#3
Originally Posted by:
ChristopherSchlegel
"One reason I stayed away from guitar and approach to piano before was the ability to see the shapes of white and black keys to understand chords and I can place my hands easily as it repeats on each octave. However, with guitar, It is nothing like the piano, so I would assume that learning the entire fretboard just to know where each note is form any guitar chords."
It is a little more difficult to visualize at first because the guitar fretboard makes no distinction between natural notes & accidentals. There is also the confusing issue of being able to play the same note in more than one place on the guitar. So, it's kind of like 6 small, linear overlapping keyboards!
But once you learn the pattern that the musical alphabet makes on the fretboard it's pretty easy to get around. And the guitar does have it's own version of repeating octaves.
Depending on your skill level here are some links to tutorials that will help.
C major scale for beginners.
https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/363
Then you can expand those major scale shapes in repeating octaves across the fretboard. This gets into intermediate level territory, so I only mention it here to show you what's possible.
https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/2643
Musical alphabet in the context of theory. Lesson 4 in particular.
https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/495
"I know the CAGED theory is what makes it easier to play chords as long as you are familiar with the shapes and play it around, since I know that you should just know the root and keep the chord shape as you go up higher."
Yes, and I prefer looking at the basic triads that form the CAGED patterns, so you see the fundamental chord tone patterns without the clutter.
https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/148
Once you get that much I have a whole series of tutorials on visualizing all possible major & minor triads & inversions across the fretboard.
https://www.guitartricks.com/collection/triads-and-inversions
"My question is there an actual technique or theory to know what each note of the chord you're playing WITHOUT learning the entire fretboard first? I know you should know scales like what is the 1,3,5 of a triad, but finding it as you go up the 6 strings rather than one single string is hard!"
Yes, that's how players that don't read or know much theory get around the guitar. They see the patterns of the triads & scales I linked above. But it's a lot of trial & error.
"Or should I be real that learning the entire fretboard is the only way for me to understand to play major7ths, 13ths, dominants, etc? Especially learning inversions confuse me!"
There's no reason not to learn the musical alphabet pattern. It only makes it easier to get around & understand what you are doing. Learn the basic pattern, apply it to one string or one section of the fretboard. Gradually expand it as you learn more. It's essentially just a simple pattern that repeats over & again across the fretboard.
Hope that helps!