Fretboard 101 Part 1 – Where Did I Put My E?

There are a lot of questions that pop up on the forum on a fairly frequent basis.

1. Did I get a good deal on this guitar?
2. Is this guitar any good?
3. Was David smart enough to copyright his hairstyle?
4. What chord do I get when I play these strings?
5. Which scales should I use and where should I play them?

The answers are:

1. Yes you did, if that guitar makes you want to pick it up and play.
2. Yes it is, if that guitar makes you want to pick it up and play.
3. If he was, he’d be a billionaire.
4. Why don’t you tell me?
5. It depends a lot on the answer to number 4.

Ok, so I answered number 4 with a question. I’ll go ahead and answer that one too. The reason you don’t tell me is that you don’t know what notes you are playing.

I have no idea why there is so much reluctance to learn the names of the notes and their positions on the staff. It’s easy. Give me 10 minutes a day for 10 days and you’ll know them all. You only have to learn it once. Your understanding of theory, chord construction, scales, songwriting, and progressions will grow astronomically. You’ll get a bruise on your forehead from slapping it and saying “Oh, I get it.”

Read this excerpt from Jamie Andreas’ article: Why Should I Learn To Read Music?

“IN GENERAL, everyone can only benefit by learning to read music. Believe me, if you DO have talent, if you have something to say as an artist, you are not going to lose it by developing your mental understanding of the “theoretical” aspect of music. The only people who will lose their artistic ability by education in music are the ones who didn’t have any artistic ability to begin with…

(Not being able to read music is)… like trying to learn grammar without being able to read words. You may be able to get some understanding if you find a creative teacher, but you will never achieve a complete or satisfying understanding of grammar in the way you would if you could read.”

There is nothing magical about to happen here, just brute force memorization. Do you think you can’t memorize which note corresponds to which fret? If I can, you can. Do you know your telephone number? Social Security Number? Home address? Work telephone number? Bank account? I rest my case.

It’s going to work like this. I’m going to explain a couple of things about the notes we are working with. I’m going to give you some exercises that will take less than 10 minutes per day. At the end of two weeks, you will be amongst the fretboard enlightened.

Here is what we are going to memorize.

Truth be told, we are actually going to memorize an octave above the high A.

Now you probably see two ways of selecting notes above, but really there are three: Standard Notation, Tab, and the note names. We will be using notation and names together.

I’m going to put the tab in to identify the note the first time you see it. Then you need to cover it up. I’m all for tab. I use it all the time. Here, though, it will work as a hindrance to your development. Don’t use it.

If you’ve read my bio, or the scary stories column, you know I used to be an actor. It’s very rewarding but the most difficult thing to do is memorizing lines. Some shows I had several hundred to memorize, along with stage direction, inflection, and timing.

There are a number of tricks to help you memorize, but you really have to find out what way works best for you. The one way that seems to work for just about everybody is figure out some relevance to the thing you need to know. Create a relationship between what you do know and what you need to know.

So here we go relationship building. You already know a lot more than you think. This week we’re going to plunge headlong into memorization with things you already have memorized.

But first to save a bit of bandwidth, I want you to read the beginning of David’s Your very own Rosetta stone. Stop at the section called “Accidentals will happen.” We’ll get to that later. Don’t get too hung up in note values, we just want to know the names of the lines and spaces and a basic familiarity with what standard notation looks like.

Okay, now that you have a basic understanding of the staff and the names of spaces and lines, we are almost done.

Do you know the names of notes on the open strings? Do you know how to tune your guitar string to string?

Wow, that was fast. Congratulations, you’re doing great. You already know 24 note locations.

“Huh? 24?” you say.

Yep, 24.

Let’s count ’em.

You know the open string names.

E – A – D – G – B – E

Here is how they look in notation and tab.

That’s 6 of them.

What happens at the 12th fret? Correct, it is the octave of the open strings. So the note names are the same, but where they sit on the staff is different.

12 fret – E – A – D – G – B – E

That is 6 more, so you have twelve under your belt now.

Where are the other 12 you know? Well, when you tune your guitar, you fret the string below the one you are tuning as a reference for the next string. So if you are tuning A you fret the fifth fret of the E string.

5th fret of E = A
5th fret of A = D
5th fret of D = G
4th fret of G = B
5th fret of B = E
5th fret of E = A

and amazingly an octave above is the same

17th fret of E = A
17th fret of A = D
17th fret of D = G
16th fret of G = B
17th fret of B = E
17th fret of E = A

Here are the every day exercises:

1. When you first pick up your guitar I want you to say the notes out loud as you pluck the open strings. I also want you to try to match the pitch of the note. No, you don’t have to sing. No, it doesn’t have to be pretty. Just try to get close.
2. As you say and play the note, visualize where it is on the staff. Get the picture in your head. For instance, low E is below the staff with three ledger lines above it. Low A is just under two ledger lines. If you can imagine the locations you are halfway there.
3. When you tune your guitar before playing, say the notes as you pluck both strings. Try to match the pitch. So you’d pluck the fifth fret of the low E and say “aaaaaa.” Then you pluck the open A string and say “aaaaa”..” These first three shouldn’t add anytime at all to your normal playing. You have to tune anyway right?
4. When you have finished practicing/playing go through the same thing again. Pluck the opens and say the name of the note, pluck the matching tuning note and say the name.

Here are the playing exercises. This is where the 10 minutes a day comes in. There are five exercises. Doing the math, it works out to 2 minutes each.

1. Speed doesn’t count.
2. Say the note as you play. Feel free to drop down an octave voice-wise at the top. Don’t strain yourself.
3. After you have run through the line once, cover the tab with a blank sheet of paper and keep playing.

This first exercise is just your open strings and the matching note on the string below.

This second exercise is an octave up from the first.

Now the fun begins. Although this will sound a tad odd minus F and C it gives you an idea of just how flexible you can be once you know the fretboard.

Where have you seen this one before? The frets have been changed to protect the innocent.

and finally:

That was a lot of reading and I promise next time things will be mercifully short of exposition. AND, we’ll have a two-for-one bonus. Memorize the low E string and I’ll throw in the high E for free.

Also check out… Fretboard 101 – Part 2