Transcripts
1. Introduction: Come to this course. I'm excited to share loads of good stuff. But first of all, why
is this course so important and why should he even bother learning notes
of the fretboard? The truth is that you don't actually need to
memorize all the notes. But you need to know
how to find them. This is an important skill
you will need all the time. It's also going to help you to understand the
guitar and see how everything is connected because a good guitarist can
play the guitar, but a great guitarist also
understands the guitar. This course is divided
into two parts. First, what you need to know about the
individual strings, then the whole fretboard, and how to navigate around
the whole fretboard. My name is Simon,
and I'm a guitarist, music producer, and graphic
designer from Norway. I'm going to refill
my sparkling water, and then I'll see you
in the first lesson.
2. String Names: Welcome to the first
lesson of this course. If you already know
the string names, this first lesson might be easy for you, but
it's important. So in this video, we will
cover the string names and the most important notes
you need to memorize first. First, let's cover
the string names. I'm going to go from the lower string to the highest string. Okay, the lowest
string is the node E. So we call this the E string. Next string is A. Then we have D. Next, we have G. Then we have B. And lastly, we have E. To
make it easier to remember, you can use this phrase. Ed eight, dynamite,
good by Eddie. Edd eight, dynamite,
good by Eddie. And as you can see, we
have two E strings, one low E string, and one high earing. These are the exact same, just one low and one high. So whatever you
play on one string is going to be the same
on the other string. Listen to this. Nice and
simple, a little zip for that. Next, let's look
at the 12th fret. The 12th fret on each string is always the exact same
note as the open string. So if I play the A string, this is the note
A. Then fret 12. That's the same note. So
these are both the note A. And if we play, for example, the B string the 12th fret. These are the same
notes, the notes B. And everything above the 12 fret is just an exact copy
of everything below. Listen to this. And the
same from the 12 fret. Hey. So basically, we just need to know
all es below 12 fret and everything
above is the same. Let's move on to the next
one, the fifth fret. You have probably
tuned your guitar before using the fifth
thread like this. That is because the
fifth thread on one string is the same
note as the next string. So the fifth thread on the low E string is the same as the next
string, the A string. So both of these nodes
are the nodes A. The next, the fifth
threat on the A string. Is the same as the next string. So these are both the nodes, D. Next string. These are both the nodes. G. And the next string
is the only exception. So you can hear that
the fifth threat doesn't really work
the same way here. That's because the tuning
is slightly different, so we need to go to the
fourth threat instead. That's better. That's going to B B. B. Lastly, we have the
fifth threat as usual. Same as the next string. So these are both the notes, E. So to conclude this video, we have talked about
the string names, that the 12th fret is always
the same as the open string, and that the fifth fret is the same note as
the next string. Where the only exception
is the G string. By
3. Notes on the A String: There's actually not a lot of notes we need to
memorize on guitar, but we need to know the notes
of the two lowest strings. That's going to be really,
really, really useful. So in this lesson,
we will look at the notes of the A string. And a good news is that
it's actually very simple. We're just going to
use the alphabet. A alphabet starts with A, A, B, C, D, EF G. Okay, so we're just going to
play the alphabet first, and you will notice
we get some gaps, but we will get to
that very soon. Okay, so the notes
we have first, A, U B C D F G. And after G, we go
back to A again. You can think that
between each note, there's usually a gap, a one fret gap, for example, between D and E or C and D. It's a one fret gap. That's the common thing.
But as you can see, we have some exceptions. That is between B and C. E and F. Between these notes, we
never have any yaps. So far, that's everything you need to remember,
so not a lot. I'll repeat it once again. There's a gap between all notes, except B and C and E and F. Mm. Next, let's fill in the gaps. What we can do is
to take the note below and just add
a sharp symbol. So let's use the node C. The
note above is then C sharp. Simple as that. Let's take the node D. The notes above is D sharp. And so on. And when we come to E, for example, we
don't get E sharp, but we just get F. Because we don't have a gap
between these two nodes. Instead of sharps, we can
also use a flat symbol, which looks like the letter B. That means we lower
our note with one semitone or one fret. Let's use the node E. The note below is going to be E flat. And if you take the note, D, the note below is
going to be D flat. And as you can
see, C sharp and D flat is the exact same note. We will talk more
about which one to use when in a later lesson. For now, we're just going
to stick with sharps. To conclude, I looked at all
the nodes on the A string. The first step is to
find all the nodes in alphabet from A to G. After G, we go back to A again. Remember that there are no
gaps between the nodes, B and C and E and F. Then we just need
to fill in the gaps. Simply take the node below
and add a sharp. That's it. Now you know all the
nodes of the A string.
4. Notes on the E String: Video, we get the answers to the challenge from
the previous lesson. So we're going to look
at all the nodes on a low E string and we're going to use the
exact same process as we did on the A string. First, we will find the
notes of the alphabet, A, B, C, D, E F G. Then we're
going to fill in the gaps. Let's start with finding the nodes of the
alphabet. All right? The first note is
the open string, which is a node E, And after E comes F. And remember that
we don't have a gap between E and F. Next note is G. And after G, we go back to A again. After A comes B. Then we have C. And
again, remember, we don't have a gap
between B and C and E and F. But all the other
nodes have a gap. Next, we have D. B. Then you can keep going up after the 12 fret
if you want to. We're not going to do that now, but it's exact same as
everything below the 12 frets. So we have again, E, F, G, A, whoop and so on. So now we found all the
notes in a musical alphabet, all the notes between A and G. And now it's time to
fill in the gaps. And again, it's very
straightforward. Let's find our first
gap, which is this note. The second fret, simply
take the note below the gap. Another sharp. So first threat is F. So
the next node is F sharp. Let me just keep doing this. So the next gap,
it's a node above G. So this is going
to be G sharp. Simple. Okay. Next
cap is above A, but this is going to be A sharp. And B and C doesn't have a gap, so we skip those nodes.
This is the next gap. That's above C. So this
is going to be C sharp. And last gap is above D, so it's going to be D sharp. To conclude this video, we looked at how to find all
the nodes of the E string. And it's the exact same
process as the A string. It's actually the same
process on all strings. First, find all the
nodes of the alphabet between A and G.
Remember that there aren't any gaps between B and C. E and F. Then
fill in the gaps. A good news is that
you don't need to memorize all nodes
on all strings. I actually don't
recommend doing that. Just focus on the
two lowest strings. This is actually
the hardest part, and very soon we will look
at how to find all nodes of the fretboard without
memorizing more notes. So a little zip for that.
5. When to Use Sharps VS Flats: Lesson is for you
if you want to dive a bit deeper into
the music theory. It's not something
you have to know, but it can be useful. First, let's recap what
sharps and flats are. A sharp means we
raise a note with one fret or one semitone,
as we also call it. So if you raise the notes, C W one fret or semitone, we get C sharp. And a flat means that we
lower a note with one fret. So if you have the note, D, lower it one fret, then we get D flat. As you can see, C sharp and D flat is the exact same note. They just have different names. You can just choose one of
them, and you'll be fine. But for the sake of
learning some music theory, how do you know if you should
use a sharp or a flat? Here is one main
rule you can follow. The key of the song
decides if you should use sharps or flats. Let me explain in more detail. The keys you can see on
the screen right now are keys that only use sharps. So if the song is
in for example, G major or any of the other keys you can
see on the screen, then you only use sharps. Now, on the left side of the screen are keys
that only use flats. So if the song is
in, for example, F major or any of the other keys on the
left side of the screen, then you only use flats. So the key of the
song decides if you should use either
flats or sharps. Here's another useful way
of thinking about it. Let's say you see a
chord progression and one of the
chords has a sharp, then you can stick with
sharps. Simple as that. And if you see a
chord progression, and one of the
chords has a flat, then you can stick
with only flats. To conclude, the key
of the song usually decides if you want to
use flats or sharps. However, there are actually
many exceptions to this rule. So you might come across some weird stuff which is
different from this video. So don't obsess
too much about it. The truth is that on guitar, we don't really worry
too much about it, because in the end,
we just want to create and play music.
6. The Two Lowest Strings: Come to the second
part of this course. So far, we've looked at strings individually,
individually. That's a hard word, and especially the
two lowest strings. That is because when you
memorize these two strings only, you can easily find all the
other notes of the fretboard. It's just going to
make your guitar life at least ten times easier, maybe 20 times easier as well. So yeah, it's really important. And therefore, we're going
to use this lesson to get even better at the
two lowest strings.
7. Using Octaves (Shape 1): Grads are making it
this far in the course. When you know the
lowest strings, the nodes of the
two lowest strings, you have actually
done the hard work. Now you can easily find
all the other notes of the fretboard with
one simple shape. And that's what we're going
to cover in this lesson. So let's look at the shape. And we're going to play
it from the fifth thread of the low E string. Which is the note A. And the shape is very simple. It looks like this. So we go two strings up and two
threads to the right. As you can hear, this is the exact same note,
a different octave. An octave means
it's the same note, just played higher or lower. So let's try to use this shape
on some other notes, too. Let's use the note C on the A string which is
on the third fret. Then we go two strings
up and two to the right. There we get a new C. So,
honestly, very simple. Use this one shape, and you can find all the
nodes of the fretboard. The only thing to keep
in mind is that since the tuning is slightly
different on the B string, then we need to adjust the shape slightly on the four
highest strings. So let's play the A
we played earlier. We start on the fifth
threat on the low E string. Use the shape, find the new A. And from this new A, we can use the same shape again. You just have to
move three frets to the right instead of two. If you can't remember
this, just use your ears. As going here, this
is not the same note. One fret up. So it's
the same shape. We just need to change
it with one fret. For practice, let's
take one more note. And now we're going to find
that note on all strings. We will use the note G and
start on the lowest string. That's going to be
the third fret. Then simply use our shape, two strings up and
two to the right. Then we get another G which is the fifth
threat of the D string. From this new G, we can use the
shape again and get another G. And remember, since we are now on the
four highest strings, we need to move three threats to the right instead of two. So not this but this. Now we have the note G on
three different strings. Mm. To find out G on the
remaining strings, we can use the
exact same process, but from the A string. So first, we need
to find a not G, and that's going to
be on a tenth thread. Then simply use the shape, two strings up and two
threads to the right. Here we have a new G.
Then use the shape again. To find a new G. Okay, let's conclude this video. As you can see, you
only need to note the notes of the
two lowest strings. And then you can use the
shape from this video and find all the other notes
as we did with the note G. And from the two
lowest strings, you can always play the shape two strings up and two
frets to the right. And from the third string, the D string, and up,
it's the same shape. You just need to add one
more fret to the right. And with this octave shape, you can easily find all the
nodes of the fretboard. This is a much
better approach than memorizing every single
note on the fretboard. And the reason is that
with this octave shape, you understand how
the guitar actually works and how all the notes
relate to each other. Because if you just memorize every single note without understanding the relationship
between the notes, that's like having loads of
ingredients in your fridge, but you don't know how
to cook a single meal. And we want to be able to
make a delicious meal.
8. Using Octaves (Shape 2): Shape one which I covered in a previous lesson
is the most important one. If you still need
some more time on shape one, that's
completely fine. If so, focus on shape one first, and come back to
this lesson later. But if you feel comfortable
with shape one, then I want to show
you one more shape, which I find really useful. Let's call this shape two, and it's a similar
concept with octaves. Alright, let's
look at the shape, and we will start from
the fifth threat of the low Etring which
is the note A. Then the shape is three
strings up, one, two, three, and three frets to
the left. One, two, three. And here we get a new A. Let's look at this shape from
some other strings as well. So let's do the A string. At a note A is just
an open string. That's not going to
work with this shape, so we're going to use the
12th fret, in this case. Then the shape is three
strings up, one, two, three. And again, because of the
tuning on the B string, it's now two frets to the left instead of
three. One, two. So we get a new A up here, tenth threat of the B string. Mm And let's do one more string. Let's do the seventh
threat of the D string. Which also happens
to be the node A. Then again, it's three
strings up, one, two, three, and two threats
to the left. One, two. To conclude, we have now
looked at octave shape two. On the low E string,
that's going to be three strings up and
three to the left. For the next two strings, it's still the same shape, but this time, only
two frets to the left. It's like this. Octave shapes are really useful
because it makes it easier to actually
understand the guitar. However, you might not use this shape to all the time,
but it can be useful. So at least now you
know about it. Checks.
9. Conclusion: Congrats on completing
this course. Let's do a very quick recap of everything we have covered. In the first section,
looked at the string names and the most important notes
you need to memorize first, which is the 12th fret on all
strings and the fifth fret. Then we learned all the nodes of the A string and E string. But the process is the
same for all strings. First, play the alphabet. Remember that each
note has a gap in between except of B and C and E and F. Then we simply fill in
the gaps using sharps. In Section two, we
kept on working on memorizing the two
lowest strings, which are the most
important ones. And when you have memorized
the two lowest strings, then you can use two
different octave shapes to find any note across
the whole breadboard. As a final conclusion, here are the two main things you should be able to do
after this course. Number one, find all
notes on a string. And number two, use octave shapes to find
an on all strings. If you can do these two things, you officially have a
better understanding of guitar than most people. So I hope you learn a lot from this course and have
a good one. Bye.
Simen Otnes
