music notation along the fretboard

Playing tunes in more than one place is a great way to improve your reading!

There are a few ways standard notation shows position:

1. Position marks can be placed above or below the staff. These are commonly Roman numerals, and may be preceeded by "C" (an abbreviation for the Spanish 'cejilla' which means capo). So you might see VII or CVII for 7th position. You might also see a simple text notation like "7th position" or an abbreviation like "7th pos." Sometimes position marks are accompanied by a horizontal line - sometimes written as a broken line - extending over the section to be played in that position; other publishers simply mark the start of a new position.

2. An arabic number inside a circle is a string number. You may see this over or under a single note, and you can infer the position from that - if you saw a '3' in a circle over a D note on the 2nd highest line, you'd be in fifth position.

3. Sometimes you'll see the word 'sul' followed by a string name over a passage, as in "sul G". This tells you the passage is to be played on just that one string - and from that, you can infer the positions required.

But standard notation often doesn't have any of these marks, because it's not like tab - standard notation shows you the pitches to be played, and leaves the fingering up to you. The only real limits you have on where something can be played will be the highest and lowest notes of a passage. So if a melody has a range of the staff without ledger lines (bottom line E to top line F) you could play it in any position from 1st to 13th (in 13th position, you'd be reaching back one fret for the E on the 6th string, 12th fret).

Some of these positions will be easy, and some will be hard. That's going to depend on the key signature and any accidentals in the music. As a general rule of thumb, the easiest positions for a key will have the root note on the 5th or 6th string under your 2nd or 4th finger - so if you're in the key of C, that's 2nd, 5th, 7th or 12th position. A bit harder will be any position with the root under the 1st finger on the 4th, 5th, or 6th strings (in C, that's 3rd, 8th, or 10th position). If the root is under the 3rd finger on the 5th or 6th string (6th or 13th position in C) you'll probably find yourself stretching for a lot of notes.

Anything will be easy in first position, because you can use the open strings - it's the only position where you can play in every key, as long as you don't go over A (first ledger line above the staff). And every major key will have one position where it's simply not worth playing... I call this the 'guitar gap', and it's three frets above the 6th string root: in the key of C, 11th fret is pretty useless, because there aren't any notes in the key on that fret - your first finger will have nothing to do!

But those are just general guidelines. Put a few accidentals in the music and the 'easy' positions can become quite tough, and the hard ones very playable. The only real way to find the 'best' position for a specific piece or passage is to try a bunch of them, and choose what's most comfortable for you.

There is sure to be a much better response to your question... but for now... here is mine.

Stick to what you are doing right now... the top 4ish frets. Once it becomes natural to you, you can start moving up.
There are lots of books out there to help you do this... Fretboard Logic for example.
But, overall... try not to take on too much at once and take it slow.
There is a symbol to move up an octave ("8va")... but I don't think that is what you are asking.

Many notes can be played in many different places all over the fretboard in the same octave (key?) - where you play a note depends on the other notes that you are playing and which location works best.

If you want to see a good example of using all the notes on the fretboard... search on YouTube for "Adam Rafferty" and his cover of "I want you back". He maintains a bass line/beat through the song moving up and down the fretboard. All the while, he is playing the melody wherever his hand happens to be - and the octave/key (????) doesn't change. Personally, I think it is amazing. If he wasn't playing the bass line, his hand would hardly have to move at all.

Another story... my wife reads music fluently. She has never played the guitar. When I was learning early on, she decided to pick it up and play one of the songs I was learning. It was a very simple song and stayed within the first 3 frets in the lesson. She took the music from me, asked the notes of the 6 guitar strings and after a minute played the song perfectly note for note. It sounded exactly like I was playing it - BUT, she was only using two strings. When I played it, my hand hardly moved - just a few finger movements. But, she was swinging her hand up and down the fretboard like crazy. And, it sounded exactly the same. Obviously, it was a very in-efficient way of playing, but it worked.