Guitar Super System

Good evening,

I’m hoping someone can help. I turned 51 today and have been hacking around with Guitar for many years now. I’ve decided to finally learn this instrument and am dedicating time toward that journey.

I seriously need help learning the note on the Fretboard. It’s understood that I can get the same notes by going down 2 strings and up 2 frets for the same note as in a power chord and down 2 over 3 to compensate for rhe B string however I can not seem to remember what notes are where other than on the E and the A strings.

What methods worked for you? Any and all suggestions are truly appreciated. @Tyler - your help would be tremendous!

Thanks y’all!

John in Dallas

I would recommend learning where all of the E notes are first for example. That helps you learn the others relative to the one you know. If you know the E string notes, and you learn where all the E notes are on the fretboard, then you can apply the notes you know to that new section of the fretboard. The low E open+first 3 frets are E/F/F#/G. If you know the 7th fret on the A string is also an E, then you know the 8th/9th/10th are F/F#/G just like what follows the open E.
This worked for me. Once I got that down, then I can find all the A notes and apply the same system. At that point, you'll know almost the entire fretboard and be able to fill in the gaps.
Another big thing is to remember that E to F has no sharp/flat in between and neither does B to C. So if you're counting the frets and remember those two outliers, you'll be able to learn the notes.

The system you mentioned of going up two strings and two frets is fine, but that seems to overcomplicate it for me while really only learning octaves.

You can also test yourself with a tuner. Pick random places on the fretboard and try to figure out what those notes are. Then test it on a tuner. That provides a progression you can track in your head. "Last week I got 3 out of the 20 random notes I picked, but this week I got 7"

Hopefully this helps! Keep us posted on your journey!

our human body is lazy and will stay lazy until u push it. If you are really willing to learn the notes on the fretboard and push yourself to actually identify any random notes while playing without using a reference point on the fretboard than you can do this. Write all the notes (A , A#, B, C..........F#, G, G#) on small paper individual and put them in a bowl . Pick one paper and see what note you picked. now grab a tuner and get ready , if u picked the note (A) find all the note A on the 6th string using the tuner it would be on 5th fret and 17th fret now go to the next string that is 5th string find the note A on that string , then to the next 4th , then 3rd then 2nd and lastly 1st sting . Now that you have found all the A note on the fret board starting from the 6th string to the 1st string . now do every thing in reverse that is find the note A on 1st string and then on 2nd 3rd , 4th, 5th, and 6th.. do this continiously until u no longer have to search the note using tuner , once you no longer need a tuner play all the A note ascending from 6th string to 1st string and descending from 1st to 6th string. if u can play all the A notes ascending and descending for 3 times with out stopping in one continious flow congratulation you now know all the A notes on the fret board and pick another paper and do the same thing for the next note . if u practice this method you will no longer need a reference point on fretboard .. i hope you understood what i was trying to explain .. happy practicing

Hi - I’m similar age and position to the OP and then have found Ricky Comiskey’s method really useful. I’m not there yet, but I’m a lot further on than I was as a result. Give it a go.

So I'm putting together a tool that may be helpful.. I'm trying to get hold of Tyler to see if he wants to make some changes/improvements and he can share it around.

Essentially, I took the Vaideology fretboard memorization exercise and turned it into virtual flashcards using Anki (an open source flashcard/study app). If you use the windows/mac/mobile versions (windows/mac are free.. mobile is paid) it will show you one of the notes (ie: Bb on G string) and give you 3 seconds to find it.. then it plays you the note to see if you hit it right.

Let me know if this sounds useful and I'll share it. I would love to get some feedback on it.

can't reply to comments.....the system keeps reporting an error and asks me to re-load and try again. Same result on different browsers ☹️ really annoying !
I was trying to reply to Abinash Chettri's recommendation as follows :-

Abinash, thanks for your suggestion on this. It sound like a really thorough way to learn the notes. I will definitely try this method. In my opinion having to reference a note to other known notes (like most systems advocate) results in partially learned notes. It also takes a fraction of a second to reference one note to another and this can be too long when improvising. I think what you are suggesting takes a lot of time and repetition and masses of effort. But it is probably the only way to REALLY know the fretboard in a way that will give instant recognition of a note. I think it is similar to learning to read notation. The only way to crack it is to keep reading something for say 30 minutes a day every day until you no longer have to think about notes on the stave and instinctively know the notes and their values.

Amazon sells stickers for the fretboard that you can put on the guitar to be able to look down and see the notes. I have blacked out the sharps/flats to make it even simpler. This isn't a long term solution but I've found that I'm slowly learning the note locations. I'll remove the stickers one at a time at some point. This has also really helped visualize the patterns that are so important...