i-bands.net [READ ONLY MODE] :: View topic - Know Your Notes : Memorize the Fretboard NOW.

linkinwayne · Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 12:49 am Post subject:

I originally planned to release a book combining my Absolute Guitar Beginner’s Foundation lessons with three different guitar systems that greatly accelerate learning.

Then my band turned into a solo project and I end up typing this as a single free article. Note that this lesson covers a single system that shows a quick and efficient way to memorize notes.

I noticed early on in my guitar playing history that there was a certain pattern to some notes. To be honest, I could not find any coherent way to link them and put them down to coincidence. Then I started dabbling more into the intricacies of the guitar and realized music theory probably covered such a system. I tried studying music theory, failed miserably, and decided that it did not, in fact, cover such a system.

After a couple more months of playing, I decided to write down all the ‘patterns’ I could find. My Christian Praise and Worship book helped me on this one. There’s a guitar fingerboard chart at the back of the book, see.

So anyway, the first pattern I noticed was the diagonal ‘F-B’ pattern. I got this my looking diagonally from the 6th string. This meant I looked at 6th string 1st fret, 5th string 2nd fret, 4th string 3rd fret and so on. I got an ‘F-B-F-B-E-A#’ pattern for this. I got excited and checked it out on the other strings. It obviously did not fit. But I wasn’t disheartened. I cut down the number of notes in the pattern and got it down to the diagonal ‘F-B’ pattern. That seemed to work. And it did work for every single fret. Until I saw the 3rd string 10th fret was an ‘F’ note and the 2nd string 11th fret was an ‘A#’.

And so it went on. I spent a couple of hours everyday trying to discern a pattern. After a while, I decided to look directly downwards instead of diagonal. That seemed to work, but not every note fit. I got it down to a ‘D-G-C-F’ or something like that, working from the 6th string downwards. As soon as it hit the 2nd string, the ‘code’ stopped working. Very annoying, that. I looked directly at the open frets. From the 6th string downwards, that’s ‘E-A-D-G-B-E’. The ‘D and G’ fit into my initial pattern. Nothing else did.

I spent some time on the Internet and checked out most of the major music forums. And I realized I wasn’t the first one to realize there was such a system. A note-unifying system, if you like. One particular thread coded out a particular pattern of ‘A-D-G-C-F’ with the note of ‘repeat pattern with #, then B and E’. Ah ha.

Take a look again at the open frets of the six strings. It follows the pattern perfectly, up to the 2nd string. Let’s cut this tedious story short, shall we. Here’s a ‘natural order’. We’ll use the 6th string as a direct reference. The number refers to the fret number of the 6th string.

0 E
1 F
2 F#
3 G
4 G#
5 A
6 A#
7 B
8 C
9 C#
10 D
11 D#

Note that the 12th fret is an E note, and the order repeats from there.

After a bit of charting out the notes (thanks to the help of my band members), I made the same conclusion hundreds of other musicians before me have probably made. I found the secret order of the notes.

Okay, I didn’t actually find it. But I did put in a considerable amount of hard work to work out the patterns. Anyway,

Use the ‘secret code’ from the 6th string downwards. When you reach the 2nd string, use the note that will precede it in the natural order. If it sounds confusing, take a look at the secret code and back at the natural order. It’s easy enough but I’m not sure how to further simplify the explanation.

As to how to memorize this secret code, any mnemonics will do, really. A simple one is to remember this acrostic:
All Dogs Go Crazy for Baked Eels.

Some time after I ‘discovered’ the secret code, my friend sent me a link to the Fret 2 Fret website. I bought the program. It was definitely a great method to memorize the pattern. The best part was the tabs, though. All in all, I didn’t regret not finding out the program earlier. All that hard work only served to further imprint the secret code in my mind. For those reading my article and are STILL not clear about how it works, please do check out Fret 2 Fret. I can’t remember the name of the guy who made it but it’s pretty user-friendly. And it’s a program so all the diagrams and stuff are nicely arranged.

The secret code is:
A-D-G-C-F-A#-D#-G#-C#-F#-B-E
_________________
The Linear Equation Music Project:

http://house-of-jupiter.blogspot.com

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