Hi Everyone!
I have been checking the site, and have found tht mostly lessons are about beginners, and how to know ur guitar & stuff. But
not much is been said about working on intermediate & advanced techniques. So herez my contribution to it.
Here, I will assume that u know how ur guitar works, know basic chords, some theory abt chord construction and triads etc.,
scales, and stuff like that.
Notes on the Fretboard:
The first thing u will need to know is ur fretboard. Well there are not many shortcuts to get over this problem, but I will
share some that I use and prefer.
First one is using ocataves. It has already been quite nicely elaborated by Amit here. I will copy-paste it here for
convenience. Those who have read it, skip to the next chapter:
The easiest way to learn the fretboard is to find a way to co-relate every note with some other known note. How good it will
be to relate such notes with there octave counterparts? Below is the octave technique which will enable to you quickly tell
the name of the note you are playing by simple and fast calculation.
Those who dont know what is octave here is a simple example:
A B C D E F G A* : Guess what, A* is octave of A, Got it?
There are 6 strings in a guitar, if you dont know there name here are they:
1. e
2. B
3. G
4. D
5. A
6. E
1st is the thinest one and 6th is the thickest one.
We will start with learning notes on strings 6 and 5 and then using simple corelations we will findout notes on strings 4,3
and 2. I am not going to tell you how to learn notes on string 1, guess why? Com'on 1 is the higher octave version of 6 so
notes will going to remain the same
So lets start learning notes on upper string E:
What you have to learn first is to memorize that how two consecutive notes (A B, D E, C D etc) are organized on a fret.
Answer is that any two consecutive notes are separated by a gap of one fret except pairs B C and E F.
Here is how they will look on frets:
A_BC_D_EF_G_A_BC_D_EF_G <- you can see all notes are separated by a gap (= one fret) except BC and EF. This is true for any
intrument, whether its a guitar or a piano. (Have you notices two consecutive white note on a piano without a black one in
between them? They are because of the above reason)
So now we know how notes are layed out with respect to themselves, time to look at the notes of string E (6th string, upper
one, thickest one)
---1---2---3---4---5---6---7---8---9---a---b---12--d---e-- <- frets number
e|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-e-|---|---|
B|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-B-|---|---|
G|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-G-|---|---|
D|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-D-|---|---|
A|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-A-|---|---|
E|-F-|---|-G-|---|-A-|---|-B-|-C-|---|-D-|---|-E-|-F-|---|
Any confusion on why I have denoted the notes on E string as shown? What I have done is that since open note is E so next
fret should represent F (remember E & F without any gap) then next note which is G will be one fret apart and so on.
Note that 12th fret is the higher octave of 0 fret (open strings) and hence notes will repeat in the same order after this
point, got it? If yes then move on else repeat.
So question you will ask me that how will I remember these positions and there notes? I dont want to start from first note
and calculate again and again. My answer is that if you are totally new then you dont have any other option except to
practice and learn these positions and notes but if you know playing bar chords then I can make your life much easier. Here
is the tip:
Play a bar-chord X, the note pressed by your index finger on string 6th is the note X. How simple it was? I am not
elaborating it, try by yourself. Believe me if you do this once you will crack the notes very fast.
Since by this time you must have learned the notes on string 6th, I am going to tell you the secret of how to you this info
and find out notes on strings D and then B. Fun part with this secret is that more you tell about it more you keep it close
to your heart. So here is the secret:
Remembered, I talked about something called octave notes? You got me right, now is the time to explore its power. What I am
going to tell you is that for a given note X on string 6th, where is its octave on string D.
Look at the picture:
---1---2---3---4---5---6---7---8---9---a---b---12--d---e-- <- frets number
e|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
B|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
G|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
D|---|---|---|---|---|-X-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
E|---|---|---|-X-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
I have omitted all the redundant information from above picture. Lets concentrate only on two X I have written there. X on
the string 6th is the note that you already know (have you not learned that from above post?) and X on the string D (4th
string) is its higher octave.
How simple it was, right? Two frets right and two strings down, thats it. You have not realized so far but you have learned
all the notes on the string D which is string 4.
Now close your eyes and repeat the secret in your mind and heart three times. Oh..I am watching you have not done that so
far. Please do that and come back to read on...

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