Jump to content
HAPPY NEW YEAR, TO ALL OUR HARMONY CENTRAL FORUMITES AND GUESTS!! ×

Found a "Fretboard Memorizer" tool


scolfax

Recommended Posts

  • Members
Posted

Brother, that thing makes my head want to explode... I mean I get what it does, but seeing the neck riddled with dots is enough to make anyone shy away. It is neat ... but it would be neater to see it break the pattern out a bit. Just my opinion.

  • Members
Posted

"It is neat ... but it would be neater to see it break the pattern out a bit."

I'm glad you asked. I've been creating graphics for each mode in every key. They are in single octaves with the roots on the 6th, 5th, 4th and 3rd strings. (420 Scales) I like to learn them that way rather than the big boxes. It helps me keep in touch with where I am in the scale, so to speak. Here is the link: http://www.greenwichguitars.com/the_modes.htm

The method of selecting the scales is a bit low-tech. compared to the "fretboard memorizer." However, the big graphics with note-values included should utimately be easier to work with.

  • Members
Posted

 

Kinda neat:

 

 

From a tech design point of view this tool looks neat.

 

But you know what? I seriously think these tools are useless. What good is a picture of the whole fretboard, 58% of which filled with dots? How important it really is to display everything in different keys, when all you need to do is shifting?

 

This is certainly not useful for memorizing. You're so much better off gradually memorizing some key "shapes" like intervals, triads, chords, boxes or anything that works for you (not all of them are needed), and then move these "shapes" around the neck when applying them to different keys. That's enough for the visual memorization, then if you want to make it stronger, you can support it with music theory and ear training.

 

Having a visual layout of all notes everywhere is maybe good for reading it in real time when improvising. If you can do that with your eyes glued to the screen. But besides letting you stay "in tune" over a backing track, a complete fretboard layout will hardly even help you much learning which notes sound better on each chord.

 

Also, someone at the stage of learning the fretboard should probably focus first on the most useful areas of it, avoiding the rest.

  • Members
Posted

 

From a tech design point of view this tool looks neat.


But you know what? I seriously think these tools are useless. What good is a picture of the
whole
fretboard, 58% of which filled with dots? How important it really is to display everything in different keys, when all you need to do is shifting?


This is certainly
not
useful for
memorizing
. You're so much better off gradually memorizing some key "shapes" like intervals, triads, chords, boxes or anything that works for you (not all of them are needed), and then move these "shapes" around the neck when applying them to different keys. That's enough for the visual memorization, then if you want to make it stronger, you can support it with music theory and ear training.


Having a visual layout of all notes everywhere is
maybe
good for reading it in real time when improvising. If you can do that with your eyes glued to the screen. But besides letting you stay "in tune" over a backing track, a complete fretboard layout will hardly even help you much learning which notes sound better on each chord.


Also, someone at the stage of learning the fretboard should probably focus first on the most useful areas of it, avoiding the rest.

 

 

I pretty much agree with this. These things are all neat tools sure..do whatever works for you. If the goal is to "be able to identify every note on the fretboard instantly"....What worked for me was memorising interval shapes.

  • Members
Posted

Definitely take the dots/fretboard markers off the fretboard. It only clutters things further, plus you already have the frets numbered.

 

Other wise if someone is hell bent on learning this stuff the tool should work fine. They may go through some due diligence to sort out a fretboard full of dots but due diligence is par for the course. It could also be a good reference if someone is learning from another book and wants to cross reference something. Or if someone was on a gig and need an online reference.

 

Personally I'm good to go on all those scales, so I'm not your audience. But I remember the days when I would've been your audience and the tool would've been useful at the time.

 

Next you should do one on arpeggio's and chords. Like pick a Root, pick chord family/symbol. Then show it across the fretboard. It would be a great supplement to this tool.

 

I agree it would be like the Grimoire material, but free and online.

  • Members
Posted

Studying arpeggios was my way.................you're always on a chord tone. Do it long enough, and you get to remember the name of the note you're on. Then expand into the shapes.....root/octave, root/minor third, root/major third, root/fifth, minor third/fifth/seventh, and so on. It all starts linking up in your mind after the initial period when it all seems impossible.

 

 

I gave up with "tools".............better to spend time learning the fingerboard with a guitar in your hands.

  • Members
Posted

Forgot main point....

 

I think you have to learn diatonic theory first............then you can apply that to the fretboard. All this "learn the fretboard in day" stuff is meaningless..........even if there were a "system" enabling you to do this, you'd just know the name of the notes.

 

I could memorize 200 phone numbers if I put my mind to it........but it wouldn't help me to speak.

  • Moderators
Posted

 

I think you have to learn diatonic theory first............then you can apply that to the fretboard.

 

 

You don't "have to" learn Diatonic Theory first, but if you do - you'll have the foundation to organize the notes on the fretboard in functional / musical groupings. For me it was triads - voicings, inversions, arps and 2-octave arps. But the point was to learn the notes as groups of notes that serve some function.

 

In addition - start small. Don't start with trying to memorize every note on the fretboard. Start trying to learn (for example) every C major triad voicing & arp in every way imaginable in every corner of the fretboard. But just that one group of three notes. Later once that gets boring start working on the next major triad and later still the next. If you take just a little bite everyday, it will be manageable and you will start the process of learning. But if you spend too much time thinking how complicated the whole thing is - you'll never start and you'll never learn it. All it takes to reach a destination of one mile or a thousand miles is to start putting one foot in front of the other and don't stop until you reach your destination.

 

cheers,

  • Members
Posted

"All it takes to reach a destination of one mile or a thousand miles is to start putting one foot in front of the other and don't stop until you reach your destination."

 

 

You're a poster's dream, Jed!

  • Moderators
Posted

 

I gave up with "tools".............better to spend time learning the fingerboard with a guitar in your hands.

 

 

Even better then to learn the fretboard in your mind, no?

 

Soon after I started working to learn the fretboard, I determined that it was even better to know where the sounds are than to be able to identify some random fret location by note name. In the end, one skill builds the other but for me it was the specific focus on sounds as chord tones (scale degrees & & solfege syllables) that seemed to make the biggest difference.

 

cheers,

  • Members
Posted

Jed.....

 

....any chance of the (your) definitive post on how to nail the fretboard?

 

....pretty please.

 

Eminem...."You got one shot................."

 

 

 

As you see it, of course. I know that few things can be "definitive".

  • Members
Posted

Even better then to learn the fretboard in your mind, no?


Soon after I started working to learn the fretboard, I determined that it was even better to know where the sounds are than to be able to identify some random fret location by note name. In the end, one skill builds the other but for me it was the specific focus on sounds as chord tones (scale degrees & & solfege syllables) that seemed to make the biggest difference.


 

I feel like they are both skills, and both needed (and probably feed one another).

 

But I do feel that one doesn't substitute for the other. It actually does seem to be important to know instantly where a note us by name, as well as to know where a sound is instantly. These are used in different applications. The latter is where you are hearing the music in your head and playing it. A big part of the dream. But the "know where a random note is by name" is used when applying theory to your playing. JonPac's recent lesson would be in my mind the classic example of that. There appeared to be creativity driven by theoretical knowledge. Or if not creativity, then at least exploration.

 

One thing that has surprised me very recently is how it is that "suddenly" I find myself quite accomplished at the "sound to fretboard" thing.

 

Just the other day I started to transcribe a new solo, and started with the first phrase (as you do :) ). I pressed play then pause, then reached for the fretboard and found my finger in the exact right spot. I was playing the note I just heard. Whoa! I thought "a nice fluke", and moved on. It was only the next day or so where I noticed it again though - I was maybe a semitone out, but I put my fingers pretty much where the note was that I was hearing. I can only put this down to the continual practice of transcribing finally taking hold.

 

I need the same thing for note-by-name. I'm hoping that sight reading is it.

 

I've found that sight reading simple melody lines is _not_ it though. I was surprised to discover how easy sight reading a melody line is without having to know what notes I'm playing!! I would sight read the first note and find it on the guitar, and from there find myself reading intervals, not notes! Up one up one down 3 up one kind of stuff. Too easy, not learning anything!

 

So now I am making sure I have arpeggios and other "widely spaced" notes to read, making it necessary to read each note.

 

GaJ

  • Members
Posted

I think sight-reading is the bees' knees..........can't get enough of it at the moment. I'm slow, still, but the rate of my progress continues to enthrall me.

 

Don't shy away from it.....that's my advice. It's a skill, to be learned.....and enjoyed.

  • Moderators
Posted

 

Jed.....


....any chance of the (your) definitive post on how to nail the fretboard?

 

 

I'm largely self-taught relative to the guitar, but I was fortunate enough to have studied music as a vocalist at college in Boston. By the time I got serious about the guitar (25+ years after leaving Boston), I already had a solid background of music studies, so I approached the guitar in terms of what I already understood about music.

 

My musical perception is based on triads. IMO everything in music stems from and can be reduced down to triads - closed voicing inversions & arpeggios - are extended to get 4-note voicings, 7th chords, extended chords, pentatonic scales and 7-note scales and modes - in a variety of fingerings.

 

I started with 2-octave triad arpeggios. I reverse-engineered the seven positional major scale fingerings that I knew, to find nine 2-octave triad arpeggio fingerings. I used those 2-octave arpeggio fingerings - singing the note names as I studied the note locations - to learn the fretboard and the various chord voicings. I was diligent about learning every 2-octave triad arp fingering relative to one or more chord voicing for each chord type in every key and in every corner of the fretboard.

 

This of course is more than a trivial amount of work. But the process tied together the fretboard, chords, scales, modes, chord functions, chord substitutions, voicings, pentatonic scales, knowledge of keys and ear training together in a way that worked like a silver bullet for me. YMMV, everybody is different, . . but that's my story.

 

cheers,

  • Members
Posted

 

I need the same thing for note-by-name. I'm hoping that sight reading is it.


I've found that sight reading simple melody lines is _not_ it though. I was surprised to discover how easy sight reading a melody line is without having to know what notes I'm playing!! I would sight read the first note and find it on the guitar, and from there find myself reading intervals, not notes! Up one up one down 3 up one kind of stuff. Too easy, not learning anything!

Not sure I follow you here. Notes are only a step on the way to learning how to play. They are labels that you can eventually dispense with.

If you can sight read and bypass the need to identify the notes, that's a GOOD thing; you are saving yourself a step. You can translate notation directly to the fretboard.

 

Of course, the note labels help with theoretical analysis and understanding - but again that's only a step on the route to the ultimate control of what you are playing. You say your ear is already much improved from transcription exercises: you can find a note you hear without much trouble. You don't need to name it first, right?

 

That combination of ear-to-fretboard, and notation to fretboard, is ultimate musicianship - at least for a guitar player.

 

I'm not saying knowing the note names is unimportant. It takes you beyond the guitar, into a broader, literate musicianship. But it can be a later process.

 

I can't quite sight read as fast as I would like; and I can't quote hear notes as accurately as I'd like. But identifying their names doesn't help with either process.

As an analogy, it's like being able to speak a foreign language. You don't need to know how the words are spelled if you know what they mean and can pronounce them properly.

(It's not a perfect analogy because of course reading the language - and seeing the spelling - can help. We naturally see the letters when we do that. In music notation we just see blobs and signs; the note letters are an intermediate stage between the page and the fretboard - and ideally an unnecessary one. IOW, it doesn't matter what the notes are called, if we can interpret the blobs direct to the fretboard.)

 

In short, the note names are to help us TALK about the music (or write about it) - not to help us PLAY. The former is highly useful - of course! - but the distinction is important.

  • Members
Posted

Thanks, Jed!

 

I seem to be taking a similar route towards fitting it all together......as you say, it is not a trivial amount of work. As a result of all my searching the web for help, it eventually became obvious that the figuring out of arpeggios is a logical starting point. Arps study is good also for the fingers....moving around on arps is more challenging than just doing scales. But I start a practice with a scale, for a few minutes, and then sequentially drop each arp note from that scale, until I am playing only non-chord tones. Then I bring back in each arp note, again sequentially, whilst at the same time dropping a non-arp note, until I have just the arp left. Then I start playing the chord, and pick out the arp notes, in different positions.

 

As you say, there's no "standard" way of learning the fretboard and all of the rest......I happen to enjoy doing what I do, so it's easy to pick up the guitar and do it.

  • Members
Posted

 

Jed.....


....any chance of the (your) definitive post on how to nail the fretboard?

Just to add to Jed's advice with my own experience.

It was a longish process for me, but I had no plan, no learning strategy or goal. All I wanted to do was play songs. I was in a band 9 months after I began, well before I knew much about the fretboard above 5th fret. Not because I was a fantastic player by then (in fact I was relegated to washtub bass) - but because they were friends. But that experience taught me what mattered and what didn't. There was certainly no need for extensive scale pattern knowledge in that band! I did play guitar with them sometimes (as well as self-taught banjo and mandolin), but it would have been all cowboy chords.

But I also spent a lot of time transcribing from records, particularly fingerstyle tracks where the player used a capo in various places. That showed me that a familiar open position chord shape could be a different chord when moved up the neck; and also how the same chord sound could be produced by a different shape in a different position.

 

This amounted to the CAGED system, although I wasn't aware of it as such at the time. But I quickly became aware of those patterns, and how arpeggios (another term I didn't know) linked up the neck. It wasn't rocket science - not difficult or confusing.

 

IOW, all of it came from CHORD SHAPES, as well as transcribing stuff I liked. (If the notes went up the neck, then so did I. In fact, I was exploring melodies up around 12th fret early on, thanks to reading books of Shadows tunes.)

It probably took a few years before I knew every note everywhere - and maybe a few more before I could go straight to any note anywhere as fast as my fingers would allow. But I was in no hurry. I was doing gigs and having fun on the way - and managing to improvise well enough when required, with the (little) knowledge I had at every step. (I would just play off the chord shapes I knew.)

  • Members
Posted

 

I've been creating graphics for each mode in every key. They are in
single octaves
with the roots on the 6th, 5th, 4th and 3rd strings. (420 Scales) I like to learn them that way rather than the big boxes. It helps me keep in touch with where I am in the scale, so to speak. Here is the link:

 

 

This is very cool. I've put together an 'idiots guide' for lead playing since I was asked and realized I needed to woodshed as well as just spout theory. I also realized most modes were of little interest when playing professional bar music in only the few keys that accommodate my voice. Therefore the trap is set to play the same lead over and over again... so thanks. I still like to expand my thinking even if my leads will never expand beyond what Mark Farner did years ago (which all in all is still kind of cool).

  • Members
Posted

To JonR.....

 

I found it comforting to know that achieving fretboard proficiency took you quite a while. It's taken me a while, too, and I still have a long way to go.

 

I'm curious to know how much theory you knew at the time you were learning the fretboard. Further, do you feel that a good knowledge of theory helps in the task, by making some sense of what you are trying to do?

  • Members
Posted

 

To JonR.....


I found it comforting to know that achieving fretboard proficiency took you quite a while. It's taken me a while, too, and I still have a long way to go.


I'm curious to know how much theory you knew at the time you were learning the fretboard. Further, do you feel that a good knowledge of theory helps in the task, by making some sense of what you are trying to do?

I could read notation (which I learned at school before I started guitar), and I think I must have had some idea of the major scale. I had no theory knowledge other than that - except of course what I learned from learning songs: which was a considerable amount.

IOW, right from the start I was picking up the "common practices" of how chords go together (in progressions and in keys), and how melodies go with chords. You can't help but absorb basic theoretical principles by doing that. Most of it came from reading songbooks (I bought and borrowed stuff by the Shadows, Beatles and Bob Dylan, mainly), some from transcription. (I only did that because published notation wasn't available; but I came to enjoy it.)

 

I'm not sure I'd say my theoretical knowledge (such as it was) helped with learning the fretboard per se. Of course I learned to name the notes up there as I went - and labels are always useful! But theoretical concepts beyond that (the C major scale formula) weren't necessary.

IOW, if you know the formula for the notes ABCDEFG, that's really all you need. Everything can be calculated and counted from that. Chord shapes (and arpeggios) obviously offer usefully memorable shapes and patterns on top of that. They can act as markers on the map.

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...