Fretboard

Hey all.

Is there a chart or something that has every single note on the fretboard of the guitar? I want to memorize it, study it so that way I will know every single note on each fret of the guitar.

Thanks.

Christopher Schlegel's got a brand new tutorial on Connecting Pentatonic Patterns that may help:

http://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=13143&s_id=737

This is kind of neat. If you Google "Interactive Fretboard," you can find other variations of this.

http://www.theguitarfiles.com/scale.php

Originally Posted by: Grandslam15Is there a chart or something that has every single note on the fretboard of the guitar?

This lesson has them all:

http://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=4469

This lesson has them only on the first five frets, but the point is that there are multiple images to help get the idea (only naturals, with accidentals as sharps and as flats):

http://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=11135

Get a fretboard diagram and fill in all the notes over and again. Test yourself on each note at a time, too. Sheer repetition is very helpful in codifying info in your mind. But I would only suggest this as an option when you are away from your guitar or when you cannot physically play your guitar (on a break at work, for example). I recently put one here for that purpose:

http://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=11185

Another great conceptual tool is the Octave Method. Visualizing octaves of the same letter on the E, D, & B strings:

E |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
B |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-G-|---|-A-|
G |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
D |---|---|---|---|-G-|---|-A-|---|---|---|
A |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
E |---|---|-G-|---|-A-|---|---|---|---|---|

Visualizing octaves of the same letter on the A, G, & E strings:

E |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-C-|---|
B |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
G |---|---|---|---|-C-|---|---|---|---|
D |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A |---|---|-C-|---|---|---|---|---|---|
E |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|

Do this for all notes A through G-sharp. Notice it's repeating pattern over and again. The only "bump in the road" is the skip from the G to the B strings. Instead of a two fret jump, it is three.

This is very good info to memorize, but from there the next crucial step is to eventually be able to see all possible scale degrees on the fretboard:

http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=453
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=419
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=462

Hope this helps. Let us know how it goes!

Here is a thread from a few weeks back that has a couple of very good visual aids. At least I found them to be very, very helpful!

Thanks again to KFS1972 :D

Thanks for your help everyone! I'll be taking your advice to practice.

Also, just to keep it interesting... maybe...

Look up 'FretBoard Warrior' on google - a little flash game that flashes up notes and string numbers, and you then have to click the right fret.

When i was memorising the fretboard I had a set of 12 cards.... fret number on one side and the notes of all strings at that fret on the other... we didn't have computers in them days... ;)

It worked though... and for the love of God don't go for any of the sites/software that promise to teach you this for a fee... (fret2fret rings a bell here)... they're nothing beyond memory techniques and mnemonics.

There is a new app for iPhones too. It's called iReadMusic. There are several different games to help you learn music notation. I like the one where it shows the notation on a staff, and below that you tap the fretboard at the correct fret. It also makes a tone to train your ear as well. It's been very very effective in helping me to begin to sight read as well as naturally going to each note on the fretboard as I read it. It's cheap too (.99 cents)

GG

1 E||-F--|-F#-|-G--|-G#-|-A--|-A#-|-B--|-C--|-C#-|-D--|-D#-|-E--|
2 B||-C--|-C#-|-D--|-D#-|-E--|-F--|-F#-|-G--|-G#-|-A--|-A#-|-B--|
3 G||-G#-|-A--|-A#-|-B--|-C--|-C#-|-D--|-D#-|-E--|-F--|-F#-|-G--|
4 D||-D#-|-E--|-F--|-F#-|-G--|-G#-|-A--|-A#-|-B--|-C--|-C#-|-D--|
5 A||-A#-|-B--|-C--|-C#-|-D--|-D#-|-E--|-F--|-F#-|-G--|-G#-|-A--|
6 E||-F--|-F#-|-G--|-G#-|-A--|-A#-|-B--|-C--|-C#-|-D--|-D#-|-E--|


There you go up to the 12th fret :) After that everything repeats again. Sorry it's not perfectly lined up, but i hope it helps!

What was previously mentioned, and what I do a lot at work is drawing my own fretboard diagrams. Just draw 6 lines across for the strings, and then 12 or more lines cutting across those lines for the frets (hint: the same notes & patterns repeat from the 12th fret onward). You could do one diagram with all the notes first, but I prefer to map out things like all the G notes or all the notes of a certain chord or scale. Doing this will reveal many patterns that occur on the fretboard. And believe me, the guitar fretboard is all about patterns, so if you discover those, you'll never get lost.

check out the site in my sig, might be easier to understand. :)

Whenever I am teaching this concept, I rarely give a chart that has all the names of the notes on it. It is important you first know the order and names of all 12 notes in music in general. Those notes are as follows.

A - A#/Bb - B - C - C#/Db - D - D#/Eb - E - F - F#/Gb - G - G#/Ab

Memorize this order, and know which notes have sharps and flats between them. Once you have a good grasp of this, than apply it to the guitar.

This can be done by simply taking each open string, and moving up one fret at a time saying each note a-loud. I would also recommend singing each note and it's name if you are able. This really, really helps put the idea into motion. You will notice that the note names start over once you get to the 12th fret, and if they don't you turned a wrong corner somewhere. For example, here is how you would approach the low E string. Each note is a half step from each other, and a half step on the guitar can be looked at as one fret (a whole step being two frets.) You simply take the above list and start from wherever the open string is, in this case you say the order starting from E.

Low E String:
E - Open String
F - 1st Fret
F#/Gb - 2nd Fret
G - 3rd Fret
G#/Ab - 4th fret
A - 5th Fret
A#/Bb - 6th Fret
B - 7th Fret
C - 8th Fret
C#/Db - 9th Fret
D - 10th Fret
D#/Eb - 11th Fret
E - 12th fret

You can apply this same idea to all 6 strings and than you are on your way. Again, I would not recommend having a chart, as you become reliant on that and this concept forces you to know the note names and teaches you to apply to them to the guitar on your own.

Let me know if this makes any sense.

Makes sense to me. Doing it on one string at a time helps you to see the distance between notes much better. It's more comparable to the piano that way.