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Fretboard Visualization Help?

H

Hypnotaize

Guest
Apr 10, 2014
285
56
#1
These past two weeks I've finally been in intense, serious music setting with more than one instrument at a time, and I realized just how weak my fretboard visualization is. There's a few other weaknesses I'm working on, but I think those will be a lot better once I improve my ability to find notes on the board.

I can read bass clef music. I just have trouble finding the note on the instrument. I mean, I know how, but it takes me a while. I know my strings, and I know the BEAD at the seventh fret, and I know twelfth is an octave, but I don't think I'm getting enough practice putting this to use.

Does anybody have any good exercises or ways of practicing this?
 
#3
Wellllllllllllll - as a practical matter I make fret board learning part of my daily routine - what that means is when I play a note or scale or intervals or cycle of 4th exercise - just about everything, I say/sing the note being played out loud. And I sing it pretty loud matching my pitch with the sound I hear. Over and over and over again. Also I'll try to play/sing every exercise at 3 different positions on the neck. I'll also mentally visualize a fret board and a mental note pattern and say the notes in my head. I want to know it like I know my name.

Personally, one of my BIG revelations related to this instrument - is the job to be done is not really just to memorize the fret board - the mission is to LEARN the fret board, the sounds of the notes and the difference one sound makes next to or at the same time as another. What I memorize I tend to forget or need time to think about - when I learn I rarely forget.
 
#4
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What I do may not help if you are playing from standard notation and thinking in A, B, C's. I play Nashville numbers from fake chord sheet music and use the major scale box. I see the A, B, C's and place my box on the key's tonic root note, once placed, I think in 1, 2, 3's.

I know the note names on the 3rd and 4th string - as that is needed to place my box. Once placed everything is based upon the following:

From the root, or any note, it's...
2 is same string over two frets.
3 is up a string back one fret. I catch the b3 next fret from the 2.
4 is up a string same fret.
5 is up a string over two frets. Or down a string same fret.
6 is up two strings and back one fret. Over the 3.
7 is up two strings and over one fret. The b7 is up two strings same fret.
8 is up two strings and over two frets.

C is 3rd string 3rd fret or 4th string 8th fret or 3rd string 15th fret. That same spacing holds true for any note.

First I have to know where the notes are on the 3rd and 4th string. That gets my box located where needed. From there the above memory peg; from X you'll will find Y @ Z works for me.

Does not take long before you can find what you want by going further up or further back, i.e. on the 5 and you need the 6 next. Move over two frets instead of finding it from the root; up two strings and back one fret. When you can think this way the patterns start hooking together.
 
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