Why learning the notes on the fretboard is essential for your guitar playing
Knowing and being able to locate the notes on the fretboard of the guitar instantly is a topic that many intermediate guitar players pay no big attention to, although it is one of the biggest reasons, why they struggle to reach an advanced playing level. This article is written to convince you, that working on your note localization skills can be one of the best things you can do to develop further on your playing.
Why you should definitely work on this?
If you create music on your own, you want to make specific musical decisions. In order to make those decisions you need to know the notes on your fretboard. Here is an example of what Its meant by that:
Imagine you want to improvise a solo or a melody on a certain chord progression and you want to make your playing as expressive as possible. If you can locate the notes which are contained in the chords being played during the backing track while you improvise, you are able to control consonance and dissonance within your playing by simply playing notes which are in the chords and notes which are not. This means that you are able to control the tension being created from your music.
Furthermore by gaining this kind of control over your playing, you are able to create way more interesting and expressive music simply due to the fact , that you consciously decide what to play and there is no clueless noodeling around anymore. Gaining control is one of the key elements you should work on if you want to become an advanced guitar player.
The next big aspect about getting familiar with the notes on your fretboard is to be able to apply music theory concepts to your playing effectively. Music theory is of very low value to a player if he doesn’t know how to apply and implement it into his own playing. The reason why many people do not work on this topic is because they do not know hot to use it. Yet on the other hand, if they could apply it effectively, they would be able to express themselves in uncountable new ways, they had not thought of before.
Here is an example:
Imagine you want to create a chord progression based on some music theory concept you know about. If you want to get creative with your chosen chords and want to check them out on the fly with different versions of each chord, you need to know the following two things: The voicings of the specific chord you play (meaning in which way you grasp it on your fretboard) and the location of that voicing, which you can only find, if you know where the chords rootnote is on the fretboard. Here we go again with the fretboard note knowledge part which is immensely valuable to you.
Here is a helpful tip on how to effectively learn the notes on your fretboard
You can practice this very well without your guitar! How can you do this? I will tell you, it is pretty simple. There is tons of free applications you can use on your mobile phone available on the app store. Just try a few of them and find out, which one suits you the best. Then you can work on your note location skills everywhere without problems. If you do this often and on a regular basis, your note visualization will become pretty soon pretty well, because it is a thing you need to practice very often and consistently.
Your assignment on how to practice this in your own improvisation:
Record a simple chord progression or get a backing track on youtube where you can quickly find out, which chords are played. Pay attention, that the progression is very simple and that the chord changes do not occur very quickly. If you are at a beginner level it is best to have just two or three chords in that progression.
Now you improvise on it and each time the chords change, try to hit the root note of the new chord anywhere on the fretboard. After this you can use some scales or licks to play further. When it comes to the next chord change, try to hit the root of that chord and so on.
This will massively help your improvisation skills aside of teaching you the location of the root notes of the chords being played.
Don’t get frustrated if you have difficulties with this assignment if you do it for the first time. You will need some practice in order to be able to master this, but it will get your overall playing to a whole new level with time!
About the author:
Constantin Einzmann is a professional musician, guitar teacher and skilled mechanical engineer. He is the founder of the ShredFactory, a music school based in Augsburg, Germany.
For more info visit his schools website https://www.shredfactory-augsburg.de