How to learn the notes on the guitar fret board quickly by isolating individual notes Fret board Exercise Part 2

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  How to learn the notes on the guitar fret board quickly by isolating

individual notes

Fret board Exercise Part 2

  This fret board note naming exercise was taught to me by my private teacher in the 90’s who was a former student of Joe Pass. At the time he was studying guitar at GIT and he told me Joe had taught him this fret board note naming exercise in his private lesson. Later on I read about the same exercise in an article from Jazz guitar player magazine. The author of the article was none other than Joe Pass. I found this particular lesson very helpful to me in terms of learning the notes on the guitar fret board quickly.  I highly recommend it to any guitarist who wants total command of the names of notes & where they are located on the neck.

  The last lesson I wrote about was on how tofind the notes on the guitar chromatically. That blog/lesson was great for beginner guitarists. If you want to be at more advanced level you should be able isolate any one note from the chromatic scale and be able to play it all over the neck. For example if  I were to ask a student to play me all the Bb’s all over the neck on each string he should be able to do it without any hesitation. He should be able to play all Bb’s on each string between the 1^st & 12^th fret and repeat the exercise between 12^th & 22 frets.

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Notice some notes have enharmonic names: A note or pitch with 2 different names. Example: B# & C are the same pitch but they both have different note names. This is has to with theory and what key the note comes from. A B# is from the key of C# and B is from the key of C. B is also found in other major keys.

  So on day 1 you would practice all the A’s, A#’s & Ab’s with a metronome. Start with a slow tempo 60bpm and work your way up to 100 or 120bpm. First start with whole notes at 60bpm and say all the A’s on each string between 1^st & 12^th fret. Then move on to the A#’s & Ab’s. Repeat the exercise between 12^th & 22^nd fret. After you’ve accomplished naming the notes in perfect time at different tempos & without stumbling you can move on to half notes & quarter notes. You don’t have to strictly follow the practice schedule above as is. You can stretch it out & tailor it to your liking and learning curves. Move on until you feel you have absorbed the info until you can execute the exercise perfectly. You can turn Day 1: A, A#,Ab, into a weeks or 3 days’ worth of practice. This way you stay on those notes longer & get to know where they are on the neck.  After you feel you know where those notes are placed on the fret board move to the next 3 notes. In 3 months you should be able to name any note on any string or fret with ease & speed.

By: Phil La Viola
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