Fingerboard Memorization

Fingerboard memorization is a critical basic exercise every guitarist should take seriously. I wish my early instructors had stressed this fundamental to me.

One key to becoming comfortable on guitar is to learn where notes live on the neck. The more familiar you become with the layout of the finger board, the easier it will be to remember where chords are, which scale patterns will work when creating solos and to help you train your ears to hear the notes that fit within a song.

As you work on memorizing the fingerboard, finding patterns of where the notes land on the neck is a very helpful way towards making the guitar neck as familiar as the back of your hand.

One of the easiest patterns to remember is the octave. The octave is the same, but higher, pitch that we hear. In Western music (not to be confused with folk music of the old West), which is the most prevalent musical period in the world today, there are 12 pitches (you can see this on your guitar - there are twelve frets before you reach the octave). There are seven natural notes and 5 accidentals.

When we play a scale, we either go up or down in pitch with each interval (remember, an interval is just the space between two notes). Once we've reached the end of a scale, it starts over, repeating each pitch but, at a higher frequency. On a guitar string, this is the twelfth fret.

Here are the fingerboard memorization resources that supplement the exercises for the Daily 5 Guitar Habit.

A Natural