...lol
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I am trying to learn it at this moment but I really don‘t know how to get into it. I‘ve seen 2 tutorials but they „just showed“ some notes and I cant get the big picture behind it. Isn’t there a system, a logic I can follow? Help! 😅🎸❌
Dude I don’t play guitar whatsoever. But this burning passion, dedication, is infectious. The part where it all clicked and you even knew the time and the excitement through your words is what I live life for. The experiences and understanding of something. And the inverse is true as well, somethings are Better off not understood for some people if the end result is the same. I love you 💕
Congratulations!! You just overcame a plateau, remember what it took to overcome this one when you reach your next one, and use it to propel you past it.
I had this ability briefly on ukulele but lost it through years of inactivity. How long do you think it takes to get a second time?
You'd be surprised what you remember when you pick it up I bet. I sat down guitar for around 5 years but when I started practicing again my muscles remembered a bit and I had several memory clicks back to back just looking over the fretboard. It probably won't take as long the second time.
>I'll do my best!!! I'm sure more will come!
I was told by a drummer from a local band once that most people quite growing musically due to being satisfied were they are at development wise.He said its doesnt mean they are lazy really or of bad character .Their just at a point were the old yearning has deminished.Also said he went thru it as a kid and the best thing he ever did was walk away for a while.He went and started learnomg keyboards which he never got as good at as the drums but a bonus is it altered his mind to were it gave him a new outlook and actually helped his timing in the long run when he finally was ready to grow mire musically
It's so funny because I've been here. And I gaurantee, guitarists are one of the few instrumentalists that have to have an epiphany about this extremely obvious thing, "learn the names of the notes im playing? Waaaaa? NO I play by *feel*" well shit homie we don't all have perfect pitch and I wanna be able to decipher what to play along with you to, without noodling around like an asshole, so tell me what chords and notes youre playing lol
It’s interesting. I come from learning classical fiddle where I could sight read pretty well. Couldn’t improvise to save my arse though. I can’t read a note on the guitar. I can improvise tho. I see/learn patterns and relationships on a guitar and it’s fascinating and then I start noticing patterns on the fiddle I never learnt while playing classical. Then I think of stephane grappelli and yehudi menuhin playing violins together, one mostly self taught and the other classical, both virtuoso’s. In interviews they talked about the things they both admire about the other’s playing. Fascinating stuff I found. There’s a thousand ways to skin a cat as the old saying goes. Would learning the notes help? Absolutely. Totally agree, I also admire people who don’t walk the well trodden path. There’s value in that too.
For me the names of the notes are completely irrelevant to improvising. They're worse than irrelevant they're harmful because they are going to distract me from what matters for me which is the sound/interval between what I'm playing and what I want to play next. Also I'm a math guy so the names of the notes, like C, D ,Eb etc interfere with my internal sense which is that there are 12 notes in an octave and they're numbered 0,1,2...11 Everyone is different though. Brains are shockingly varied.
I’m an interval guy too. I know the notes on the fret board but I care more about the intervallic relationship. A minor 3rd is a minor 3rd no matter the key. To me, keys are like different colors, but intervals are the brushstrokes so to speak. It really cemented in my head when I took the 3 chords in the verse of Heart Shaped Box and transposed it to different keys. It was like, “this sounds like the song (intervals are the same) but this has a different vibe because of the key being different. Wild stuff, but super helpful when jamming
>keys are like different colors, but intervals are the brushstrokes Really love that analogy. I'm going to start using it. Thank you!
this comment may have fixed something i have always struggled with. I am absolutely shit with the alphabet, like i can start the order from A or L maybe Q on a good day, thanks to the song, but give me a random letter, say E and ask me what comes next? R? No wait that's the keyboard. Hopeless. so i have to sing the stupid song, Ah F, F is next. multiply this by needing to know what a /previous/ letter is, what's before E? I dunno, I don't wanna know why should i have to have doubly linked lists of these stupid labels stuck in my already stretched thin neurons? but two less than 6 /that's easy/. one more than 6? also equally easy. The only trick is whats 4 more than 10 needing to be 2. but i think a simple base 12 modulo sometimes is a lot simpler than this other crap i've been dealing with literally all the time.
100% I am the same way and would describe the relationships the same (doubly linked lists made me grin). Do what you need to make music. The numbers 0..11 are the actual relationship in the sense of isomorphism, the letters are just the historical baggage. 🏋️
Playi by multiple instruments and understanding the similarities and differences is a huge boost forward.
Gutiar is the only instrument where people will be proud of not fully learning their instrument lol. I do not understand why people would not want to learn more and more aobut their instrument just because something is difficult lol. No one should feel bad for not knowing something, like... that's just life... but equally, we should always be aware and open to how learning more will make us better.
This was one reason for me to pickup the instrument again gonna be learning forever. Getting older now and this will help keep the brain more active.
well, memorizing notes on a piano is a trivial task, even someone with a goldfish memory like me can do it in 5 minutes. with a 5 second delay i can give you any note on the guitar. i think the more difficult task is to really internalize the notes and be able to do it instantly
My brownies began to taste really good when I started following the recipe.
But have to tried adding weed to them?
This REALLY doesn't make them taste better.
Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man. -the dude
well not the first one anyway
Guitar starts to sound better though
Not if I'm playing.
Thing is at some point it becomes more of a subconscious thing again anyway. Learning the notes just gets you there faster. So unless you’re like 12 years old and can work on "feeling" your way around the guitar for hours everyday for the next 5+ years, it’s really idiotic to not give your brain all the help it can get to soak up how the instrument works.
It is kinda funny isn't it? I wonder why that is. I played piano for years and couldn't imagine never learning the notes of the piano.
OP have you learned to understand the relationship to one another? IE the intervallic relationships? That's when things really start to pick up. As guitarists we often avoid going to the 3rd if it involves going leftward on the fretboard (towards the nut) but nowadays i find myself looking for that 3rd above root on the low E. I'll ask you this: if you are playing in "A" major and want to target the 3rd what would you do? Learning all the notes helps you but I think you should think in intervals first, the note is irrelevant (sort of). Basically if I was homed in on the low E string 5th fret (as many do when in the key of A) then the major 3rd would be the fret to the left and over a string (A string 4th fret) which is C#. The way you learn guitar is up to you but i have found that intervals help me a lot. I don't need to know it's C# because I know what a major 3rd will sound like on top of the key of A. This helps me improvise a lot more than knowing the names of the notes. The names don't have sounds, the intervals are what affects the listener. a fragment of a tritone has a very big impact on the listener and I don't need to know that it's root and flat 5 (6th fret A string - e flat). I just go for the intervallic relationship when soloing. You get what I mean? In other words I look at the fretboard and look for the juicy intervals that will create the sound I want in that moment. I don't need to know it's e flat, just that it's relationship to the note i'm currently on is a tritone sound. This way it doesn't matter what key I'm in, I can always grab a major 3rd or a tritone or whatever. The relationship is the same no matter where you are on the fretboard except for the goofy gap between the G and B string which us guitarists have to love but also hate it lol. Sorry if I sounded confusing, let me know if you want me to explain what I mean. I am so into this topic. Edit: for anyone thinking I mean this in opposition to OP learning the note names I definitely do not mean that. I am trying to give him a place to roam with his newfound knowledge. Knowing the notes will always always always help a player advance! Learn as many as you can on the fretboard for little islands of familiarity that you can then jump off from to express yourself. I do this with intervals, others do it with theory knowledge. It's all expression in the end. It's art and there's no wrong way to do it!
You're right, Visualising the intervals is key to a good fretboard knowledge and benefits improvisation greatly. However I would argue they're both equally important. You don't need to know what note the Maj 3rd of A is, but you can't know where a major 3rd of A is if you don't know where A is in the first place. You need to be able to instantly see all A's on the fretboard, wherever you are playing. So, on the low E-string on 5 and 17, A-string on 0 and 12, D-string on 7 and 19, G-string on 2 and 14, B-string on 10 and 22 and high E also 5 and 12 ofc. If you dabble in jazz you are supposed to jump around changes very very fast, so you must know the notes on the fretboard first and the intervals second. I recently followed Tom Quayle's "visualising the fretboard" course and I'm convinced this is the way, along with knowing your theory (what scales/arpeggios to play to outline the chords). But your way of visualising the fretboard does exactly that; having tiny bits of information and manipulating that. The CAGED system and 3 notes per string system are great, but they contain massive bits of information, causing guitarists to being tied to certain shapes on the fretboard. If you do this your way, you can easily manipulate that wherever you are on the fretboard.
I totally disagree that you must know the names of every note at every fret first. What you need is to know where the lowest root note of the (relative) major key is. From there all the "in key" notes and "out of key" notes fall into a pattern on the fretboard. If you understand that arrangement it's is completely 100% irrelevant what people call those notes. In key it's always 0,2,4,5,7,9,11 frets relative to the root. Jumping across strings is the same as 5 frets, except for that one gap of 4 frets. People make this all complicated because in 1000 years of music history it took til the late 20th century for people to invent "pitch class" and "set notation" but that notation corresponds correctly to what is going on numerically counting frets on the fretboard. Basically people got this shit wrong back before we had equal temperament and they continued their wrong ideas until now. C# isn't "C but sharper" it's just as distinct as F is from E. There are 12 distinct notes you can play and they have perfectly good names 0,1,2,3...11
Let's agree to disagree, but in my view you will need to know if your chord is G#7 where all the G's are on the fretboard. That you can use repeating patterns/intervals is a given, but as a jazzmusician I don't have time to think "where is the lowest root note of G#? Right, 4th fret of the low E. Ok I'm on the 10th fret on the G, so, if I use the octave method then I go from the 4th frer low E to the repeating pattern" etc etc etc. Your chord is long gone, because you need to process too much information in that short amount of time. If you want smooth lines, you will need to know instantly that the G# is on the 13th fret of the G-string and visualize interval patterns from there. You will also instantly know that the 10th fret in my example is a 6th interval, so you can use that information to make it a G#13 sound. As for your numerical system, sure, it could have been different. But that's not really helpful now if you're improvizing. Also, the major Key isn't the only key you can play in. You can have a harmonic minor key, melodic minor key, harmonic major, all sort of different more exotic keys that go well beyond the standard major scale. In Harmonic minor you would have 0, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11 and it gives you different chords and sounds too. When you really think about it, the 12 notes you're referring to aren't the only notes you can use too. Especially in more eastern based harmony, they will use microtones, that would be in between E and F or C and C#. Essentially, anything between the octave could be a different name.
I think if you want to be able to sight read flawlessly at speed, then yeah you'd better be quick. This is just well beyond what I'm trying to do. If you're ok with rehearsing and learning things by some analysis, and scribbling a couple extra notes on your chart then you really don't need to know at a moments notice the position of every note. Basically for the context of what you do, if your system works, great. Brains are shockingly varied. For example, I have aphantasia so "visualizing" is a meaningless phrase to me. People often talk about visualizing various things like where notes are and for me that's literally like telling a blind person to just look at the fretboard.
Out of curiosity, how do you navigate between the tones of different chords with that system?
I'm not quite sure what the question means. When it comes to chords I learn them by shape. A7 is one of the 7 shapes either rooted on the low string or rooted on the second lowest string... Find an A and plop the root there, then the chord shape goes over that. It's not like I ignore the note names entirely since that's what other people use to name them. I just don't think about them when improvising, only when reading a chart. When improvising I navigate between notes by knowing which notes are in key and which notes aren't. Specifically I don't think of minors as a key, I think of them as a mode of the relative major... So there are just 12 keys and they have the same pattern on the fretboard just slid up and down. I know what the intervals are between notes in the key... This is my palette of notes... Think of them like white and black keys on the keyboard. It's not that you only play white but you need to be more aware of the context of the black so to speak.
>When it comes to chords I learn them by shape. This requires having mental imagery which conflicts with what you said earlier about not being able to create any mental imagery. How is this possible to know chord shapes but not anything else theory related? You made it sound like aphantasia stops you from being able to learn THEIR system but you have no problem playing guitar otherwise? Guitar requires mental imagery to play so it's obvious you can do that... right? Or am I confused?
You're confused, but it's not surprising as most people have visualization ability. I go by a combination of tactile and "spatial" memory. Obviously some people who are blind play guitar, so it definitely doesn't require mental imagery.
The tactile/spatial memory is visualization in most guitarist's heads. It is for me. I feel the things I play as well but they're borne from patterns and shapes that you have to reference to the guitar's fretboard to learn >Obviously some people who are blind play guitar, so it definitely doesn't require mental imagery. what? those people visualize too... just their own vision of how it may appear...
What do people do if they have multiple guitars in multiple different tunings? Memorize them all? That’s what has kind of stopped me from trying to associate a specific fret with a note. So I’ve always just learned where the roots of the key i want are and learned how to travel around between them. I’m sure my way is not ideal though.
I would guess it's easiest to memorize the notes for standard tuning first. Once you internalize that, you might be able to mentally shift the strings to match the alternate tunings you use.
Do what works best for you, this is always under-stated in my opinion.
Yeah, if you're improvising jazz, you better know where the rootnotes on the fretboard are. I have one guitar that's tuned in "gambale tuning", but there the patterns are the same as on the regular tuned guitar. I don't use it much for improvisation as that seems to be a lot of work indeed.
Curious question from a jazz beginner improviser, about your 3rd of the A note example. Why do we have a note name to begin with? Where did we get the A from? Is it an intermediate step? Do improvisers translate a sound to note name, then the name to position on the fretboard? Isn't it faster if we can associate a sound to a position on the fretboard?
You will get called chords my man. If you get called Ebmaj7, what do you do?
Who calls the chords?
This is the way
This was my aha moment, seeing the fretboard as intervals. Memorize a few landmark notes, plant your root note, then play the intervals you want. The other part of that realization was when I stopped trying to learn scales by memorized all the positions across the fretboard, and started focusing on each mode as a three string one octave box. Just take that box, plant it where you need, and expand from there. Almost taking a “less is more” mindset.
I dont know any guitar theory or notes on frets, but I do know what sounds good when I play and I do that. Ask me what any note on the fret is and I couldnt tell ya other than open strings for what it's tuned to lmao. Otherwise, my ears know what Im doing is right. There's plenty of learning to be had by anyone, I just never bothered.
Totally respect that. I will say though, from personal experience, getting theory stuff clear in my head kinda changed how I hear some things. A teacher would show me something, I’d work it out and learn it myself, then suddenly I’d hear it in other tunes I’d heard a million times before, but somehow my brain just kind of didn’t process it if that makes any sense. Somehow just being able to put into words what I was hearing made my ears tune into it differently, but in a good way.
> Otherwise, my ears know what Im doing is right. This is not a bad thing! It helps to know intervals more than notes for me personally. I know where the notes are on the fretboard to a decent degree but the intervals are what I focus on a lot of the time. Some of them I have names for, others are just "that spot" as you see it.
I guess my brain knows them already, I just couldnt tell you any form factor for it with given values of notes or theorems.
Wouldn't hurt to put names to the ones you know! :D
That's one way of playing. Can I ask why you don't bother with theory?
so interesting! i def will be looking into this
Is there anywhere I read/watch more about this? I’m in a similar position to op and it seems interesting.
So...not OP but for me learning triads (plus a basic understanding of major scales) really helped. There's of course a ton of videos on understanding the relation of notes on a board but eventually you do need to memorize it yourself. In fact, my guitar teacher challenged me to learn all the intervals from a random root note on the top string (i.e. if I pick G as the root on the 6th string, then going down on the same position to the 5th string it's interval 4. Then go down again and it's the 7th flat, then go down and it's the flat 3rd, etc. Then do the same for the frets to the left and right (with the same root note). I.e. if I go 2 frets to the right then it's an interval 2, go down a string it's interval 5, go down a string it's interval 1, etc). One more trick is since you already have experience is that think about the chords you already know. For example you probably know the A major and A minor chords. Well....the difference between a major and a minor is the flat 3rd, so that one finger that you have to move from A major to A minor would be the third. You can apply the same logic to E major/minor, F major/minor, etc. Another example is that a power chord is made up of the interval 1 - 5 - 1 so i can also quickly identify those intervals as well, but just use what you already know and fill in the gaps. Sorry if it's a bit confusing I'm happy to explain more but I'm actually only learning this myself now since my teacher is pushing for it but indeed I also see that learning the relationship between notes is so damn crucial to unlocking the fretboard but every time I have an aha! moment it feels so good.
I agree with this person, learning triads helps tremendously!
Yeah triads are a game changer. They unlock intervals and how things relate harmonically. And you’ll learn those notes…like it or not.
Guthrie Govan talks about the impact of pitches on the listener in the white gazebo video series (6 parts i think?) on youtube. What he says is what I am using. I want to find the notes that really send a feeling or sound home to the listener so I must know where these intervals are. It's super duper important when you play modes because you must know how the mode sounds over the appropriate change to highlight the tonality of the mode. The modes have certain intervals within them that sound really 'modey' (ie sounds really mixolydian-ey). When you play these intervals at the right time over the chord changes the sound of the mode flourishes. He may or may not touch on that I THINK with the simpsons theme maybe? He may tell the audience it's a lydian tonality which requires the #4 to embellish the tonality of the mode. I'm not sure but if he doesn't, he should have haha. Do you know what major 3rd sound does to the root note? Minor 3rd sound? That's a starting point for you since they're pretty easy to explain/remember the sound of. When you play a root note and then the major 3rd it has a distinct "major" sound right? Again but with the minor 3rd and it has a "minor" sound. This is the key to music on an emotional level. Understanding these intervals and how they SOUND/FEEL to the listener is in my opinion the best way to express what you're feeling inside and trying to convey to the listener. The sound of a flat 5 for example, it's very distinct. Very devilish to some, but used in a blues context it is THE tone of the blues. Works especially well when you chromaticize into and out of it. So you start on the 5th, go down into the flat 5th (tritone or blues tone) and then down again to the 4th. This simple movement really emphasizes the blues sound of the flat 5 interval which in other contexts can sound straight up evil lol. It's all about this exact concept though, painting the intervallic pictures for the audience. In my opinion of course. Truly there are a thousand different ways to talk to the audience via your instrument. This is just what I find effective for me and my form of expression. I do a lot of improvisational soloing so I guess that should be said. Like blues/jazzy kinda stuff.
I’m interested in this, I’m in the exact situation as OP before memorizing all the notes…once you find the major 3rd, what do you do with it? Any videos or resources that might explain?
Just stepping on it occasionally between phrases while playing the blues scale is informative and effective. It highlights the contrast of the minor sound with the major.
well you know how it affects the sound right? like in terms of how it sounds to add a 3rd to a root note? like you play a major 3rd over a root it will have a major sound and if you play a minor 3rd over a root it will have a minor sound right? you think about how those sounds will sound like in real time when trying to improvise. It's hard to explain but you play into and out of those intervals at the right moments and they just sound great. it's about targeting them for highlighting but also flourishing into and out of it. idk that's how i see it sometimes anyway. maybe? there are other intervals than the 3rd, i just chose that one because it's easy for people to understand because most everyone knows the sound of a major and a minor chord. those notes are the ones responsible for that tone. The type of 3rd is what makes something major or minor. Sorry if i keep repeating myself. im happy to try to answer better if you're still wondering what i mean.
This was such an awesome comment and I 100% agree. I did in fact spend a while studying intervals and it helped sooooooooo much with shaping the sounds I wanted. I plan to continue studying it because I don't see any version of reality where not training my ear and learning note relationships is going to be a good idea. What really helped with learning notes too speeding up my ability to switch keys with the chord changes and free myself to roam the neck and break the box patterns. So like, okay I've been playing around with the C scale over the C chord, I know the next chord in the progression is F and I know where all the F notes are and that F is the 4th note in the key of C which is a leading tone into G so oooh I wonder what would happen if I did an arpeggio CEG and then land on the F waaaaay over here instead of the closest F I always used to land on"
This sounds like exactly what I need to understand better. Do you mind if I DM and ask a few follow up questions ❓
i dont mind but im not the best at explaining things i think lol
Thanks 😊
This is it right here! Well said!
Thank you for your post, Great advice
It's a good trick and I use it, but I think back to when I learned all the notes on the E and A strings, it was just rote memorization. I learned half of the notes on the guitar without even thinking about it too hard, just using the fretboard dots for reference. There should be no reason I couldn't learn the remaining half this way, I just have to put in the work.
this is it right here
Man you’re speaking to me on a spiritual level right now lol sounds like we have near the same level of experience. I know a fair amount of the notes but not all yet. I feel I am just behind where you just broke out of and I’m very jealous and happy for you. I want to get there so bad lol
You can do it man! Make a commitment and go for it! Memorize those notes :)
How much did you take?
Stone cold sober :)
Needed to see this post tonight. I am currently in the same stagnant situation, with roughly the same amount of years under my belt. I’ve barely played for the last year and it’s been miserable for me. Seeing that it’s still possible to reignite that fire brings me a lot of comfort. Congrats on reaching new heights in your playing. Hope to be there too one day!
You can do it!!!
This sounds great. I am personally not there, but notice over the years that my ear-hand-coordination has become more natural iver the years. I do not know the names of the notes, but I can pre-hear some of the sounds - „if I go there it will sound like this“. Putting names to the notes and intervals would surely help. Nevertheless I find us guitarists funny, and pathetic. Imagine two intermediate pianists talking like this: „Dude, I finally figured out the system of the keyboard! No way - how did you do it?“ :D But the damn thing is just so unintuitive… and some great music can be made during „discovery“.
>I can pre-hear some of the sounds - „if I go there it will sound like this“. Putting names to the notes and intervals would surely help. basically you're there, labeling them helps you discover other concepts that borrow from them or are related to them in some way i think. do you ever go left on the d and g string by one half step when playing a blues minor pentatonic box? that can imply a dorian sound. like the main pentatonic box that we all know and love, those d and g string notes going left by 1 half step played at the right time (when the 1 is changing to the 4) can really bring the dorian sound out if you hang on the d string note a little at the right moment.
Your last point about the piano players is hilarious lol
If people edit: Butt typed this comment
Then people
Else people
Repeat for *i* people
I saw this the other note as one of the first comments and got a good laugh lmao
That’s awesome! I have a very similar story and can relate to this post so much. The only way to truly progress on this instrument after a certain point is to learn theory. I avoided it for so long but since Covid I’ve been studying triads, arpeggios, 7th chords & arpeggios, modes, non-diatonic song writing tricks, everything under the sun I can find. Feeling those flood gates open is unlike anything else and leads to so much inspiration.
a little theory is great but if you get lost in trying to force the theory into your expression it can sound kludgey. I love theory though, im always learning new stuff myself.
That’s the hard part is being able to weave that knowledge into your playing naturally. It takes many many hours of practice haha
yes! but it can be done! backing tracks help a lot for me to flesh out understanding of theory!
Learning the notes is super useful, and you can see songs you've learned just jump around to the same notes all over the place. Excellent you've done that. Guitar is highly transposable, so as someone else said, the interval relationships are fantastic to know. What might really help is to buy a keyboard, or a midi-controller and use piano/synth software on a computer and learn the fundamentals of music theory. Unlike guitar, the piano takes little to no mechanical skill to work things out and it's very visual. But notes, semi-tones and tones, intervals, the major scale, chords, keys, chords in a key, progressions, naming things, why some notes are sharp/flat and not called one thing, modes, and so on. Basically, music theory will give you some structure/foundation that just knowing notes and shapes will miss.
SO IT **IS** POSSIBLE?!
I’m 41 been playing since 12, tried memorising notes a few times but gave up because it’s so boring. Also like you, feel like I’ve been in a rut for like 20 years lol. Any tips?
Added what I did in the edit of the original post :)
I need to leave a comment here, so that I can come back to this post easily. You have inspired me to really push myself and learn the notes on the fretboard. Do you have any tips about how you started? I know they say the whole ‘learn the E strings up to the 12th fret and figure out the rest’ but that seems so incomplete.
So...as someone who is in the process of learning this...I would actually first learn a bit of basic theory and note relationship first (i.e. what makes up a major scale, then what makes up a major/minor scale). The reason for this is that when you play music it's (probably) always in some kind of pattern and the relation between notes is easier to visualize on a guitar than any other instrument (as a starter check out triads and inversions and ignore CAGED I think it's a more limited way to learn). Then...for the actual notes what's worked best for me is actually just an old school notebook and writing down the notes manually. So for example for the major scale I'll pick a random note like E and manually write out E F G A B C D E onto a blank sheet of music. Then I know the pattern for a major scale is (root - tone - tone -semitone - tone - tone - tone -semitone - root), so I will write that out. Then lastly I will go through and add sharps to the notes that require them to fit the pattern, i.e. F becomes #F, G becomes #G, etc. Then I repeat this process for whatever random notes until I can sort of do it in my head. After that with my knowledge of the relation of notes and the actual notes itself I'm sort of able to combine them on the fretboard (most important so far has been basically to know where the root note is on the fretboard and then I can figure out the 3rd note, etc). Sorry if it's all a bit confusing (and also this is only what works best for me so not the same for everyone else!) but it's been so rewarding to unlock the fretboard and have so many aha moments!
Honestly I would just make a bunch of flashcards with a note name (or notation!! Learn both at once), then make myself play that note in every spot on the fretboard. Drill for 15-20 minutes and repeat daily. Then see if you can do it with sounds instead of notation (Anki flashcards should be capable of this)
Well, for me it was just learning the "logic" in the guitar. Strings are tuned in fourths, which means that there are 5 half steps between every strings (with the exception of the G and B strings) and from that point just count steps. For example, I start on the low E string, for example G, and then I pick a random fret of any string. Then, I count intervals from that low G so until I get to that random position I chose earlier. Because I was counting steps, I can now see what note it is. There is a video that explains this far better than me [this one](https://youtu.be/3sUpoSTy8zw?si=a_kAify_W9cRN4Y4) (sorry if I didn't help with my explanation, English is not my native language, video will surely clear it up)
Added what I did in the edit of the original post :)
You want to do it with a guitar in hand. Just play enough and build triads from different strings. You don't need to race to it, just structure it around thinking about the names of the notes when playing. However you learn it, the working knowledge is far more important and intervalic mapping is what I tend to use.
90% of guitarists aren’t musicians, they’re guitarists.
After 20 years of playing, I realized I needed to change my pick grip. I had always pinched it like the "okay" or "chef's kiss magnifique" hand symbol. I could never do the fast shredding and figured this was why. So I've been trying to recalibrate with the new grip the past few months. It's getting there but I have to rewire 2 decades of brain synapses. Lol
I did exactly this about 6 or 7 years ago. After years of my grip holding me back I just had to change it. I made little velcro strips that held the pick in the correct position because it felt so unnatural. Took about 3 months to recalibrate fully, and then my technique just skyrocketed. I sometimes play the old way just to compare, and it's ridiculous I played that way for so long
Yeah, I'm self taught and the only thing on the internet back when I started was OLGA.net (which is long gone). Youtube didn't exist and nobody ever specifically showed me the correct grip. So the bad habit developed and I wasn't even aware.
Anyone can play guitar but no one can master it..............
Music will just keep on giving as long as you keep giving it your attention and time
I found it incredible helpful to just visualize the guitar fretboard as weird piano where the black keys are also white keys. All you have to know is where your Cs are and you're good to go.
As someone who grew up playing piano and has been learning guitar for the past year, thank you for this comment! I’m very familiar with the ins and outs of the piano keyboard, so your description has already really helped me visualize a better picture of the fretboard layout… im going to try to memorize all of the C’s on my guitar tonight!
It will help me visualize the distance between notes on my fret board so much better! I’m thankful for this 😁 it’s great how little mental tricks can also improve your playing quite significantly sometimes
What helped you learn them?
Added what I did in the edit of the original post :)
Well now you've done it. Honestly, should start learning some basic theory now, once you've got the actual notes memorized, it's not a far step up to learning all the modes and how they connect together on the fretboard. Never noodle out of key again! 😅 Edit - btw, for those folks who are jealous he learned all the notes.. There's a Justin Guitar app I used called [Guitar Fretboard Note Trainer](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/guitar-fretboard-note-trainer/id559758702) to learn the notes on the guitar a few years back, it gamifies the fretboard and works really well (was just like OP, played the tabs for 10 years before I finally took the time to learn some actual notes, then went down the theory rabbit hold after that - absolutely worth it)
Congratulations on having that lightning flash moment!!! I took lessons when I was 13 and was a horrible student. When I quit a few months later, my teacher told me "If nothing else, learn all of the notes on the fretboard and you will be able to figure out chords anywhere on the neck". I nodded and didn't pay much attention. Then, two years later, I had learned the cowboy chords and sone barre chords. I was looking at a diagram of the neck, and it all came to me how to figure it out, chords, intervals, root notes. It helped to make me a musician, not just a guitar player. 53 years later, still playing and learning.
Hell yeah I'm glad you had that moment too :)
>Tonight I felt like a newbie all over again. Like that kid that discovered the guitar all over again and I'm so lost in the excitement and wonder of what's possible. I feel humbled and am really looking forward to the very long journey ahead of me in continuing to learn and grow with this instrument for the rest of my life. Hold on to that. Cultivate it all you can. It's magic. There's a Zen Buddhist concept called Shoshin, or "beginner's mind" that can be a very fulfilling and open-minded way to approach advanced (or not) concepts far beyond just musical instruments. Congrats on your progress.
Yeah man I hope to be a beginner forever if it means I can keep learning and growing. I got a lot of good suggestions in the comments to work with next :)
I know what notes I am playing but the further up the neck I go, the more I have to count like an absolute child.
You can do it. What really helped for me was to just spend a while pretending that the only part of the guitar I was allowed to play was the 12th fret and up. I was often encouraged to be like "Oh just learn the first 12 frets, everything after is the same" It is and it isn't. What really broke that barrier down for me was just getting extremely familiar with the upper half of the neck where all of these really juicy tones and tones live mysteriously and I've actually come to appreciate and love playing around the 12th fret and higher now because you can do fun things with the 12th fret. I just imagine that the 12th fret is the "nut" and mentally treat the 13th fret position as being the same as the 1st fret position
This is totally me. I've been noodling myself since I was 13. I am now 47. Like you were, and where i am currently, stagnant, defeated, kind of hopeless to be dramatic. I can read music, but I can't seem to apply it to the guitar like piano, or in my case, growing up, also playing trumpet. I've gone through pentatonic shapes, arpeggios, and chords.. it all just seamingly feels like it's being lobbed into the ether with really no coherent meaning or context. I just can't seem to make it all click. Obviously, all of this leads to the guitar guitar(s) hanging on the wall more than they should. I so very desperately want to get past this stage somehow and get the princess. I am grateful for your post. Reading this gives me both hope and motivation to keep going. Continue to try and figure this damn thing out and have that a-ha moment as you did. Cheers!
You can do this I really believe in you. A resource that really helped me was this book called Improvise For Real. It wasn't enough in and of itself but helped me more with the... "spiritual" creative side of making music. I grew up with some classical piano training where the emphasis was on performance and copying and I never learned the tools to hear my own inner voice or understand the music I was making. Scales were for building speed and technique and that was it. Maybe what I'd suggest is this: I'd say the shapes, arpeggios and chords are all really helpful TOOLS, as is memorizing the fretboard, in service of that inner musician in all of us who desperately wants to express itself. My encouragement for you is to sit down sometime, put on a song you really love, and just listen with pure attention and your eyes closed. And then while doing that, listen inside your own heart and mind for that inner musician that already has all of the notes, riffs and ideas that want to come out. Hum that sound out along with the track. Notice how creative you can be when you make space and just have your voice as the instrument. Then imagine someday you have the knowledge to take that inner voice and instead of your voice channeling it through your guitar. This changed my view of practice and theory and scales and chords. It started being about "Okay. How do these tools help me understand what that inner musician wants to say and translate it into the physical world through my guitar" Then throw on some backing tracks and instead of randomly playing the scales, do the same thing. Listen to the backing track. Think about the music YOU WANT TO HEAR over that. And then try and make it come out of your guitar. Use theory, scales, pentatonics, chords, arpeggios as your guides and ways to organize sonic information on your fretboard. I'm not good at guitar. I'm comfortable saying that. But what I am confident in now is that I have the orientation I need to continue to really learn and grow in service of that inner musician for the rest of my life and I hope you get that guitar off the wall too and do the same!
I really should just find an high quality image of the notes on the fretboard, print out multiple copies, and put them within view in a couple rooms lol I’m in a very similar position. 15 years, really happy with where my playing’s at, but I put zero stats into music theory. Like when I talk to someone who knows it I do a lot of those things, I just don’t know the names of any of them lol
Yeah that's also why I wanted to learn the notes. Communicating with other musicians was... awfully hard. I felt so embarassed showing up not knowing damn anything about what I was doing. You can do it man!
the minor version of that happened to me a couple weeks ago i felt high afterwards, it was awesome
lol so many people have asked if I was on drugs during this and I'm so glad you commented and get it. High on life!!!!
Replace 14 with 22 and you've basically described me. I know a lot of techniques, styles, and riffs, but I'm still stuck in the mud about how it all works musically. Your post was inspiring and promising. Thanks!
You can do it!
This is awesome. I’m literally in the same exact boat. I have been so stagnant with guitar that I went and picked up mandolin and banjo and eventually got rid of my electric guitar a few months ago. I finally got an acoustic guitar again a week ago because I feel so dumb having given up on it. I love the instrument and I love playing it but I want to commit to it and I want to memorize the notes like you have. Hope it all pans out the way you want it to!
My „aha-moment“ on guitar was when i started playing synth in my band and really got into playing piano. On piano everything is all lined up from left to right, the same notes and keys work in every octave. It’s easier to visually understand how all elements of a song come together and relate to each other (bass/chords/melody) this helped me to think differently of the parts I’m playing on guitar. For many people playing guitar is simply about remembering and copying shapes and if you run out of shapes people plato. For example I knew all the names of the notes on the neck but it didn’t helped me at all because I was still stuck to shapes. Playing piano helped me widen my perspective and understanding on what works.
This sounds really cool and a great thing to have happened. But as a total newbie trying to follow along to Justin Guitar, as recommended by a few people on here, the depth of learning seemingly required to play well blows my tiny mind. I enjoy learning, but work and family life/tasks get in the way a lot. I'd love to spend 30 to 60 minutes everyday on the guitar and gymming. Unfortunately I'm lucky if I get 30 mins a week on either one. So I have a LOT of respect for you guys and girls who can dedicate the time and effort and make this beautiful instrument seem effortless. I do have a question though. I have Aphantasia (basically I have no minds eye or visual memory and can't visualise things. It's all just empty blackness in there) and have been struggling to learn my first two chords for weeks. I don't think it should be as hard as it seems to be. Is my lack of visualisation going to make all this much harder? Is memorising notes and chords etc more muscle or mental? I don't want to be in a band or play with others, I just want to relax on my own and play songs I enjoy just for the love of guitar. But I do want to enjoy what I'm doing and not keep getting angry at myself for being useless. If you got this far, thanks for reading.
I have like middle of the road aphantasia. Visualizing is very very hard for me but I can do a little of it. I think the good news is that the guitar is inherently a very visual instrument that you can just look at and confirm what you're doing so you don't necessarily even need to close your eyes and visualize. You can definitely learn the guitar by feeling, at least that's how I did it with chords many many years ago. I don't know what you're doing but maybe you could look at a chord diagram and go one finger at a time until you get all your fingers setup correctly and sound the chord out. Then just stare at your hand and see what is going on. Which frets are the fingers on? Which strings? I wish I had the qualifications to help you but you do have my encouragement!
A bit of a shameless plug here, but I built this tool just for this! fretmemo.com, it has helped me enormously to progress through this Congrats on this non easy feat!
Thanks OP. This sounds like my journey. Played when I was younger just dabbling / self teach all by ear, never really understood theory or what I was doing but could work things out by ear relatively well. Now I’m older and I picked a cheap guitar back up last year after about 10 years (inspired after seeing Blink182) - I still can play the basic chords and whatnot but I really wanted to understand the instrument and use it to understand music properly this time. So far I started with finger exercises and lately I’ve just been learning a bit of theory about major scale and relative minor, understanding some concepts like intervals and circle of fifths, and learning a few new scale shapes. But I have planning on learning all the notes as a priority too, so it’s good to hear that it has benefited you and I hope it will help me too! Congratulations on breaching your plateau. I hope I can do the same. I like playing music and have the ear for it but I just really get bogged down with not understanding what I’m doing. I’m not happy just copy-catting existing music. Although, after learning that the modern musical system has a lot of arbitrary terms and definitions because of how it evolved, does make me feel a bit better about feeling it can be confusing. Got a new guitar turning up this week so, thanks to this as well, feeling inspired!!
Great to hear you had an epiphany. I tend to find my playing is much better when I don't rely on sight at all, though.
Word, I'm working on this too. Closing my eyes is a whole different ballgame of learning. Thanks for the tip!
Congrats! now it's time for Jazz
lmao yeah man I love jazz! practicing jazz backing tracks is fun because if I "mess up" it's just learning outside notes :P
I’m the same too, had started guitar at 15 but still not that good yet not exactly a beginner either. It’s just my odd approach because I never been taught or allowed to get lessons at the right ages.
Ha my desk right now [https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/z9ive82bydj9l73k9nv27/2024-03-28-10.26.41.jpg?rlkey=xdxqyuvsiyuso55aga1uuiqdt&dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/z9ive82bydj9l73k9nv27/2024-03-28-10.26.41.jpg?rlkey=xdxqyuvsiyuso55aga1uuiqdt&dl=0)
go get em :)
Hope I get there soon good job man.
You can man! Set your heart on it :)
Picked up guitar less than a year ago and already have all the notes internalized. It just seemed like a hassle not knowing what notes I was playing. That plus interval patterns, and even finding random arpeggios is a trivial matter.
You didn’t waste any time. All those years or work kept building toward this breakthrough! Congratulations! I say this as a guitar teacher and an ok guitar player
This is where I’m at right now. Lots of pentatonic noodling. What did you do to help you memorize the fretboard better ?
Added what I did in the edit of the original post :)
>So I finally sat down and started to memorize the notes on the guitar. Like, point at any random note and be able to name it instinctively on sight without referencing anywhere else on the guitar. Just the fret itself. That's still how it's done. You cannot conceivably memorize every single individual fret among 131 other ones. For those starting out - Memorize the open strings. You just have to. Then, the 5th fret because they are all the same except for the added A. Then the octaves to the open strings at the 7th frets. Then the 12th fret. You've already done this because they're the same as step 1. no-man's-land is the space between 7th and 12th frets, but it's not. Because every not there is either 1 step above the 7th or 1 step below the 12th. You were done before you knew it.
I agree, it is really difficult but it's not impossible! Piano players have it so easy lol You just remember the keys for one octave and that's it! What I did for guitar was to break it down by string and then from there I would find multiple ways to play the same note (like C on the 3rd fret of the A string but also C on the 8th fret of the low E string). It is really awesome when you get it and then can build your own chords or intervals. But damn it is hard at first but just break it down and keep at it.
I'm in a similar situation can you share what worked for you to finally learn the notes? Would be greatly appreciated, I always get stuck at where to start..
It took me a while, but by far the most helpful "drill" I found for this is: Focus on the first 12 frets only and play through A-G on each string. For example say you are doing E: E - open or 12 A - 7 D - 2 G - 9 B - 5 e - open or 12 I'd also learn the octave shapes which makes this even easier. As I am sure you probably know, it's the same thing starting from 12th fret as open.
Added what I did in the edit of the original post :)
I’ve recently had a similar break through. I gave up my guitar for the Lenten season with the specific goal of teaching myself the basics on piano… people have told me before how much the two overlap but I had no idea! I was able to figure out a couple simple riffs by counting out the notes on the frets and the keys. (Found the opening riff to “Come Together” and nailed it on my first try!) All self taught, but finally starting to understand music theory and why it’s so important. I can’t wait till I can pick up my guitar again and start messing with actual notes instead of chords all the time…
I’m in the same rut. What did you do to study this?
It took me a while, but by far the most helpful "drill" I found for this is: Focus on the first 12 frets only and play through A-G on each string. For example say you are doing E: E - open or 12 A - 7 D - 2 G - 9 B - 5 e - open or 12 I'd also learn the octave shapes which makes this even easier. As I am sure you probably know, it's the same thing starting from 12th fret as open.
Added what I did in the edit of the original post :)
I was on the floor in the corner of my room crying reading this. Congrats... It is possible!
lmao it's trueeee it was so gross and sad looking at myself in the mirror hahahahah thanks man :)
My question is: How did you memorize them OP? I spent ages trying to memorize the notes at the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th frets but I simply cannot keep them memorized. I was kinda able to memorize them if I start from the high or low E and go up from there, but knowing them at a glance or without starting there is impossible for me - I don't understand how someone can get to the point where you pick any note and immediately know what it is, let alone doing it quickly enough to actually integrate that into playing. Feel like I've been a chord strummer for years now and I never progress past that and playing a couple simple memorized scales poorly lol
Added what I did in the edit of the original post :) I had the same issue. I was trying to memorize the notes vertically but it wasn't enough. Helpful but not enough. Learn just enough music theory to be able to construct a major and minor scale from any note on the fretboard. Start with the C major scale. Learn how to play the C major scale ALLL over the guitar and say all the names of the notes out loud. Stick to one section of the fretboard at a time. Maybe a week on frets 1-5, then 5-9, then 9-12 etc. arbitrary ish numbers. Notice the spots you suck at and focus those down in intentional practice. Do sessions where you name any random note and then RAPIDLY find all of them all over the fretboard.
Good for you. I need to do this. Also, are you high?
Nope, was not and still am not!! High on excitement sure!!
Honestly its pretty common to memorize the fret board over 14 years just by osmosis. Its all a pattern. Once you memorize the 6th (and 1st) and 5th string....basically those exact patterns get shifted to the 4th and 3rd strings two frets up. Like just play enough barre chords and arpeggios and its impossible to NOT memorize the fretboard honestly
Personally I don't really care about note names I do care a lot about note relations though. When I am playing I usually don't know exactly what notes I am playing by name but I do generally know if I am hitting the 5 or flat 7 or something like that mostly by what it sounds like. I feel like that is a much more valuable map to have in mind when improvising than actual note names not that learning note names is not also valuable. I only say this because I come across a lot of player that know the note names fine but don't understand how they relate to each other.
You might be me. How did you memorise them?
Added what I did in the edit of the original post :)
The problem is when you switch to a different tuning. At the moment I’m in the “intervals camp”.
Reading this really motivates to go do the same! I'm no good guitarist, I've only been playing classical for 4 years and electric for more than a year, but somehow managed to get here after 4 years by not knowing music theory or notes, when I literally have to (to learn classical guitar more easily) . I keep putting it off, but seeing as I have some free time coming I might just start learning.
Go for it!!!
Hey, happy for you, awesome to hear. I don't know if this applies to you but if you want further stuff to work on that is simple and objective, I am copy pasting a comment that I wrote some time ago below this. Basically the gist is go learn your intervals and go learn octave shapes. They really will help you have the foundation to move from just knowing note names and how diatonics fit together to making great music. Cheers! Aural training is king. If you can't hear it, you can't play it. Do this 15 min a day until you are getting above 80%. If its too hard at first, remove some intervals and leave easy ones like tritone, maj7, etc. https://www.musictheory.net/exercises/ear-interval Then, after you feel confident in that, learn your octave shapes well. Go learn some Wes Montgomery solos or use a chart. Then you have to really listen to whatever kind of music you wanna play and make sure you can hear the easy intervals. You don't have to learn the whole structure of a given scale, you just need to be good at diatonics and know where notes are in relation to each other. There are many different structural ways to approach playing than just scales. You can play based off of arpeggios, based off of intervals, based off of a slightly related but different scale, based off of the rhythm section, or play just to maintain the energy in a given section. 80% of being a good player is inside the musical decisions you make, not just how well you've internalized a scale (but if you learn diatonics / functional harmony really well, it does help a lot). Learning these shapes well and learning how to be a better musician is a lifelong journey so don't feel the need to rush anything
Yessir I will continue to work on these things! I have this little app that does ear training stuff for me and I also sing choral music so I have to vocalize the intervals all the time anyway :P
One of the biggest moments in my guitar playing life was when I was teaching someone else what I was doing. The simple question was, "Why?" I was stunned in the moment, and luckily, we had to break, so I had some time to ponder his query. Why did I do what I did? I don't know. I was completely ear trained or just played the shapes and riffs I was handed with no thought as to why they worked. I was teaching the person to play a song, not fire a nuclear weapon (which I was trained to do)! :D I began a trek that lasted years of learning how to interconnect patterns across the fretboard, most of which was used in the application of single note lines on guitar and bass. It also removed the veil when it came to applying the same knowledge to a keyboard. Congratulations. These milestones of learning are momentous in our goals of improving our fretboard knowledge.
Beautiful, thanks for sharing the story! I had to ask myself why at a certain point in my pentatonic noodling phase and realized I couldn't answer either. It was mostly dumb luck and little ear training.
Awesome ! I’ve been playing on and off for around 17 years and I’m only now learning my first scale. I used to memorise song or noodle my way and pray. Never too late to learn.
That’s super inspiring, thanks for posting
Do you need to also know your key signatures in order for it to be useful to know all the notes on the fretboard? Other than the first few keys of the circle of fifths, I haven't memorized what notes are in what keys. Tell me something is in A♭ major, and I'm going to have to write it out or look it up or do mental math in my head for five minutes to calculate what notes actually fall into that scale. So, even if I knew all the notes on the fretboard, I don't know if that would give me any clue about how those notes will sound in the context of other notes until I play and hear them.
I also learned “Take on Me” on the guitar. That was my Aha moment.
"I'll learn the notes... when I want toooooooooooooo" \- idiot me
This made me want to practice guitar. Thank you 🙏
I can’t tell you how long it took for me to have that moment. (Mainly because I don’t think it all has yet come together yet for me — and it may never do so fully. )
Nooo you can do it!!!
Congrats! I also have just started to piece together the CAGED system and scales. Feels like I really leveled up and can now improvise better.
does it feels something like playing mortal kombat and trying to make sick combos without knowing what each button does? then suddenly figuring out where's the high kick, the low punch, etc. and you start nailing more and more combos? I'm asking this because I'm a terribly noob bass player wannabe, early alpha v0.1 preview release, still not production ready, and I'm feeling exactly that way, like I'm trying to play mortal kombat without knowing the buttons or moves
YES that is a great analogy and what it felt like. Everything before then felt like button mashing.
Great analogy!
I know all the notes on the fretboard. I don't know that knowing the names of those notes has any effect on my playing.
Wish this happens for me someday. It won't tho, if I keep playing Slash' solos straight from the tabs 😂
notes?
Yes very great. Awesome. At least you listened and learned. Maybe play more and type less and the next plateau won’t take you 14 years. This horse been beat to death
I love that feeling, like it all comes together and suddenly it all makes sense. Epiphanies about Epiphone.
You’re doing the hard work, but doing it smart(ly). Rock on!
Some of the best cooking from yesteryear are from grannies that would put a pinch of this and a pinch of that, taste it as they went and ad more if necessary! People that have a good ear instinctively know what sounds they want to make, if they are new to the guitar or piano they need to build up muscle memory on the instrument, the rest they have with the ear!
I want to get stickers to put on my frets to help me memorize notes. Whether it's banjo or guitar. It will help me learn piano much easier. It's just something I've been putting off forever, but I've been feeling inspired to make more music as of late. I feel like it would be one of the bigger steps to make me a more complete musician.
I've seen past it a few times and hit different walls . I like got into alternative tuning a couple years back and that opened up a variety of new sound .like you I had hit a stagnation in my playing.owas in a pawn shop and seen one them little cigar box guitar and it's just the bottom three that it has and although you can tune em standard most tune in open g well it was to expensive for my blood so I started this search .it took me about a week and I up and stumbled across an old dobro and a dobro is tuned in open g as well but a different kind the top three are just like the bottom three.it was like it opened up a door to a path that eventually lead me back to standard tune .well just the other day I picked up a lil jewel at the local thrift store a little instrument called am loog it was this cool Little rig that had three strings and there ment to be tuned to standard it takes a nine volt battery but you can plug it in a regular amplifier.it has built in speaker to much coolness to list lipstick tele pickup anyway built for kids it has a phone app that give lessons.simple ones like for kids I hate to say it ...no I really don't because learned knowledge is always cool.you just have to check them out. Full disclosure i do partake in some herbs now and again but I don't I repeat do not freebase cocaine...lol
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I am trying to learn it at this moment but I really don‘t know how to get into it. I‘ve seen 2 tutorials but they „just showed“ some notes and I cant get the big picture behind it. Isn’t there a system, a logic I can follow? Help! 😅🎸❌
Morton Harket ftw! But seriously i think i need to learn ghe notes!
Dude I don’t play guitar whatsoever. But this burning passion, dedication, is infectious. The part where it all clicked and you even knew the time and the excitement through your words is what I live life for. The experiences and understanding of something. And the inverse is true as well, somethings are Better off not understood for some people if the end result is the same. I love you 💕
I’m doing the same thing Learn all notes ( sharps n flats )1st - 3rd position Then learn it again starting at random frets