Knowing the names of all the notes on the guitar neck and understand their relationships is the main concept in this 3-part beginners series.
Knowing box patterns here and there on the guitar neck can be a good start but I’m trying to present a different angle to help spread that box pattern and master the entire fretboard.
In the first post I reviewed some common terms to be familiar with to give a basic understanding of scale structure and to help navigate the guitar fretboard. I also outlined a simple starter technique of memorizing all the notes on the Low E string. Over time you can work at memorizing the notes in order along the rest of the strings from the 1st fret to the 12th fret.
Here’s another beginners technique. Learn to identify all the octaves along the first 12 frets. Start with a key you like to play in. Find all the root notes. Think of it like an Easter egg hunt but with notes instead of eggs!
The picture below shows all the A notes including the 5th string – open A – when the string is played open it will sound an A note. The A on 5th fret of the low E string is a great anchor point from which you can easily relate all the other A note positions. Notice that the “5th Fret / Low E string A note” is 2 fret below the “7th Fret / D string A note”. Notice the fret spacing between the “5th Fret / Low E string A note” and the “2nd Fret / G string A note”.
Create an exercise and play each note in order up the neck and then reverse it back down. Play it over and over until you get use to jumping around all the octaves in the key of A.
As you get use to it you will start to recognize and see patterns or the fret spacing between these notes. Now try some other notes and other keys and notice how it becomes familiar. You start to recognize the patterns making it easier to repeat. As you get close to the nut or the headstock it gets funky with the open notes but you’ll get familiar with the differences over time.
Practice! Practice! Practice! Repetition will lock it in like a good habit. Too much thinking slows you down. A habit means less thinking. Less thinking unlocks those creative juices and lets them flow natural like.
That’s how you do it!
If you missed part 1 and part 2 visit these links
Learning Scales On The Guitar 101 – Part 1 of 3 – Basics
Learning Scales On The Guitar 101 – Part 2 of 3 Major and Minor
- A wicked, easy way to Learning 1 major scale and 1 minor scale using only 1 scale pattern!