Navigating The Guitar Fretboard For Beginners

hello internet my name is ayla tesler mabe i'm holding a guitar in my hand today because today we're going to be looking at demystifying the fretboard this instrument can be really confusing if you don't know how to approach looking at it but if you learn the right systems and patterns that i'm going to present to you today this instrument is going to make a lot more sense so if you're ready let's jump right on into it and i'm going to demystify the fretboard for you so for starters just to put this out there i hope no one gets too upset at me saying this with the guitar you don't really need to know the names of the notes you're playing other than what's on the low e string and the a string because we're going to discover this as the lesson goes on as long as you start from the right root note chords and scales look the same in every key but before we get there let's take a look at the names of all six strings because that's usually something really helpful to know to communicate you know what string you're playing on right it can be helpful to come up with some sort of crazy memorable catchphrase for example eddie ate dynamite goodbye eddie and the first letter of each of those words refers to a string so eddie we have our low e string eight a dynamite d good g by b and then we have eddie again the high e string so you'll probably notice that we have two e strings the low e string and the high e string that are the same note they're just two octaves apart so now that we have the names of the strings down let's take a look at what is happening on the fretboard itself so every time i move up or down by a fret i'm moving up or down by one semitone what i mean by that is let's say this note here is a which it is if i move up by one fret i'm moving up one semitone and playing a sharp now if i move up again now i'm playing b it's pretty simple you might notice that uh sharps refer to taking a note and going up by one semitone and flats refer to taking a note and going down by a semitone so for example this is a this is a flat this is g this is g flat this is f there is a catch here there's a caveat to this and that is between the notes b and c and e and f there is no sharp or flat and you'll notice that there is no such thing as b sharp or c flat and there's no such thing as e-sharp or f-flat but once you've memorized that you can follow along with me here e and remember no e-sharp so this is f f-sharp g g sharp a a sharp b there's no b sharp so now we have c c sharp d d sharp e and now you might notice that when you have no frets and you're just playing the open string we have the open e and when we come up here to the 12th fret which is usually indicated uh with double dots on the guitar here we've got some double dots double dots that's typical of most guitars that's e up the octave hold that thought we're going to come back to that in just a moment let's look at the a string so now we have a a sharp b c c sharp d d sharp e f f sharp g g sharp a hold on this is no coincidence we just played the open a string and we found a again up the octave at the 12th fret or in other words the double dots and this is true of every string d can also be found up the octave here at the double dots on the d string here's g here's g again at the double dots b here's b again up the octave at the double dots same thing with the high e string up the octave at the 12th fret the double dots we found e again so just to reiterate again i personally think that the first step is just memorizing the notes on the e string and the a string you don't necessarily have to go through the trouble of memorizing all six strings equally for the time being but just in case you really wanted to do that and you just wanted to see what the fretboard looked like with all the notes laid out on it you can pause the video right now and take a look or you can download a pdf of this down below so one of the best parts of the instrument would be these dots you can see on the frets right here known as fret markers we've discussed them a little bit so far but you don't necessarily have to memorize every single note you can just really internalize certain fret markers and then everything is related to that from that point on a good friend of mine pointed out that if you start here you have g and then this next fret marker is a b and then c d e on the a string and this pattern doesn't repeat through all of the strings but you'll start making those connections the more you play and it's just about finding a system that works for you most importantly i think a lot of guitar players use the fret markers to memorize fret numbers so for example on a standard electric or acoustic guitar the first dot here refers to the third fret then we have the fifth fret seventh fret ninth fret and the reason it can be so important to internalize this is i could be in the middle of a high action jam session and someone says go to the 10th fret i could say well here's the ninth fret here's the tenth fret right you know nine plus one is ten and uh now i'm at the right place or someone could say start a scale on the third fret well i'd say okay the third fret is down here at the first dot so another reason that knowing fret numbers can be so helpful as a guitar player is because a lot of guitar players communicate songs through tablature or tab for short and for example you could look up your favorite song sweet child of mine guitar tab online and you'll find a diagram showing you all of the strings and then what fret numbers you should play in order to play that song like it could say for instance go to the 12th fret of the d string and i'd say all right eddie ate dynamite go to the 12th fret at the double dots okay great and one last thing i want to mention in regard to fret numbers for now is an observation that a lot of guitar players make called the tuning system at times to most people i don't know if there's an official name but basically what it means is let's say we're on the e string if i go to the fifth fret of this string it's going to be the same note as the next string so the string after e is a and if i go to the fifth fret here i'm playing a now if i go to the fifth fret of the a string i'm going to be playing d which is the string after a same thing here fifth fret of the d string is g which is the string after and then this is unfortunately where the pattern gets messed up a little bit you have to go to the fourth fret of the g string and then you'll be playing the next note next string b and then back to the fifth fret here on the b string and we'll be playing the next string here e and this is a great way to tune your guitar also if you don't have a tuner so now i want to come back to a point that i made earlier in this video about how if you know the e string and the a string really well you'll know where to build any chord or scale shape that you want and the beauty of the guitar if you didn't already know this is i could learn a crazy chord shape and if it doesn't use open strings i'll be able to move it to any key as long as i start from the right root note and it's the same with scales [Music] and then from there everything is all about intervals and we'll talk a little bit about that in a moment but first i just want to show you how to play a basic major scale because this will be a great shape to help us unlock the fretboard even further so i'm going to show you first how to play an a major scale so what that means is we want to start the scale from a for a major and so if i know this is open e string i could go up one fret at a time there's f f sharp g g sharp a or maybe i have memorized the previous trick i talked about where if i know a is the string after e i can just come up to the fifth fret either way i found the right note and you do whatever works best for you now to talk about that scale shape this is how it goes we have the fifth fret of the low e string seventh fret fourth fret of the a string five seven then on the d string we have four six seven on the g string we have four six seven on the b string we have five seven and then four five on the highest e string so that was two octaves of the same scale the scale only has seven notes in it one two three four five six seven and everything afterwards is just a repeat of the same seven notes one two three four five six seven and then one again up here at the top now what's crazy about those numbers i just called out is they were referring to scale degrees meaning this is the first note of the scale that's the second note third fourth fifth sixth seventh but they're also referring to intervals and if you've watched any of my videos in the past you know i'm a huge fan of intervals the major scale basically gives you a foundation of what intervals sound like and what they look like especially on the guitar so for example the distance between my first scale degree and my second scale degree is a major second interval and then the distance between my first note and the third scale degree one two three is a major third interval now the distance between my fourth scale degree one two three four and my root note my starting note is a fourth interval and then the distance between my fifth scale degree one two three four five and my root is a fifth i'm sure you're sensing a pattern here the distance between the sixth scale degree one two three four five six and the root is the sixth and the distance between my seventh scale degree one two three four five six seven and my root is a major seven and this is true of the entire scale because if i continue the scale up the octave it'll be the same thing one two three four five you'll notice is the same as one two three four five the same note and these are both a fifth apart from the root and this is true of all scale degrees no exceptions so like i said earlier in the video the first step is really just internalizing the e string and the a string and the notes on it because at the beginning all you need to know are root notes so you know where to build chord and scale shapes and then if you ever want to get to the next step of understanding music theory and how it applies to the guitar and understanding really just how all of the notes on the guitar are connected this is kind of the best approach to get there so this can sort of be something to work towards and it will help the guitar make a lot more sense in the long run so again this was the a major scale that's the skill shape we just looked at here because it starts on a now let's say i wanted to play the c major scale the only thing i would have to do is take that exact same scale shape and start it from c is our root note so here's a a sharp b c and now you'll notice this is the exact same scale shape and that's the most important thing to take note of again root notes you'll be able to take any chord or scale move it to any key as long as you start from the right root note and then in the long run if you internalize the intervals using that major scale system i just showed you you're always going to know where to find you know any interval you're looking for the major third here's my fifth here's my six for instance now like i said earlier it's all about knowing your e string and your a string roots and i would recommend anytime you learn a chord or a scale that doesn't use any open strings learn it with both the e string shape and the a string shape and usually they're pretty similar the only difference is the b string messes everything up as we looked at earlier in the video with our tuning system it just it's it's a wonky sort of thing that all guitar players deal with no big deal and so this major scale shape we started here and that was a major so we played the a major scale now if i wanted to play it on the a string without using any open strings in that shape i would come up here to the 12th fret because remember this is a this is also a and then i would play this scale shape one two three four five six seven one two three four five six and now not only can you play that scale in both positions if you go through that intervallic memorization process to give it an official name i guess then you're also going to have this part of the neck really demystified and you'll know where to find all of the intervals you'd ever need so the only thing that changes between our e string root shape and our a string root shape is the b string and we're going to add an extra note on the high e string as well just because we'll run out of strings but this is usually the case anytime you move a scale or chord from an e string root to an a string root so just keep that in mind but here's what the shape looks like one two three four five six seven one two three four five six seven so again i wanna really drive home the importance of learning any scale or chord you encounter on the e string and on the a string because then you'll be able to play any score any chord or scale i almost combine the words there so all of the systems that we've talked about in the video today are really all that i use to this day when i play it's just about using the fretboard of the guitar the most efficient way possible and realizing that any scale that you learn any chord shape that you learn any chord progression is going to look the same in every key as long as you anchor yourself to the root note it's wonderful when you don't have to relearn things in other keys because you know the root note and a certain chord progression is going to look the same in any key as long as you start from the right place and keep the distance between everything the same so these are the systems we looked at today we have our open strings e a d g b e we looked at important fret marker landmarks like the 12th fret is always the same as your open string we looked at how the fifth fret [Music] is going to be the same as the next string other than right here on the g string and we looked at how you can start using these fret markers to memorize important frets like the third fret fifth fret seventh fret ninth fret and all that good stuff we looked at what happens if you ascend or descend by a semitone and how there's no such thing as b sharp or c flat or e sharp or f flat we talked about how using the major scale to help you understand the relationship between notes can be really helpful and how learning everything on the e string and the a string is great in the long run and like i said all of these systems are what i use to this day and have allowed me to apply even really complex music theory to the instrument in a way that makes sense and this is just a great way to understand the fretboard i hope you enjoyed this video and learned a little something about how to unlock the fretboard please feel free to leave a comment down below if there are any parts of this video you'd like me to expand on or just any topics in general you want me to cover and i hope you have a wonderful day [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Musora

Views: 1,499,298

Keywords: fretboard memorization exercises, fretboard memorization, guitar fretboard diagram, learn the fretboard, fretboard navigation, notes on guitar fretboard, how to master the fretboard, fretboard memorization techniques, guitar fretboard memorization, fretboard guide, notes on the guitar, guitar control, fretboard memorization tool, unlocking the guitar fretboard, understanding the fretboard on a guitar, demystifying the fretboard, find any note, finding notes on guitar fretboard

Id: uHaQo0cvb0k

Length: 18min 11sec (1091 seconds)

Published: Fri May 14 2021