Mastering the fretboard!

Here are a couple of exercises, that I was taught will help you master the fret board. Probably a lot of you already know these, but I haven’t seen anything on here about it or even really on the Internet. So I figured I would put it up cause it might help some of you, as it has helped me a lot with my playing. I think a really important one to learn is the chromatic scale exercises’. This is also good for warming up with, and gaining dexterity and control. Here’s how these exercises’ work.

Exercise 1:

Play this as it is tabbed, using all four fingers in succession from index to pinky. Also, if you notice there are five notes played on the high E, just slide up to the last note using your pinky. (Note: If you tune differently, I suggest using the tuning you use mostly and just figure out the chromatic scale, and resume the exercises.)

E:--------------------------------------------------1-2-3-4-5--
B:----------------------------------------2-3-4-5--------------
G:------------------------------2-3-4-5------------------------
D:---------------------3-4-5-6---------------------------------
A:-----------4-5-6-7-------------------------------------------
E:--5-6-7-8----------------------------------------------------

And while your playing this for the first couple of times, say the notes as your playing them until you know them quite well. (Note: when your playing up the scale, say all the accidentals as sharps.) This will help you memorize all the notes on the fret board, a plus in my book.

Now you play them back down, using your fingers in succession from pinky to index. This time you can slide either your pinky or your index finger on the high E, it doesn’t really matter. And instead of saying the accidentals as sharps say them as flats this time.

E:--5-4-3-2-1---------------------------------------------------
B:--------------5-4-3-2-----------------------------------------
G:------------------------5-4-3-2-------------------------------
D:----------------------------------6-5-4-3---------------------
A:--------------------------------------------7-6-5-4-----------
E:------------------------------------------------------8-7-6-5--

Another note, you don’t have to necessarily start with the 5th fret. You can start this on any fret as long as you keep it in the chromatic scale. I recommend practicing it on three different frets all the way though, I use the 5th fret, the 12th fret, and the 15th fret. You choose which ones you want to start with. And once you master saying all the notes as you play them, you can stop doing that and you can work on playing it a little faster. Until you completely master it.

Exercise 2:

Another exercise you should do, is the same scale but on just one string. You don’t need to practice with all the strings if you don’t want. I’m going to use the low E as an example. Here’s how it works, play this as tabbed.

E:--0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-16-15-14-13-12-11-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0--

Play all these notes going up using the succession index to pink for every four notes (except the open E) and repeat this up to 16 and just use your pinky to slide up to 17. Then go back down using the succession pinky to index for every four notes again, until you reach the end. I think you get what I’m saying. And yeah at first you should say each note just like in the first exercise, until you memorize each note on the fret board.

I usually practice each of these exercises for about 5 minutes, before I start shredding away. This is a really good way of warming up your fingers, especially if you play a lot of leads and/or solos. I recommend if possible to at least try going through each exercise once before you play a live show, but everyone warms up differently and not everyone has time.

Now here are the levels. DO NOT go to the next level until you can play all the way through an exercise 5 times in a row perfectly at the highest tempo. (NO sliding, No hammer-ons or pull-offs) For the first exercise you must be able to play all the way through starting on 3 different frets, and they must be separated by at least 3 frets. For the second exercise, playing on only one string is all that’s necessary. Then once you have done this, you can move up to the next level.

Beginner should play a note on each beat at 120 to 220 bpm.
Novice … at 220 to 340 bpm
Advanced … at 340 to 460 bpm
To Master you must be able to play it at 480 bpm

Once you have mastered each exercise perfectly, and you think you’re now the sh#t. There is still one more test. Some of you may have heard of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee, and if you have every seen anyone play it. You know how f##king sick it is. If you can learn to play this on guitar then it’s safe to say you have mastered the fret board. Since, they say if you can play this on piano you have mastered the piano. Below is an address to a MP3 site where Aaron Harris plays it on distorted guitar, so you can hear it. Good Luck!

Go here…http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/165/aaron_harris.html

Also, if anyone has any tips or good exercises that they use and would like to share. Please let me know about them, cause I’m looking to share with everyone’s different techniques to increase all of our playing abilities. Happy Strumming!

If I recall correctly there are similar exercises in the acoustic section.

I looked for in the acoustic section, but I didn't see it anywhere. Maybe it is in there somewhere, but after the first 2 pages I said F##k it. But if it is, that's kool too. I apology to whoever wrote it, I didn't know. I know you can find this exercise anywhere, but I have never seen it laid out in this way. With different levels, and the idea of saying the notes as you are playing them. It's a good way to learn your guitar. Plus it's slow but progressive way to build up to playing "flight of the bumblebee". Which is a pretty sick piece, and it's a good accomplishment for a solo guitarist. Especially those who like the really fast solo's like yngwie's.

Hey thanks for that post i know its gona help me, its 1:30 am right now so i can't really play, and i don't entirly understand everything u said but 1ce i start ta pratice that in the morning i know its gona help me big time cause i am a begginer and all. Man i wish practacing was my x's mado, but no, "you're not meeting my needs" she says first time around, opps nm, ummm...forget what i just said but thanks for the practacing thingies.


[Edited by OverCorupted on 08-09-2002 at 03:38 AM]

Your welcome, OverCorupted. I hope this does help you alot, and I wish you well on your practicing. If you have trouble understanding something just ask me, and I'll clear it up for you. Take it easy.

Hey i've been playin a lil more of that stuff up there, and my index fingure is feelin like its gots cuts all over it, i'm pretty sure that's normal, how long does it take for my fingers to stop hurting from me playing?

Yeah man, this is completely normal. Your fingers will become sore especially if you are just beginning, cause your fingers are still really tender and rubbing them across the strings when you’re playing is irritating them. It’s sort of feels like you cut yourself on the strings. I would not worry about this, cause your fingers will eventually build callists to protect them. If it becomes too painful, stop playing for the rest of the day; just resume the next day, and if you play regularly, this pain should subside within 2-4 days.

hey u know how u said say the notes as u play them, what do u mean? and would u recomend a good site where i can learn to read regular music, music sheet or sumthing like that i think its called, i mean the kind u always find it books with the 1/4th notes thje funky S or C at the begining.
Thanks...

Ok here’s a site where you can see what I mean by the notes on the fret board. Just print it out and keep it close so you can refer back to it, when you need too. Once you see this diagram, I think you will understand what I was saying before about saying the notes when you play them. So just check out that site, and cruise through it cause there is some other good info too.

http://www.gtrdan.com/gtrfbrd.htm

About learning to read music, there really aren’t any good sites to learn how to do this efficiently. Most just touch on the basics, cause this is such an in depth subject There is software that you can download to help you learn this though. Some of it is free, here’s a good site where you can find just about any music software out there today.

http://www.hitsquad.com

Once you go there, click on Music Software. It will then take you to another screen, then click on “whatever link fits what you are looking for”, in the case of Learning to read music, Click on Music Tuition. Then it will ask you what System your running, after you click on the one you have, It will give you a list of all the programs available for download. When you find one you like, before you download it make sure its either Shareware or Freeware. Demos and trials don’t really help you that much. They are good to try out, if you are maybe interested in buying the program but there are free ones.

P.S. Make sure when you download something, run Virus scan before installing it.

What kind of notes is it, is it 8, 16, 32? I belive it´s 16 notes (those chromatic scales).

Now, I would love to see a guy play a chromatic scale (16-notes) at 480 bpm. Than I don´t mean playn´ with an electric drill.

By the way that Bumblebee stuff, I have learned it to play but the John Petrucci way from Once in A Live Time. I think that he does it around 210 bpm (16-notes) but I can get it pretty tight at 260. I cand imagine how it would sound at 480 bpm?

PS: All notes should be picked with a plectrum.

Hey Dejan, I understand where you’re coming from but I believe you missed something I said in that post. When I talk about the speed of playing, no one can even come close to playing 16th notes at 480 bpm. What I said was, “Beginner should play a note on each beat at 120 to 220 bpm.” That means play a note each time you hear the “tick”. What I meant was quarter notes (4/4 time). I may not have been completely clear on that, I apologize. I believe the time signature for the chromatic scale is in common time. I didn’t mean playing it to a 16 note rhythm (4/16 time), haha. I would love to see someone even try to attempt that. And in this aspect, most metronomes don’t go up to 480, to achieve this make the denominator an 8 instead of a 4. Meaning 8 ticks per measure, and then just slow the bpm to 240. If you metronome doesn’t go up to 240 (I don’t see why not, but if it doesn’t), make the number 16 instead of 8 and put the bpm at 120. So if you’re playing it by 16th notes, the highest-level BPM is only 120. I think you can see what I’m saying. The reason I put it this way is because it’s easier to follow if playing with each tick. Especially for beginners, cause most don’t even know what a 16th note is. It just clears all that confusion out. And if you can play it in a 16th note rhythm at 260 bpm then you really don’t have to worry about this exercise. I can only play it at 200 bpm, but than again I’m playing it on bass. A little tricky’er.

Dejan Sajinovic, I remember you bragging about your chromatics and flight of the bumblebee some time before... but when are we actually gonna hear something besides your big mouth ?

I'd love to hear your version too nothicingthemistake...

hey man, I'd love to put it on here, but I don't have it recorded and I'll probably never record it. It just doesn't sound quite as good on bass, cause it's alittle out of my basses range. It's just too much transposing it up and down octaves. Maybe once I get a 7-string bass I'll record it.

Ofcourse you are...

I wonder why people say they can play a complete masterpiece, but haven't managed to play it correctly (yet). Doesn't that make you someone who CANT do that piece ? Oooh, my mistake. I must be a bad informed man then...

Oh and by the way. It's really nice of you posting your personal excercises here in the beginnerssection, but... I don't know if you are around here alot, but if you are you will surely know people here just ask their question without thinking of the 'search' function. So it happens VERY OCCASIONALLY some one asks the same thing as soon as the thread that that dude needed info about vanished to the next topicpage. As soon as your post had bumped down to page 2, well, let's just say it will vanish in to cyberspace like it never existed. I wonder how many people actually tried your excercises. I think you'll have enough with one hand to count them on. Ofcourse I'm not saying you to stop doing this stuff ! NOT AT ALL ! PLEASE KEEP DOING SUCH COOL THINGS ! But do it where GT is for. Post em in the trickssection and with little soundfiles attatched (it's always nice to hear what the tutor means with his tab) so the maximum of people can enjoy it.

Hope I didn't scare you away ! Please come back some time :)

yes. it's lame. I deserve to die. It's played by me. Comments welcome. No, I can not play flight of the bumble bee. Only a little excerpt. Maybe I'll tab/learn the rest later.


*Click here for lame Bumblebee excerpt*

Ok, Gulder. I honestly did not get the point of you writing those last two posts. But I do like the enthusiasm you expressed for your distaste of my post. It really puts a smile on my face and a laugh here and there. Oh yeah, I can play that piece correctly. I just take the liberty of using the sudden chords played to transpose down an octave and continue. I believe this is allowed, it’s my interpretation of the piece, I mean look how many times other masterpieces were done this way. I believe Lizst was well known for this. But unless there is some Secret Law of Music that prohibits this, I find that you have no grounds on what your saying. It’s only your opinion and no offense my friend, it isn’t worth the Charmin I wipe my arse with.

I kind of agree with you on the aspect that most people don’t even think of the search button. I was unaware of it, until recently. Long after I even put up this post, and I was informed of it later by someone who wasn’t such a douche bag about it. I agreed with him on the fact that there’s should be something said about it when you sign up for this page. The same with the tricks section, and if you look at the date I registered, you will notice it is still August. So I guess I am pretty new at this. Again, I hope you don’t spontaneously combust from all the fiery emotion you put into this post. I did not mean to offend you by trying to put up something constructive and helpful to a beginner guitar player. I also apologize to those who have written more important posts that I may have bumped to the 2nd page. I will take what you said Gulder, and I will continue to write cool things. I just hope I don’t start writing whiney posts instead of something helpful and worth reading.

Stay cool Gulder.

Heh, I didn't mean to flame you :)

Actually my point was in stead of posting your trick on the forum, post your excercises in the 'tricks' section. I didn't mean you should have used the search button to search if anything like this was already done by some one. I think your trick will get much more appreciation in the tricks section then here. Altho' some **** keeps rating all the tricks with a less than five rating (2 is his preferable rating so it seems...), I wonder if he has the courage to tell wtf he is. So don't mind about that. Because... people these days don't think of the search button. I'm sure next week there will be a post with a topic like 'Good exercises to gain speed?'. Isn't that frustrating ? It is for me anyway. It's a nice forum, but let's not spend our (very useful :))time on responding to the same questions over and over again.

What do you mean with distaste ? That I don't like your posts ? Well... you're wrong. It's nice that people share the stuff they found very usefull in their guitarcareer. I mean, what could we have more ?

Seems like you got all my points wrong here. But I should try to explain myself a bit better ;)

Yeah man, I know it's hard to understand where someone is coming from when they right these posts. If you meant different then I apology for my end of it. It just seemed like you were bashing on everything I was saying. I mean you didn't really say anything kool, but I understand if you meant differently. Take it easy man.

P.s. Yeah try to explain yourself better, cause you really did seem like just another dickhead on those posts.

wait is

Noticingthemistake the same as that

Dejan Horse Raddish guy?

:D:D:D:D:D

Nope :D