Originally Posted by: maggiorOK, I have to check this out myself. I find there are areas of the fretboard I know cold, but others I have to interpolate using octave patterns....

...I can pretty consitently get a perfect score on the fretboard trainer in about 1:20, so I'm getting there!!

I'm in the same boat. Regarding the trainer, I haven't used the one on GT, but I did use the one on Fretboard Master (www.fretboardmaster.com) which is quite good. It can be customized just to show specific strings which is kind of neat.

Thing is, I got so good at the game, could name all the notes it threw at me without making mistakes. But for some reason, it just didn't translate to the guitar. I was still pretty much "blind" when it came to naming notes I was actually playing.

I have done as Sebast suggested, taking scales or licks and naming or singing the notes as I play them... that seems to help a lot. I've also started creating flash cards in Anki. I don't try to figure the notes out. I flash the card, and if I don't get it instantly, I show the answer and move on. My thought is that I'm trying to build up instant recognition. If you show me A on the E string, or D on the A string, I immediately know it... there's nothing to work out. I just know that is the note. I think that has to be the end goal for the skill to be useful... you just have to be able to instantly know what note you are on at any given time. So with the flash cards, I'm trying to train myself that when I see a dot on the fretboard, I just immediately recognize it as note "x" because, well, that's what it is! No extrapolating, just instant recognition. It shouldn't be too hard.. I dated a girl that worked at Safeway back in the early 90's, and she had to memorize 100's of key codes for products. She learned them quite quickly.

Here's hoping! :)