 The First Step: Memorizing the notes on the fretboard.
LEARN THE NOTES ON THE GUITAR!
You need to know the notes on the guitar so you can find the name of the chord you want anywhere on the guitar with any combination of strings. I cannot stress how important this is. You must continually practice this skill and master it. Don’t be intimidated by this requirement, it’s a much simpler process than you might think. Learning the notes of the neck also will enable you to learn to read music notation if you wish as an added benefit. Commit to this process and you will be rewarded.
The wrong way is to learn all notes on a single string and then repeat the laborious process on the next string. Do not do this way. There is great frustration and major delays in this approach. Sure there is a formula but you will not have independant recall of the notes on the neck . It will be attached to a starting point and will take far longer. The right way is to learn a single note location on each string. Then move on to another note after you memorize the previous note, limiting yourself to only the seven notes of the C major scale, which are, C D EF G A & B; these are also called “ the natural notes”. You need to be able to find any note on the guitar instantly and the method in this step is the fastest way there.
A natural note is a note from the key of C Major. These are notes that are the white keys on the piano. Again its C D E F G A B. We will go into the Major scale in the next chapter. For now, please learn these notes on the guitar wherever they are. Do not worry about the in-between notes, the sharps and flats. Again, only concentrate on the 7 natural notes. You will know the sharps and flats, - every other note on the guitar - by neighbor association once you have the naturals memorized. . . You will have greater understanding and recall if you follow this method with discipline.
From low to high the open strings start on the notes E A D G B E. Its useful to use a mnemonic such as Eat, All, Day, Go (to), Bed, Early, Or any other memory tool you can come up with. The strings are also numbered 1 through 6 starting with the high E string (the thinnest string) as number one. Once you have this memorized you can then start the program of learning the notes on the guitar one note at a time.
It starts with finding the note C on the high E (1st string). Then find the same note (C) on each string consecutively moving from high to low. Do not skip around or memorize the note using the octave technique. You must do it from string to string as described below. C on the high E string.. 1st string on the 8th fret. C on the B string.. 2nd string on the 1st fret. C on the G string.. 3rd string on the 5th fret. C on the D string.. 4th string on the 10 fret. C on the A string.. 5th string on the 3rd fret. C on the low E string.. 6th string on the 8th fret You now have the location of one note (C) everywhere on the guitar before the 12th fret. This is powerful because your memory is not attached to a scale or a shape. Instead its the actual note location on the fretboard independent of anything else. Once you have done this a few times. Use a metronome on a slow speed and name the C note in the same order in time to the click of the metronome. Gradualy build up speed and keep track of your process. The faster you can recognise where a note is the faster you can grab a new chord and make your music more interesting. Learning where C is on the neck is the first step and is the foundation of Music Theory. 
So the order of the notes to memorize is as follows. C B D then F E G, then A. If you observe the notes C B D on the first string with C on the 8th fret and then compare those to F E G on the fifth string with F on the 8th fret in the diagram above you will notice that the relationship is the same. C has one note directly behind it one fret and one note above it two frets and so does F. The last note A completes the process of learning the 7 natural notes of the C
B on the high E.. 1st string on the 7th fret. B on the B string.. 2nd string OPEN. B on the G string.. 3rd string on the 4th fret. B on the D string.. 4th string on the 9th fret. B on the A string.. 5th string on the 2nd fret. B on the low E string.. 6th string on the 7th fret again.
The next notes to learn in order are F, E, and G. This will follow the same process as the previous notes. And the last note to learn is A. That’s it! After a few months this will be automatic for you to recall. Then you can move to identifying the other notes that are in between the natural notes, which will be the same name as the natural note it is next to depending if its up or down. I will explain this more clearly later in the book.
Carve out 5 to 10 mins a day to doing this exercise and you will learn the fretboard very quickly. You should be able to know the notes within 60 days if you practice this daily. And make sure you do not try and recognize a pattern. This is critical. You want to memorize each note on each string as isolated notes, NOT as a pattern. Go for it! |
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