New Lesson - Finding Your Notes on the Guitar Fretboard

[Mark Wein]

This is something of a test lesson for my Truefire workshop...they gave me some advice on how they wanted the video done so I've got a completely different (and much simpler) process. The sound isn't optimum because of the size of the room I work in but I think it will do.

The lesson content is just a supplemental lesson since the workshop is geared towards more intermediate players but I figured this would fill in some gaps for the guys who have played for a while already but never really learned where their notes are on the fretboard (and there are lots of them out there as I have learned in the last two and a half decades worth of teaching).



Worksheet is attached.

 

[Stratguy]

Always a good lesson Mark. I have a general grasp of notes on the fretboard, but I have never taken the time to memorize them because I've always been a rhythm player. Now that I'm working toward learning to play lead lines, I know I need to do the memorization work. I downloaded the neck paper and made 10 copies.

 

[Mark Wein]

Always a good lesson Mark. I have a general grasp of notes on the fretboard, but I have never taken the time to memorize them because I've always been a rhythm player. Now that I'm working toward learning to play lead lines, I know I need to do the memorization work. I downloaded the neck paper and made 10 copies.

The more you can work the information off of the instrument the better grasp you have of it when you are playing it on the instrument.

 

[335clone]

I have done all that but still had a tendency to have to count my way up the string from the nut on the 2,3,4 strings (I am pretty good on the 1/6 and 5 strings from years of playing barre chords).

One exercise I find useful is to play every e on the fretboard, then every f, etc...

Far and away the best tool I have found for nailing the notes anywhere on the fretboard is 'fretboard warrior'. It picks random notes on the fretboard along with a tone, and you pick the correct note. It's pretty fun and it works.

http://download.cnet.com/Fretboard-Warrior/3000-2133_4-10169003.html

 

[Mark Wein]

I have done all that but still had a tendency to have to count my way up the string from the nut on the 2,3,4 strings (I am pretty good on the 1/6 and 5 strings from years of playing barre chords).

One exercise I find useful is to play every e on the fretboard, then every f, etc...

Far and away the best tool I have found for nailing the notes anywhere on the fretboard is 'fretboard warrior'. It picks random notes on the fretboard along with a tone, and you pick the correct note. It's pretty fun and it works.

http://download.cnet.com/Fretboard-Warrior/3000-2133_4-10169003.html

The next lesson in this workshop is how to find your CAGED system root patterns, so that you start seeing the whole fretboard as one interconnected pattern. This video (in the OP) is actually a supplemental video before the actual curriculum starts to fill in any gaps the student might have before we get into the meat of the material. The entire process that I push the student through is designed to reinforce the knowledge of where notes are on the fretboard as well as to teach the theory and technical ends of things. The Fretboard Warrior looks like a good tool but it's not something I can incorporate into my Workshop or Classroom on Truefire.

 

[335clone]

I really need to go back and try the CAGED approach again.

The neat thing about FW is it seems more like a game than work.

 

[Mark Wein]

I really need to go back and try the CAGED approach again.

The neat thing about FW is it seems more like a game than work.

ANything that makes the medicine go down easier is a bonus.

This is an old lesson that I did back in 2007 but it should be close to what the next video in my workshop will be...use this as a way to learn the notes in a larger pattern:

 

[Pine Apple Slim]

As usual you have a good strategy. Your approach kinda condenses what took me several years of self learning into a concise method that should produce results fairly quickly.
I never took lessons but I read and self studied a lot, and payed close attention when I played with someone better than me. This was all in the days before the Internet and YouTube. All I had was other guitarists, guitar mags and such, and music theory books from the library.

Your students are lucky they found you.

 

[Mark Wein]

As usual you have a good strategy. You approach kinda condenses what took me several years of self learning into a concise method that should produce results fairly quickly.
Your students are lucky they found you.

Thanks Slim

A lot of this is from 25 years of trying to get students to learn their note. This seemed to be the most successful method for the majority of them....

 

[Denverdave]

 

[Kerouac]

I like the examples Mark uses in his book for beginning students, but if a student has already been playing before they came to me and they need to work on their reading skills we go straight to the Berklee/Leavitt book.

 

[Mark Wein]

I like the examples Mark uses in his book for beginning students, but if a student has already been playing before they came to me and they need to work on their reading skills we go straight to the Berklee/Leavitt book.

Thats a whole different thing though.