Memorize every note on the fretboard before 2008!

Would you feel strange if you didn't know your ABC's? What if you couldn't sing the ABC song, especially the fun "ella-minnow-pee" part of the song?

Well, not knowing the notes on your neck is very similar to not knowing your ABC's. You're relying on your ear (at best) and finger patterns (at worst) to play music.

I hear the peanut gallery already ... " I don't need to know no stinkin' notes - I just wanna RAWWWWK!"

You don't, huh? How about this, if you knew the notes on the neck you could...

- Find any chord grip you wanted without having to buy a $40 chord dictionary

- Target notes when you solo rather than just relying on licks or randomly running up and down the scale hoping you land on something good

- Improve your ear and your ability to improvise by singing the note name when you practice your scales

- Make guitar teachers around the world very happy when you play a Bb correctly the first time, without having to play seven notes to get there.

So, maybe you're willing to try to learn the notes, but you doubt you can do it in five days (before 01/01/08).  Well my friend, it can be done. You just have to make up your mind to do it and follow the few tips below.

Tip 1 - Know your string names

They are, from low to high, E A D G B E.

I'll not go into a lot of detail here since I ! just blogged on this last week. You can check that blog out here...

Tip 2 - Know how many notes there are

There are twelve notes total ... Starting with the C note, they are:

1 - C
2 - C#/Db
3 - D
4 - D#/Eb
5 - E
6 - F
7 - F#/Gb
8 - G
9 - G#/Ab
10 - A
11 - A#/Bb
12 - B

After the B note, we start the cycle all over at C. That C note will be one octave higher than the starting C.

Note: Two note pairs, E-F and B-C do note have a sharp or flat between them. Every other note does.

Tip 3 - Get a guitar neck diagram and write out the note names on each string

You can get tab, chord grids and neck diagrams on my resource page. Print a lot of them as you will always need to write out a chord, lick or scale that you learn.

Please Note: At this point, many "how-to" articles will give you a nice pre-printed neck diagram with all the notes for you to memorize. I do not believe this is the best method because after a few notes, maybe a string or two, you'll lose interest and stop learning.

On the other hand, if you're writing the notes yourself, you have a vested interest in completing the task. Once completed, you'll have a head start on memorizing the notes because you've just written them out on all 6 strings.

Once you have the neck diagram, start with the low E string. Using the 12 notes listed in Tip 2, you will see that the F note comes after E. F is the note on the first fret of the E string. What comes after F? That's right, F#/Gb. That is the note on the second fret of the E string.

It is a very simple process using the list in Tip 2. Starting with any string, find that note on the list and then write each note down verbatim as you ascend to the 12th fret.

As a check point, since there are only 12 notes, when you get to the 12th fret, the notes will repeat. So, starting low to high at the 12th fret, the string names are E A D G B E - the same as the open strings!

Tip 4 - Memorize just the A B C D E F and G notes

So, are you questioning what all those sharps (#) and flats (b) are? When you sharp a note, you raise the pitch. When you flat a note, you lower the pitch. It's as simple as that!

So, rather than having to memorize all 12 notes, just memorize the locations of the natural notes A B C D E F and G.  Once you have those memorized...

 - If you need to find a sharp note, G# for example, put your finger on the G note and then raise it to G# by going up one fret.

 - Similarly, if you need to find a flat note, Bb for example, place your finger on the B note and lower the pitch by going down a fret.

Memorizing seven notes seems more doable than twelve, yes? Since we're in agreement, that leads us to the last tip.

Tip 5 - Start with the E string and memorize one string a day until 01/31/2007

There are two E strings, right? If you said no, go back to TIP 1 and pay attention!!!

By memorizing the E string, you knock two strings out at once. 12/27/07
Memorize the A string tomorrow, 12/28/07
Memorize the D string 12/29/07
Memorize the G string 12/30/07
And before you party on 12/31/07, memorize the B string.

And there you go. You may not be real fast when it comes to playing a note across all six strings, but at least you can do it.

The next step is to incorporate this into your practice routine until you know all the locations and can play them quickly.

To do this, simply call out a few notes at the start of each practice. Play the note on all six strings then hit the next note. If you do three notes a night, you'll have covered all twelve notes in four practice sessions. This should take just a few minutes of your practice and will pay off big dividends in your playing.

So, good luck, go practice and have fun!