awesome

I just want to say seabastberg how on earth are u so quick on the fretboard trainer.im very impressed with how fast you as well as others can beat that clock 32 secounds,20 questions is fast.i can name all twenty in alittle over two min,am i just to slow or u guys just to quick.lol.but really i just would like to say u guys rock on that,and thats one of my goals is ti learn every note on every string & fret.i have a good system thats been workin well for me.but if u have any additional tips on how you had learned all the notes,it would be appreciated. Thanks

Hey,

Well I actually spent a lot of time learning the fretboard (I still do actually).
Well, I say a lot of time but its actually not that much compared to the rest of my life that I will play music and "know" the fretboard.
What I like to do the most is improvising. Learning the fretboard by heart makes it so much easier to navigate and sound more melodic, less "scaly".

When I started to learn the fretboard I would name out loud all the notes on one string as part of my warm up routine. The next day the next string and so on. Then when I was starting to get the hang of that I would do all the strings everyday. Then I got comfortable with that and started to name the strings at every fret, maybe 4 or 5 frets per day (ex: fret 1 low E string = F, fret 1 A string = A# ...).
When you practice your scales, name the notes out loud too ! This will make you memorise everything faster (the notes in the scales and the notes on the fretboard).

Recently I have been improvising with notes instead of scales.
What I mean by that is that I try to avoid as much as possible scale patterns. So if I'm improvising in C major or A minor, I know thats there's no flats and sharps. So I play around on my fingerboard avoiding all sharps and flats and when I make a "long note" I try to hit chord tones (the root, major 3rd, the 5th ...) of the chord being played "under". This is helping me a lot in every way imaginable.

Take your time and make you sure you name your notes out loud ! I think thats the main reason why I was able to learn them "quickly" (took me a month to know them well and I have been working at it ever since just to be able to do it without thinking) . It will only take you 5 min of your day for a couple of weeks and you will never forget them after.

Oh and so you think I'm human and not a computer, my 40ish seconds scores are legit but not my 30ish ones. Those 30sec scores happened with a bug in the app when it started. ;) I cannot seem to get under 40sec now. Maybe soon :P

I'm working on memorizing the freboard myself at the moment. I'm working with a book called "Guitar Fretboard Workbook" by Barrett Tagliarino. Everything you've said SebastBerg he mentions in there. Additionally, he suggests writing things down on paper as further reinforment. The daily routine he suggests is to spend a week on each note. So week one, concentrate on A, week 2 B, etc. Each day during that week, spend 5 minutes locating every occurance of that note on the fretboard and say out loud "E on the 4th string 2nd fret, E on the 5th string 7th fret" etc. The accidentals are relatively easy since they are only a fret off the natural.

This is very similar to what SebastBerg is doing, but it gives you a variation on it.

Something else that is important is learning your alphabet backwards. Quick...what's before G? No, not A, F. Maybe it's just me, but this would mess me up. I've gotten better at it. In your idle thoughts, just say the alphabet backwards from G to A.

SebastBerg - my goal in all of this is to do exactly what you are talking about - sounding less "scaley" and learn the chord tone soloing technique. It's nice to get further confirmation that I'm on the right track :-).

Originally Posted by: maggiorAdditionally, he suggests writing things down on paper as further reinforment.

(working through the same book) I did this with the pentatonic scale. At some point, I just got fed up with not being 100% certain on all five patterns. I knew them back to back, when practicing them, but not so well individually. I followed his steps, wrote them out until I could write them out with needing to figure out anything... I simply knew the pattern. Sure enough, it made it so I knew the patterns by heart on the fretboard. I can also write out all the patterns of the major scale by memory too, but still need to refresh every now and then. The writing out thing really helps.

Coincidentally, I found a game on-line called "Fretboard Master"... I played it until it gave me the highest score possible. Don't know why, but it didn't translate to the guitar. I could play the game really well, but still struggled with naming the notes on the actual fretboard.

When I'm improvising, I tend to use the patterns more as a guide. I find with time you develop an intuitive sense as to what notes will sound like before you hit them... i still make mistakes, but most of the time I can hear the interval before I move to the new note. It does free up your creativity a lot.

I like the idea of naming the notes across each fret... but I think Sebast is on to something suggesting that a person get naming up and down the strings first.

I actually did the fretboard workbook you mentionned a year and half ago, so thats why you find "my method" similar ;) It really helped me a lot. I have the chord tone soloing book too that I just didnt find the time to read/practice yet but I'm groing impatient of opening it lol :)

Hmmm, thinking about it....what a lame excuse... I have no time pfff. Shame on me! Ok here I go ..... MI's Chord tone soloing by Barrett Tagliarino...page 1.

I'd also recommend MI's Guitar Soloing book. It reads like stereo instructions (well, not that bad) and has some cheezy jam tracks (which are great for their intended use), but its probably one of the best over-all texts I've ever seen. Some of the riff examples are a bit blah, but others are pure gold. It really covers what you may want to know as a lead player. I still haven't gotten all the way through it. Be warned though... what seems like an innocent page with a few diagrams represents a lot of work. For example, they show the five patterns of the major scale... "here they are... (that was easy). Learn these patterns across the entire fretboard, in every key (ok, I'll turn the page in about 3 months!)".

Tom Kolb's book on modes is great too... really simple. Just an explanation of each mode, some riffs to give you an idea of how to play the mode, and then a jamming track specific for the mode you're working on. All the riffs are played at half and full speed too.

I have the "Chord Tone Soloing" book, but I haven't really got into working on it yet (I did read all of the stuff about practicing). I got worried for a bit that paper books would soon go out of fashion, so I ordered a whole bunch of MI books. Really great stuff, and very reasonably priced. I am working on their Rhythm Guitar course in addition to lead stuff... its a great book too! (broken record I guess! :) ).

That's interesting Seb that you went through that book too. Makes sense.

Too many books and not enough time!! :-). I've been eyeing up the Rhythm Guitar book from MI too. Once I get established in my new routine, I'll see if it makes sense for me to go through that one in parallel since they are independent but equally important concepts.

Originally Posted by: maggiorI've been eyeing up the Rhythm Guitar book from MI too.

The Rhythm book is probably one of the easiest ones to incorporate into your practice routine. Unlike scale concepts, where you really need to cover the whole chapter and it gets your head swimming with a lot of info, the Rhythm Guitar book is really mellow. Starts with open maj chords, then minor, then 7th chords, then barre chords, along with some really simple strumming patterns. I only work on it 10 minutes or so at a time, but find its easy to progress, just bit by bit. Something like the modes book I find is almost the opposite; while easy to understand, you're learning the mode, in all its different positions, and then the licks, then trying to apply it all to the backing track, all of which can gobble up your practice time. I know what you mean though.. so much stuff to take in!

Just to mention, I LOVE MI's books, but they do have duds... I ordered one on legato, and in my opinion, its just too friggin hard. Some of the initial examples span 7 frets... huge reaches... I was disappointed that the author chose such demanding examples. Amazon reviews seem to be pretty good indicators for MI books.

OK, you pushed me over the edge - I'll be ordering that one soon. Books where it looks simple and you spend a month on a single page can be pretty discouraging. It's good to have one you can make steady progress through.

I already have a chord tone soloing book, well, it's actually called "Scales over Chords - foundation of melodic soloing" by Chad Johnson. I may dig into that before getting the MI book on chord tone soloing.

Ugh - just realized I own a Tom Kolb book on Music Theory. I'll have to check in on that as I go to see if it offers help.

Maybe I'll finally make use of all of these book I bought and left to collect dust.

thanks for the tip of naming the notes out loud,that i was not doin.i am improving ,i beet my record today on the fret board game by 1 min.it use to take me 2min 44 sec to get all 20 correct.today i did all 20 in 1 min 5 sec.thats good for me.but im comein at ya sebastberg,im gonna hit that 40 secound time lol. U rock bro..and i really never new how important is is to know all the notes on fretboard ,it makes playing alot more fun when u know were all the octaves are. Having alot of fun useing fretboard game...i encourage everyone to start learning all the notes on the fretboard..one thing i do that helps me is if im just hanging on the couch with out my Guitar i will start running all the notes i know in my head. And i learned all the notes on the 5 &10 frets,cause they are all natural notes.no sharps or flats.