Tips For Memorizing The Fretboard
The string names on your guitar are E-A-D-G-B-E.
Some fun acronyms you can use to remember this are:
Eddie Ate Dynamite Good Bye Eddie
Eat All Day Get Big Easy
Eat A
Dog, Get Big Ears
Personally I just remember the letter names as is, there aren’t really that many of them.
As I said in the video, download the empty fretboard diagram above, and fill it out completely. Practice doing this once per day until you know it. I’m sure it won’t take you more than a few days before you start getting the hang of it!
As you become more familiar with the fretboard, start looking for patterns. For example, circle all the times ‘A’ appears, and see if you can see the pattern. Starting on the sixth string, you simply go up two strings and two frets, and you’ll see the octave. That pattern holds true all across the fretboard, except on the B string. What other patterns can you find?
Comments or questions are welcome – just leave one below!
Thanks much – this really helped. I’ve played for years and I knew how to tune to standard tuning, but I never understood how to find individual notes on the fretboard. Now I know.
This is my first guitar, my fingers are just now starting not to hurt but I am having fun learning how to read the fretboard.
Thank you for your help.
Thanks for the Fretboard Lesson. I started playing Blues Guitar in the Navy in 1669, after buying a Spanish guitar in Spain. I eventually switched to Bass Guitar because the first band I joined needed a Bass player (Not a third guitar player) and pursued that for forty plus years. I am playing guitar again, but have never properly learned the fretboard, so I’m sure it will help me play better. Thanks. I am looking forward to learning more from you.
Thanks again.
Ken,-an old dog in Florida learning new tricks!
Nice guitar, is that a Gibson 336 replica.
Actually it’s an Epiphone Casino
Cool I’m starting to slowly come back around to enjoying my passion for playing that in 2008 after a lung cancer surgery I had a full blown stroke I lost interest in playing like I had no desire to spend my days jamming which I so miss
fast forward now 14 years later I’m making a slow comeback but it’s not the same I’ve really taken a long drive into being instrumental this time
plus I wanted to learn to tab songs too so this will I hope at least help in some way or another in another email
But being stage 4 and waiting is not helping me get progress I need and I hate the noise from theses oxygen and ventilator machines practicing
If you can help me a little with the fretboard n where to start on the notes I realize it’s a pitch thing but I’m also useing full ledger lines so that I’m thinking has to be something positive I just gotta bite onto
Thanks Michael