3 Ways To Master The Guitar Fretboard And Have It Stick

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The guitar fretboard doesn’t have to be so mysterious!

I remember being utterly baffled and confused by the guitar fretboard layout when I was a younger guitarist. I only knew the narrow paths that pentatonic scales carved out from the wild fretboard jungle.

However, in the words of the late Eddie Van Halen, you only have 12 notes!

With the right approach and practice routine, you’ll have no problem mastering the fretboard notes and having them stick in your memory! This article will go over the best ways to memorize the fretboard and have it stick forever.

In the process, we’ll learn some basic music theory and some human psychology and help you build a solid foundational map of all the notes! Guitar students, don’t you fret!

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What To Know Before Mastering All The Different Notes on the Fretboard

There are actually several ways to master the note names and understand how the fretboard works. Certain people will respond differently to different strategies, so it’s probably best to review several strategies to help you reach this milestone of your guitar journey.

But before we dive into those strategies, let’s talk a bit about two important aspects of the job:

1. Your Brain and How It Learns
2. The Structure of the Guitar

A Bit About Your Brain (And How It Learns)

Don’t swim against the tide, and don’t expect your brain to function differently than it should. Let’s use the way our brains learn to help us ensure we have the best shot at memorizing all the notes on the fretboard.

Your brain learns by building connections between its many different regions. The more you excite the neural pathways between these different brain regions, the stronger and more efficient that signal becomes. Learn more about your brain’s learning process here.

For example, to learn a new piece of music, you must build and strengthen connections between your visual, auditory, and motor cortexes.

What does this mean for guitarists trying to memorize the guitar fretboard? We must consistently practice and force our brains to engage and strengthen the different regions of the brain. But it isn’t just the act of practicing that matters—it’s how and what you practice!

Your brain can get really good at practicing poorly (or at least inefficiently)!

Here are some thoughts to remember when practicing the ideas presented in this article.

Smaller Chunks Are Easier To Digest

Your brain is much better at taking a small assortment of things and “chunking” them into one easy-to-remember concept, idea, or representation. Acronyms are a great example of this process. Within one string of letters, we can encode several concepts and ideas.

The guitar has six chunks built right into it—six strings, in fact. Instead of overwhelming and overloading your brain by trying to learn all the notes on the fretboard all at once, take it in steps.

There are other ways to chunk this information, which may benefit you more depending on where you are in your guitar journey and how you prefer to learn.

Here are some chunking ideas:

• By string chromatically
• By string via scales (usually the major scale)
• By individual notes across all six strings (learning where all the Es are, for example)
• By whole scale patterns across the strings

I won’t say which is “better” because one way isn’t universally the best option for everyone. What worked best for me might not work for you, and vice versa.

Memorization Without Meaning is Pointless (You Need An Emotional Connection)

I had a history teacher who hated that most students learn history by memorizing history as a series of names and dates. Simply memorizing names and dates for the sake of passing a test is as meaningless as memorizing a spreadsheet of numbers just for the sake of it.

You need to have a connection to what you are learning.

History is about the how and the why, and who was affected. Likewise, memorizing a series of note names for its own sake is just as pointless as memorizing numbers on a spreadsheet or a bunch of names and dates.

As musicians, the music we all aspire to play doesn’t exist as scales or a string of notes in isolation. Music is about much more than that. Each note has a relationship to every other note. These relationships are the foundational building blocks of music (more on this later).

Instead of memorizing notes for the sake of memorizing notes, try picking a note and finding all the musical interval relationships for that note within an octave. Not only are you developing crucial music theory skills, but you are putting meaning behind your attempts to memorize every note.

You might find it easier to memorize the notes on the guitar fretboard by learning the melody of one of your favorite songs in all twelve keys than by simply memorizing a string of notes.

Practicing Off The Guitar Is Important

The best way to strengthen all the important pathways in your brain is to have your brain recreate or simulate the act of playing! This is where you take the training wheels off (physically playing your instrument) and guarantee that your brain has built a solid map of the guitar fingerboard.

Obviously, practicing on your instrument is essential. But testing your ability to imagine and recreate the structure of the guitar and scales, chords, and notes off of your instrument is a great way to ensure you really know it.

Here are some ideas:

• Imagine everything down to how the guitar feels and sounds
• Picture playing through groups of notes, chords, and scales (picture where all the Es are)
• Run through the chromatic scale on each string in your mind, imagining playing up the neck

Many people take their ability to simulate and imagine different scenarios for granted, but that ability is most likely why our species is at the top of the food chain—we can imagine and predict. Use this ability to your advantage and strengthen your brain’s connections off of your instrument.

A Bit About the Structure of the Guitar Fretboard

Guitars are weird!

I don’t know about you, but I remember looking at fretboard diagrams of the chromatic scale as a kid and having my eyes glaze over instantly. There was too much information at once, and my brain shut down immediately.

One look at something like this and I was too overwhelmed:

You wouldn’t glance at a map of the United States on Google Maps and expect to know every interstate highway directly after. That’s ridiculous. Though the guitar fretboard is much smaller, you shouldn’t expect to glance at a fretboard diagram of the chromatic scale and instantly understand it.

That’s why understanding the structure of the guitar and how it works is also crucial for beginner guitarists. Doing so will help to clear up some of the guitar’s structural murkiness.

The Guitar Has Two Axes of Pitch

The guitar is unlike many other instruments. It has two pitch axes, just like a bass guitar, a banjo, a mandolin, or many other stringed instruments with a fingerboard. Compare the guitar to the piano, which has one pitch axis. You can go up and down in pitch by traveling left and right.

However, you can go up and down in pitch in two directions on a guitar—either across the frets up and down the neck or across the strings.

This extra dimension makes the guitar more difficult to understand than an instrument like a piano. Therefore, you shouldn’t feel bad that learning the guitar is difficult! We’re working in extra dimensions!

Know what Octaves, Perfect Fourths, and Perfect Fifths Are

Another thing that will help you memorize the guitar fretboard calls back to what we were talking about earlier regarding how your brain prefers to learn. It helps to know things about what you are memorizing to have a deeper connection beyond surface-level “names and dates.”

That’s why we must briefly discuss music theory and introduce musical intervals!

Knowing about musical intervals will help you learn the fretboard faster. At the minimum, you need to know what an octave, a perfect fourth, and a perfect fifth are. Knowing these intervals and how to construct them on the guitar will help you find your way around the neck more easily.

Let’s define musical intervals and learn about octaves, perfect 4ths, and perfect 5ths.

Simply put, a music interval is the distance between two notes.

In Western music theory, the largest simple interval is an octave. An octave is the distance from one C to the next highest (or lowest) C. If you start on C and move up the fretboard in half steps or one fret at a time, you’ll eventually get to the next C.

After twelve half steps (or twelve frets), you’ll have made it up one octave:

If you go through the same process and stop on G, you’ll have moved seven half steps. The distance between C and G is a perfect 5th.

Finally, if you go through this process and stop on F, you’ll have moved five half steps. The distance between C and F is a perfect fourth.

Here is an octave, a perfect fifth, and a perfect fourth tabbed across the strings so you can more easily play these intervals together:

Check out this article to learn more about musical intervals.

A Quick Word On The B String

Before moving on to the three strategies for mastering the guitar fretboard, there is one more thing you should know about the guitar’s structure. The guitar is mainly tuned in perfect fourths:

• High E String
• B String
• G String
• D String
• A String
• Low E String

E to A is a perfect fourth. A to D is a perfect fourth. D to G is a perfect 4th, B to E is a perfect fourth, but G to B is a major third! This means certain shapes that would look the same across other strings end up slightly shifted when voiced across the G and B strings.

For example, the following intervals are the same note relationship—a minor third between C and Eb. Because G and B are a shorter distance apart than the other strings (a major third instead of a perfect fourth), the distance between these two notes is shorter when voiced between these two strings.

This oddity will affect every shape you play on the guitar. It’s a built-in fact of the instrument that many beginner players fail to grasp.

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3 Strategies For Mastering Notes On The Guitar Fretboard

We’re finally ready to dig into the different strategies for memorizing the guitar fretboard!

We’ll discuss three separate but related ways to memorize every note on the guitar fretboard. Each method chunks the information a bit differently.

For example, a beginner unfamiliar with scales or chord shapes might want to try numbers one or two, but someone with scale knowledge might choose option three.

1. Memorizing a Single Note on the Guitar Fretboard Across All Strings
2. Memorizing The Guitar Fretboard Notes By String Using a Scale
3. Memorizing the Guitar Fretboard Using Scale Shapes

However, you don’t have to choose one method and ignore the others. In fact, each method chunks the information in a slightly different way, so practicing each method will only strengthen the brain connections I mentioned earlier!

1. Memorizing the Fretboard By Single Notes Across Six Strings

This method chunks all the same notes together and has you memorize them based on octave associations all along the neck. You’ll want to pick one note and find that same note everywhere on the guitar fretboard.

Here are the rules:

• We will limit the region we are mapping to the first twelve frets; that way, we have an octave on each open string to work with.
• Besides open strings, each note can only appear once per string! That means there will be two Es on the E strings, two As on the A string, two Ds on the D string, two Gs on the G string, and two Bs on the B string. However, other notes will appear once per string.
• You’ll learn all the different octave shapes by focusing on the note names this way.
• We will stick to all the notes in C major (C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C) before moving to accidentals.

Getting Started

Let’s map all the Es across all six strings. Notice how there are two Es on each E string.

Here are several ways to connect all the octave relationships for the E note. Start on one E and move along the pink line to the E and octave higher. You can also move down from the higher pitch E to the lower pitch E.

Adding All The Fs

Let’s add all the Fs within the first 12 frets. F isn’t an open string in standard tuning, so we only need to worry about one per string.

When we map all the Fs, the structure of the guitar becomes clear. The distribution of like notes remains the same regardless of which note you are looking at. This is the pattern of their distribution across the neck. As we add more notes, the pattern will become even clearer.

Adding All The Gs

G is an open string, so there will be two Gs on the G string. Otherwise, there will only be one G per string.

Adding All The As and Discovering Perfect 4ths and Perfect 5ths

Let’s add in all the As. A is an open string, so we’ll have two As on the A string.

When we add all the As, we discover the other two intervals I mentioned before—the perfect 5th and the perfect 4th.

• A up to E (blue arrows) is a perfect 5th
• E up to A (red arrows) is a perfect 4th

These shapes are really useful for navigating the guitar. Notice how they are larger when played between the G and B strings!

Adding All The Bs

Now it’s time to add all the Bs. B is an open string, so we’ll have two on the B string.

I think you get the point! If you noticed, we added the notes in the order they appear in the C major scale if we played it from E. That’s E-F-G-A-B. Let’s finish the scale by adding every C and D note.

Mapping A Full C Major Scale

What we’ve built here is the entire C major scale mapped on the first 12 guitar frets! These are all the non-sharp or flat notes.

Memorizing one scale all over the fretboard is a great way to help you learn where all the notes are. We’ll talk more about ways how to do this in the last strategy, but remember, you don’t have to do these strategies in isolation! In fact, combining them may make the whole process easier.

Adding Accidentals

Eventually, you’ll need to add the accidentals—the flats and the sharps. The process is the same as before, but you need to understand what enharmonic notes are before we proceed. If you’ve ever wondered why Bb and A# are spelled differently but sound the same, this is why.

Enharmonic notes share the same pitch, but have different spellings based on whether you are in a sharp or flat key.

To explain, let’s add Bb/A# to our map. It functions just like any other note. It has the same distribution pattern as regular notes. The only thing different about it is its name.

If you are in a sharp key with this pitch—the keys of B, F#, or C#—you’d spell that note as A#. However, this pitch is more common in flat keys. You’d spell it as Bb if you were in the key of F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, or Cb.

Don’t worry! We don’t need to know more than that to map the rest of our fretboard! We just need to add the remaining notes. And what was once overwhelming now makes way more sense!

2. Memorizing Fretboard Notes String By String Using A Scale

Let’s practice memorizing the fretboard string by string using a scale. We’ll keep the C major scale we built during the last strategy. You need to know about scale formulas to map the fretboard this way. We’ll use the major scale formula, which from C is W-W-H-W-W-W-H.

• W-W-H-W-W-W-H
• C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C

However, with standard tuning, there are no open C strings. We need to start the C major scale on the notes that make up the open strings.

1. E-F-G-A-B-C-D-E
2. B-C-D-E-F-G-A-B
3. G-A-B-C-D-E-F-G
4. D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D
5. A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A
6. E-F-G-A-B-C-D-E

C Major Scale Formula on Both E Strings

Luckily for us, both E strings are identical. That means we really only have to learn five strings in total. When we play C major starting on E, we are playing a mode of the major scale. E Phrygian in this case (but don’t worry too much about that).

Let’s follow the C major scale formula from E starting on the open E strings. For all of these examples, the 12th fret represents the end of the sequence.

• E-F-G-A-B-C-D-E
• H-W-W-W-H-W-W

We’re ready to move on to the next open string.

C Major Formula on the A String

You are playing the Aeolian mode when you play C major from A.

• A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A
• W-H-W-W-H-W-W

C Major Formula on the D String

You are playing the Dorian mode when you play C major from D.

1. D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D
2. W-H-W-W-W-H-W

C Major Formula on the G String

You are playing the Mixolydian mode when you play the C major scale from G.

• G-A-B-C-D-E-F-G
• W-W-H-W-W-H-W

C Major Formula on the B String

You are playing the Locrian mode when you play C major from B.

• B-C-D-E-F-G-A-B
• H-W-W-H-W-W-W

We’ve briefly talked about modes in this section. Check out this article for more on how the modes of the major scale work.

3. Memorizing the Guitar Fretboard Using Multi-String Scale Shapes

This is the way I ended up memorizing the fretboard. I came from a position where I knew many transposable scale shapes. All I had to do was take them through all twelve keys! After I did that, I truly gained fretboard fluidity.

Learning how to take one-octave scale shapes and move them around different string groups is another great way to memorize the fretboard and practice scale patterns at the same time. We’re going to take one octave of the C major scale and play it from four different Cs.

• The C on the eighth fret of the low E string
• The C on the third fret of the A string
• The C on the tenth fret of the D string
• The C on the fifth fret of the G string

From C on the 8th Fret of the Low E String

Take notice of this major scale shape! The shape remains the same for the A string major scale shape we’ll examine next.

From The C on the 3rd Fret of the A String

Notice how this shape is identical to the first shape. You’ll notice that this shape will change as we incorporate the B string.

From The C on the 10th Fret of the D String

The top part of the shape is shifted due to the relationship between the G and B strings.

From The C on the 5th Fret of the G String

When we play this scale from the G string, we shift on the B string and keep that shifted state throughout the rest of the scale.

This strategy will teach you the notes on the fretboard and help you master the guitar’s structure and how it affects the shapes you play.

Take Your Guitar Playing To The Next Level! Join The Learn Jazz Standards Inner Circle

If you want to seriously improve your skill level on guitar, check out the Learn Jazz Standards Inner Circle. We’ve got everything you need—including guitar-specific resources—to help you take your guitar playing to the next level.

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