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Alternate Fret Markers

#21
I wouldn´t benefit from the markers, but i find the pattern
strangely pleasing to look at... :)
1762348691618.png
 
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#22
Hunter34 said:
I've been meaning to learn my fret-board for years. I'm getting fairly good about it. In the process, I've been wondering why the markers aren't laid out similar to a piano where the sharps/flats are black keys. Yes, I know the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, etc is tradition and marks the harmonics of the strings, but for me, at least right now, that is not as helpful. (I tried to get AI to draw a nice image, but I just made one directly since AI couldn't understand what I was asking for.)

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
It looks like those markings would be helpful if you only ever play in very specific keys, and a hinderance in any other key. And if you only ever play in those keys, you'll be extremely familiar with the notes and the ultra-specific fret markings will be redundant.

The markings on the neck & fretboard are more to glance at to know what position your hand is in than they are to tell you what notes are on the fretboard.

If you're really intent on trying your marking pattern, get some post-it notes and scissors, and cut the sticky sections into the shapes you need and put them on the fretboard where you want them. They won't stick too much and leave residue when you pull them off, and what residue they do leave can be easily cleaned off with naphtha or something else that's wood & finish-safe.

If you really want to learn the fretboard, keep it simple. Start with just the first 5 frets. Literally just start on open E and play each natural note going up to the 5th fret on each string, saying its name out loud. Go from open E up to C on the G string, and back down. Then do the same thing with the accidentals (sharps & flats). Do that at least once a day, every day. It sounds mundane but sometimes that's all it takes.

Once you get that down, do it from frets 5 through 10. Play & say the naturals; play & say the accidentals. Then add frets 11 & 12. Once you get to 12, everything you just learned repeats. The fretboard is a bunch of parallel patterns. You'll start recognizing them.

Also back when i was taking lessons as a kid my instructor would play a game where he'd just say random notes and i'd have to play them on the fretboard. At first it was just play any instance of the note on the fretboard. Then he'd add more qualifiers, like which octave he wanted, or all instances of that note in that octave, or that note above fret X, or all instances on the fretboard. That helps turn the memorization memory into recollection memory.
 
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#25
At first I thought this thread was about something other than traditional fretboard dot markers (which I hate the looks of). I almost never look at the fretboard itself, unless I'm playing some overly complex chordal things on my 6 string.

Seriously though it's quite simple to figure out sharps/flats. It just takes practice. Learn your fingerboard and practice patterns as they repeat throughout the entire fretboard. There are no shortcuts, aside from Guitar Hero.

Fretmarkers showing sharps and flats are only going to be more complex and confusing if you play with anyone who wants alternate tunings, or you need to play along with tuning that is a semitone different...where your markers then become a major impediment.

This is my idea of alternate fretmarkers...these used have dot markers (still do...at the "top" side of the neck though).

PJSun.jpg


GSR206-studio.jpg
 
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#26
FullumMusic said:
If you really want to learn the fretboard, keep it simple. Start with just the first 5 frets. Literally just start on open E and play each natural note going up to the 5th fret on each string, saying its name out loud. Go from open E up to C on the G string, and back down. Then do the same thing with the accidentals (sharps & flats). Do that at least once a day, every day. It sounds mundane but sometimes that's all it takes.

Once you get that down, do it from frets 5 through 10. Play & say the naturals; play & say the accidentals. Then add frets 11 & 12. Once you get to 12, everything you just learned repeats. The fretboard is a bunch of parallel patterns. You'll start recognizing them.
Click to expand...

Yes, yes, yes. This is what I'm getting at. The alternate fret markers I posted help me instantly know where the whole notes are for standard tuning. I've been playing for 40+ years as a hobby. I picked it up in my high school youth group choir and got decent for a year or two, but it got relegated to the occasional noodling around over the years. I played trombone for a year then french horn for 5 years in middle and high school and I knew the bass and treble clef quite well as it related to those two instruments. But, that was all 40 years ago. Most of my hobby since then has been listening to and appreciating the talent of musicians by way of collecting a couple thousand albums (LPs and digital) over the years. (Along with sailing, motorcycles, airplanes, photography....)

I've now got two basses that I love, one fretless; unlined with barely visible side dots (Ibanez SRF705) and an MTD Artist 4; no face markers with only the barely visible side dots. I started a frankencaster build in 2020 (electronics, pickups, setups, neck shimming, etc.) that I finally finished earlier this year when i re-fretted it with jumbos and it now plays like an American Fender! Not because I couldn't afford a Fender, but I wanted to understand the difference between cheap guitars, value guitars, and high-end guitars. It makes me fully appreciate how well built my USA PRS CE24 is!

Anyway.

I don't know why it's always been so hard to hack my brain into learning the guitar/bass fretboards as easily as I picked up brass instruments. I don't have a lot of time to practice as it's a hobby and I spend most of my waking hours trying to make sure I can achieve financial independence before I'm too old, but I'm slowly hacking away at it because I want to get good enough to just pick up one of the four stringed instruments and get lost in some creative path for a few hours. Maybe even play a few gigs here and there with friends, now and after I'm not as busy making a living.

So, this hack is working for me and all I want to achieve in the near future is correlating written music to the instruments. Tabs are great, but I really want to master the instruments one of these days. It's the journey, not the final destination. If I get nothing more out of it than genuinely realizing how much talent some of you have, then it was worth it.

If you've read this far, thanks! I want to say I've had another light bulb moment in how to look at learning the fretboard from your posts, and it connects with a recent very-long post by Carol Kaye put on facebook that I haven't read in detail, but I think she's spelling out what a lot of you in this thread are getting at with alternate tunings and patterns.

But first things first. I like this pattern I posted and plan on using it until I get the sheet music/fretboard connection down by concentrating on the first positions; and then figuring out how to play those in the upper positions. Then I can start to practice seeing the patterns that connect the circle of fifths and circle of fourths to the fretboard.

I know I need to practice, practice, practice. I get the muscle/eye memory part that only comes from practicing. I'm working on it. But it's not like I'm gearing up to play a fretless 6-string on youtube for 12M followers. :thumbsup: This is just the state I'm at in furthering my enjoyment of this hobby.

Thanks for all of the input. It's been helpful.
 
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#28
Hunter34 said:
Yes, yes, yes. This is what I'm getting at. The alternate fret markers I posted help me instantly know where the whole notes are for standard tuning. I've been playing for 40+ years as a hobby. I picked it up in my high school youth group choir and got decent for a year or two, but it got relegated to the occasional noodling around over the years. I played trombone for a year then french horn for 5 years in middle and high school and I knew the bass and treble clef quite well as it related to those two instruments. But, that was all 40 years ago. Most of my hobby since then has been listening to and appreciating the talent of musicians by way of collecting a couple thousand albums (LPs and digital) over the years. (Along with sailing, motorcycles, airplanes, photography....)

I've now got two basses that I love, one fretless; unlined with barely visible side dots (Ibanez SRF705) and an MTD Artist 4; no face markers with only the barely visible side dots. I started a frankencaster build in 2020 (electronics, pickups, setups, neck shimming, etc.) that I finally finished earlier this year when i re-fretted it with jumbos and it now plays like an American Fender! Not because I couldn't afford a Fender, but I wanted to understand the difference between cheap guitars, value guitars, and high-end guitars. It makes me fully appreciate how well built my USA PRS CE24 is!

Anyway.

I don't know why it's always been so hard to hack my brain into learning the guitar/bass fretboards as easily as I picked up brass instruments. I don't have a lot of time to practice as it's a hobby and I spend most of my waking hours trying to make sure I can achieve financial independence before I'm too old, but I'm slowly hacking away at it because I want to get good enough to just pick up one of the four stringed instruments and get lost in some creative path for a few hours. Maybe even play a few gigs here and there with friends, now and after I'm not as busy making a living.

So, this hack is working for me and all I want to achieve in the near future is correlating written music to the instruments. Tabs are great, but I really want to master the instruments one of these days. It's the journey, not the final destination. If I get nothing more out of it than genuinely realizing how much talent some of you have, then it was worth it.

If you've read this far, thanks! I want to say I've had another light bulb moment in how to look at learning the fretboard from your posts, and it connects with a recent very-long post by Carol Kaye put on facebook that I haven't read in detail, but I think she's spelling out what a lot of you in this thread are getting at with alternate tunings and patterns.

But first things first. I like this pattern I posted and plan on using it until I get the sheet music/fretboard connection down by concentrating on the first positions; and then figuring out how to play those in the upper positions. Then I can start to practice seeing the patterns that connect the circle of fifths and circle of fourths to the fretboard.

I know I need to practice, practice, practice. I get the muscle/eye memory part that only comes from practicing. I'm working on it. But it's not like I'm gearing up to play a fretless 6-string on youtube for 12M followers. :thumbsup: This is just the state I'm at in furthering my enjoyment of this hobby.

Thanks for all of the input. It's been helpful.
Click to expand...
Totally get what you're saying. And i think knowing the the fretboard better will make the hobby easier and more fun, which i think you're also saying.

I also understand learning for a hobby gets harder when we're older. And i don't mean we can't learn when we're older. We can always learn more. I just think it's more about how many things we have to keep track of in our head on any given day is vastly greater, and many of those things are important for our survival. Kids/teens don't need to keep track of what's happening at work, and what groceries we need, and when am i gonna fit time in to go to the grocery store to pick something up between this and that and the other thing i gotta do, and oh yeah the car needs an oil change soon, and 4000 other things per day. They have more available brain bandwidth to dedicate to actually learning things.

And i definitely understand that everyone's brain works differently. The thing that makes something click and stick for one person might not make any sense to someone else.

The nice bit for my exercise is it can done in under a minute or two. So 2 minutes a day just for that, or even just whenever you pick up your bass to play as a basic 2 minute warmup exercise. It doesn't have to be a major endeavor. Whether or not it helps your brain learn the fretboard is for you to decide. :laugh: (and if it doesn't you don't have to do it.)

If your clever-marking system is working for you, by all means, go for it. And the nice thing about using stickers is you can always pull them off and adjust if you find a system that works better.

Good luck though. The more fun you have on bass the better! Keep trying different things until you get it.
 
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#29
aprod said:
Stop trying to take short cuts in learning. No need to reinvent the wheel. Realizing everyone learns differently I suggest learning the fretboard like we all did, repititon and practice.
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This is the way. I remember those hand grip strength things from the 80's that my older brother had. If only my hands were stronger, I could blister the board like Patitucci!!

Just learn the bass, it's the only way.
 
#30
Those markers are going to make it worse for you in the medium and long term.

You've made me think about how I 'see' the fretboard and I generally dont look it. Everything is in relation to what I'm fretting at the moment and scales tones. You'd be better off playing scales and saying the notes out loud, you could even learn the scale without the instrument (the theory) and then sit down with the instrument and saying the notes as you are playing the scale.
 
#33
Hunter34 said:
Yes, yes, yes. This is what I'm getting at. The alternate fret markers I posted help me instantly know where the whole notes are for standard tuning. I've been playing for 40+ years as a hobby. I picked it up in my high school youth group choir and got decent for a year or two, but it got relegated to the occasional noodling around over the years. I played trombone for a year then french horn for 5 years in middle and high school and I knew the bass and treble clef quite well as it related to those two instruments. But, that was all 40 years ago. Most of my hobby since then has been listening to and appreciating the talent of musicians by way of collecting a couple thousand albums (LPs and digital) over the years. (Along with sailing, motorcycles, airplanes, photography....)

I've now got two basses that I love, one fretless; unlined with barely visible side dots (Ibanez SRF705) and an MTD Artist 4; no face markers with only the barely visible side dots. I started a frankencaster build in 2020 (electronics, pickups, setups, neck shimming, etc.) that I finally finished earlier this year when i re-fretted it with jumbos and it now plays like an American Fender! Not because I couldn't afford a Fender, but I wanted to understand the difference between cheap guitars, value guitars, and high-end guitars. It makes me fully appreciate how well built my USA PRS CE24 is!

Anyway.

I don't know why it's always been so hard to hack my brain into learning the guitar/bass fretboards as easily as I picked up brass instruments. I don't have a lot of time to practice as it's a hobby and I spend most of my waking hours trying to make sure I can achieve financial independence before I'm too old, but I'm slowly hacking away at it because I want to get good enough to just pick up one of the four stringed instruments and get lost in some creative path for a few hours. Maybe even play a few gigs here and there with friends, now and after I'm not as busy making a living.

So, this hack is working for me and all I want to achieve in the near future is correlating written music to the instruments. Tabs are great, but I really want to master the instruments one of these days. It's the journey, not the final destination. If I get nothing more out of it than genuinely realizing how much talent some of you have, then it was worth it.

If you've read this far, thanks! I want to say I've had another light bulb moment in how to look at learning the fretboard from your posts, and it connects with a recent very-long post by Carol Kaye put on facebook that I haven't read in detail, but I think she's spelling out what a lot of you in this thread are getting at with alternate tunings and patterns.

But first things first. I like this pattern I posted and plan on using it until I get the sheet music/fretboard connection down by concentrating on the first positions; and then figuring out how to play those in the upper positions. Then I can start to practice seeing the patterns that connect the circle of fifths and circle of fourths to the fretboard.

I know I need to practice, practice, practice. I get the muscle/eye memory part that only comes from practicing. I'm working on it. But it's not like I'm gearing up to play a fretless 6-string on youtube for 12M followers. :thumbsup: This is just the state I'm at in furthering my enjoyment of this hobby.

Thanks for all of the input. It's been helpful.
Click to expand...
Whole Notes refer to time.
 

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