How long were you playing, before you knew the notes on the fretboard?

[GammyBird]

I'm about 30 years in now and still don't know all the notes on the fretboard. I have the E and A and about 1/2 the D strings. I play by ear and feel no urgency to learn the rest.

[Nilitara]

This is my homework for the next fortnight!, I've been playing 6 months and my tutor says I'll really benefit from learning the fretboard.

[River]

Originally Posted by GammyBird

I'm about 30 years in now and still don't know all the notes on the fretboard. I have the E and A and about 1/2 the D strings. I play by ear and feel no urgency to learn the rest.

Watching Clapton solo got me working on the B string, and it really helped free me to move to other positions in the middle of an improvised solo.

[huw]

The notes on my fretboard say "Huw's guitar" and "Hand's off", but I have to take them off when I play.

[bsruther]

When you're playing a major barre chord, the third string down from the root is always the same as root, in either position. The capo helped me a lot to understand where root notes are. Learning the CAGED method helps too, but once you figure out what's going on with the capo, you've already learned CAGED, without knowing it. At least that's the way my feeble mind sees it.

[QuicksilverSS]

Originally Posted by GammyBird

I'm about 30 years in now and still don't know all the notes on the fretboard. I have the E and A and about 1/2 the D strings. I play by ear and feel no urgency to learn the rest.

I'm with you man. 30 + years and still playing by ear......
I'll get around to learning those note someday...

[jamman]

I've been playing so long (40+years) , I'm starting to forget the notes (not that I ever tried to learn them ) it was never about knowing what the notes were ,it was about playing .

[Thumpalumpacus]

Originally Posted by jamman

I've been playing so long (40+years) , I'm starting to forget the notes (not that I ever tried to learn them ) it was never about knowing what the notes were ,it was about playing .

The one step serves the other. You don't lose the ability to play the notes just because you learn them.

[android13]

Originally Posted by River

Nah. There are a lot more than that.

You can get different sets of 12 notes depending on how out of tune you are, too.

[fastdave]

Originally Posted by River

Nah. There are a lot more than that.

Yeh - there are only three chords...........everybody knows that.......

Dave

[jamman]

Originally Posted by Thumpalumpacus

The one step serves the other. You don't lose the ability to play the notes just because you learn them.

I disagree with your fist sentence . Knowing the notes in no way helps you to play them . Practice does , and more practice helps you play better . Studing more does what ? for your playing ability ?
By the time I stated playing guitar, I knew all the notes from playing Classical Trumpet for years and really didn't want to focus on things a already knew . Playing, on the other hand is always first . Knowing and doing are to different things . I'd rather play , than study

[Joe Dirty]

Made this today as I'm learning all the whole notes on the fretboard.

[OldGuy]

Notes? We don't need no steenk-een notes!

[AngryHatter]

Originally Posted by jamman

I disagree with your fist sentence . Knowing the notes in no way helps you to play them . Practice does , and more practice helps you play better . Studing more does what ? for your playing ability ?
By the time I stated playing guitar, I knew all the notes from playing Classical Trumpet for years and really didn't want to focus on things a already knew . Playing, on the other hand is always first . Knowing and doing are to different things . I'd rather play , than study

Does what?
It allows you the ability to discern that an A# in the key of A Maj will sound off, bad, out of key.
In any major key my ring finger does the work; in a minor my middle finger does.
Knowing what notes I play and using positions makes it effortless.

[joba]

Originally Posted by Joe Dirty

Made this today as I'm learning all the whole notes on the fretboard.

Thanks!

[st.bede]

I have played a number of instruments and I always find myself reading more from intervals the say note names but I will be the first to say my reading skills on guitar suck compared to on other the other instruments I played in the past.

[st.bede]

Originally Posted by GitFiddle

Good point. Does anyone ever practice guitar without the guitar?
Sometimes I find myself going over the fretboard in my head and visualizing how to play certain passages or progressions.

The guitar should haunt you so much that you find your self thinking about it when you and the ms. are making "music". I also find it nice to go over theory in my head when my boss is chewing me out.

All joking aside (but the thing about going over theory in my mind, I have done as my wife was yelling at me)... once you have some decent theory and some decent tech and some decent ear training, picking up the instrument can be secondary at times (just checking to make sure everything is working the way you think it should and listening for any "mistakes" that you did not notice originally).

Some of my best practice is done with out my instrument in hand.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Originally Posted by jamman

I disagree with your fist sentence . Knowing the notes in no way helps you to play them . Practice does , and more practice helps you play better . Studing more does what ? for your playing ability ?
By the time I stated playing guitar, I knew all the notes from playing Classical Trumpet for years and really didn't want to focus on things a already knew . Playing, on the other hand is always first . Knowing and doing are to different things . I'd rather play , than study

Playing and knowledge are handmaidens. As you learn, your playing improves; as you play, you learn more. I know I've benefited as a guitarist from my musical education. Knowing where to find the note I'm hearing in my head requires a couple of things, one of which is knowing what the note is. I'm not a big fan of "hunt-and-peck". Knowing where and how to find notes or intervals I want makes my playing fluid, rather than mechanical. Rather than wondering where the note I hear in my head is, I can concentrate on the physical attributes of the note: attack, sustain, vibrato, etc.

Practice is useful, but it doesn't make you a musician, any more than learning to type make you an author. If you wish to write a book, you need to know much more than the simple mechanics.

[CHUNKYNECK]

There's notes on a fretboard?

[AngryHatter]

Originally Posted by CHUNKYNECK

There's notes on a fretboard?

No, not in Australia.
Koalas, not notes.

[CHUNKYNECK]

Originally Posted by AngryHatter

No, not in Australia.
Koalas, not notes.

[Jeffguy]

I still don't know all the notes on the fretboard. I've actually never found it to be helpful. I know the notes on the 5th/6th/1st string for chording - but anything else that I'm playing I actually think of in numbers.
example: I get to position 1 of the major scale and play notes 5/4/2/7 etc.

That being said - If you are motivated enough to complete the project then do it! I've never been able to attack the "notes on a fretboard" project for more then 10 mins without getting up to do something else lol.

[AngryHatter]

Originally Posted by Jeffguy

I still don't know all the notes on the fretboard. I've actually never found it to be helpful. I know the notes on the 5th/6th/1st string for chording - but anything else that I'm playing I actually think of in numbers.
example: I get to position 1 of the major scale and play notes 5/4/2/7 etc.

That being said - If you are motivated enough to complete the project then do it! I've never been able to attack the "notes on a fretboard" project for more then 10 mins without getting up to do something else lol.

You already have learned them, albeit in an unconventional manner.

[Zack]

u mean like what every fretted note is? is this what you mean? i randomly was hitting the low e 5th fret and realized that is produced an A note (mind you i wasnt trying to hear what note it was producing it just sounded a whole lot like an open A...

[JLHooker]

Originally Posted by jamman

I've been playing so long (40+years) , I'm starting to forget the notes (not that I ever tried to learn them ) it was never about knowing what the notes were ,it was about playing .

I'm 65 and I started playing when I was 14.I learned from several old blues guys who didn't know what a note or chord was.I play by ear and I don't know what all the notes are.I do use barre chords and the notes in them,(whatever they are).

Hooker

[theWhiteKeys]

i am still just a beginner, but i honestly dont get this argument some are making. Why does learning where the notes are, or playing by ear have to be better than the other? Wouldnt it make sense that theres nothing but greatness to come from learning and mastering both?

I went to a guitar convention about 2months ago and one of the guys said something that really hit home with me. He said to learn all there is about music and theory, EVERYTHING. Then forget it ALL.

[Joe Dirty]

Made a rendering today of the first five frets. This has helped me a lot in memorizing the whole notes. Working on modeling the rest of the frets and will render it and post it up.

[Hotspur]

On another forum (or maybe this one, but I don't think so), somebody had a great comment. Something to the effect of:

Don't ask me to justify your decision not to learn things.

Many many players have found learning some method for navigating the entire fretboard very useful. Some players haven't. Will you find it useful? Probably, if only because very few* people do and then describe it as a waste of time.

(*Very few is not none. I have run into people who said they did it and saw no benefit. They are by far the exception, however.)

I'd always been competent on the E and A strings. That being said, just this last weekend I was in a little jam session where I realized that it was something that was limiting me. I was trying to keep referencing the chord tones, and I realized I was a little limited to playing the chord tones as they appeared in chord shapes I usually play. Everything else required more thought than I would like - that moment's hesitation which stops you from playing at the best of your ability.

So bam. Bought the Guitar Fretboard Workbook this week, as it's the gold standard everybody recommends for this. Two lessons in I already have some useful new tools for orienting myself as I move around the fretboard. And the work itself is pretty easy.

That being said, it's absolutely not an either-or thing when it comes to knowing the fretboard or training your ear. I'm as big an advocate for ear training as there is, and I think it's more important than most of the theory that everybody seems to eager to learn the moment they have some basic chords down. But there's no reason you can't, say, spend 10 minutes with the functional ear trainer and another 15 minutes with the Fretboard Workbook as part of your regular practice routine.

It all adds together and feeds off each other.

So don't ask what you don't need to learn. Learning how to instantly orient yourself in any position on the fretboard is a skill that many many musicians have found extremely useful. Chances are good that you will find it useful, too.

[JonR]

Originally Posted by huw

The notes on my fretboard say "Huw's guitar" and "Hand's off", but I have to take them off when I play.

Reminds me of that old jazz joke:
"Make it talk!"
"Hmm, it's saying "aargh, help, get your hands off me!"


Also reminds me of my favourite Brit avant garde jazz/blues guitarist Billy Jenkins. He plays a Casino with bits of tape stuck across the ends of the pickups. Getting close to the front of the stage, I could see that one was labelled "pink" and the other "blue"....
(I don't know what it means either... or maybe somehow I do...)

Enjoy Billy here:

Steve Morrison & Billy Jenkins "HERE IS THE BLUES!" Live 01 - YouTube

Steve Morrison & Billy Jenkins "HERE IS THE BLUES!" Live 01 - YouTube

(his solo begins at 2:40 ... [sigh] my hero...)

[huw]

Originally Posted by JonR

...Also reminds me of my favourite Brit avant garde jazz/blues guitarist Billy Jenkins...

... [sigh] my hero...)

Wow - I've never heard of him, but I really liked his solo! I'll keep an eye out for him.