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Fretboard Memorization and organization

Original E-mail:

From: Blane in Hawaii - "Can you send me lessons on how to memorize the fretboard? Thanks, Blane"

Memorize This! See ya!

No, just kidding. The above diagram may prove useful however for the struggling beginner and the experienced guitarist but just throwing the note names over a picture of a fret board (which I drew, thank you very much) may not help you without a little guidance, organization and a place to start. I do however recommend printing the above diagram or copying it down as it is an excellent reference for those of us who are into/venturing toward music theory. Now onward we push.

Click Here for an in-depth lesson on how to easily find notes on the fretboard. Once you figure this out it is only a matter of time before you start to memorize the notes.

Anarchy:

There are many ways the fretboard can be organized. Many guitarists just jump right into it and study a similar diagram as the one above. Most may think that this is not organization at all but simply chaos. You may be surprised however as this is not at all as hard as you are probably thinking. After all there are only 12 notes and 12 frets (the notes repeat after 12 in the same exact order the only difference is the octave of the note). Chances are you already know the notes of the open strings, E A D G  B e so from there you'd just organize the fretboard by string. Start on the low E string, memorize, and work your way to the B string because once you memorize the low E you already know the high e which only leaves you with 4 strings to memorize. Personally I think if you can do it this way, it's your best bet...it leaves you open for any theory you may learn in the future and if you already know the notes on the fretboard you can easily take it further and organize by triads.

Pentatonic:

Another way, probably the most widely used is organization thru the pentatonic scale. The pentatonic scale is pretty easy for the beginner to grasp because there are just 5 notes and the pattern is very easy to remember which is probably the reason for this. When I first started playing, the first scale I ever learned was the minor pentatonic and without even being aware I was doing it, I too organized the fretboard this way. Let's say you are playing an E power chord. It becomes apparent after you learn the pentatonic, when playing that E power chord you can solo over it with the E minor pentatonic. So every time you see that chord being played you know you could jump in and solo over it with the minor pentatonic, although there's a little more to it than that. Memorizing the relative minor pentatonic will help you even more in your quest for fret board memorization because you start to see how and why the pentatonic is formed and how the major scale fits into place. There are only 5 notes in the pentatonic and 5 positions (1 position that starts on each of these notes) and you know there are only 7 notes in a key (or more precisely, in a given major scale) so all you have to do to start memorizing is to learn the pentatonic scale's 5 positions and fill in where you can play those 2 extra notes  and you are more than on your way. Remember the beautiful thing about this is that you are really only memorizing patterns, not notes (although you're eventually going to have to know the notes).

Organization thru the pentatonic is a pretty simple and easy way for organization. To learn the pentatonic click here.

Triads:

As I mentioned earlier you can organize the fretboard by triads. Click on the red link to check out a quick briefing as to what they are.

Now that you know what a triad is you may wonder why it's useful to organize the fretboard around them. Triads are ultimately what defines the over all mood and tone of a song. Many believe the triad is one of the most important elements of music, including myself. If you viewed the section on triads you seen that there are 4 possible triads: Major, Minor, Diminished and Augmented. But, The major and minor are the only 2 that truly matter because of the 3rd interval. The 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 7th are major intervals and if you lower the major interval of a chord it is considered  minor. But the 3rd interval is the most powerful within a chord because it has the most character and overshadows everything else. NOTE:  by 'chord' I am not just talking about a chord you play on your guitar but a whole piece of music at one given time...after all if there are several different instruments playing at the same time but are playing different notes...that's a chord. --- Getting back on track--- Let me say it like this: The 3rd interval is the most important because it overpowers everything else and 'shades' or 'lightens' the over all sound. So the only two types of triads that have that much power are the Major (3rd) and a minor (b3rd). So when you organize the fretboard with triads you are organizing by the 1st, 3rd, and 5th note of the major scale...the 3 most important notes that define the tone of a song. So it only makes sense to organize the fretboard around such powerful devices in music.

The easiest way to get started organizing by triads is to check out the major scale, pick out the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of the particular key (Incase you didn't know: a key is defined by the major scale. All notes within the G major scale are in it's key and so on..) and memorize all of the places that they fall on the fretboard...you may even want to use the above diagram as a quick reference and plot them out on your guitar.

Last words:

Incase you haven't realized it, the number 1 reason (but not the only reason) for fretboard organization is improvisation. If you have an organized way of instantly finding what you're looking for, and just as importantly, know what to look for you'll never run out of juice and ideas as what to play with your buddy's / band's improvisational jam sessions. After all, that's what Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, and all of the other guitar greats have that sets them aside from  guitarists who can "play fast" but don't know what they're playing. That and they have real heart and experience not to mention tons of practice.

***** Update *****

I said above that the #1 reason for fretboard org. is for improvisation. As I take a second look at what I wrote I dare say that it may not be 100% true. Don't get me wrong, it will definitely help with your improv skills but I think it is just as important as for what it can do for your own song writing skills. Think about this: I used Vai and Satch as examples of guitarist's with good improvisational skills which they both posses. However, they haven't really gained their virtuoso credits from playing improv tunes. They write and arrange their own music with powerful musical devices known as theory and a major part of theory is an excellent understanding of the notes on the fret board. So in short not only will fret board memorization help you in improv situations, it'll help you be an excellent songwriter too. After all if you wrote the song chances are you'll be the best at playing it. Just a little something else to think about.

Well Blane and all the other viewers,  I hope that gives you a place to start. You got the power, use it.

Until next time,

JM Brown

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