Octave Shapes | Memorizing The Fingerboard
Added 2020-06-22 12:00:03 +0000 UTCNew here? Visit my Where To Start page.
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In this lesson I talk about how to speed up the "counting up from open" method of figuring out what note you're playing. We talk about BEAD at the 7th fret and some ways to use octave shapes to explore the fingerboard a little more. This GIF is a cool look at the octave shapes and how they relate to the CAGED system.
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Comments
The more you get to know the fingerboard from multiple perspectives, the less it will feel like rote memorization and the more it will feel like you're learning a variety of perspectives that just kind of make sense and fortify each other.
Scott Paul Johnson
2023-09-18 16:55:51 +0000 UTCBEAD is new to me and practical, thanks 🙏. It seems so me that the problem is not so much to find all the octave positions for a note, but given a position to find the other octave positions. You still need to cycle through the octave positions until you find one that you recognise, and that process seems to be as long as counting from the known two EADGB and the BEAD positions. Adding the BEAD helps me a lot!
pan054
2023-09-18 01:31:15 +0000 UTCI'm wondering if there is any history behind the "B" string being weird (4 half steps from G)? I'm guessing that having the first and sixth strings octave makes chording less complicated but in doing so it makes the geometry across the fretboard not follow patterns.
Ben Poe
2023-08-11 12:59:24 +0000 UTCAwesome lesson!
Chris Swimley
2023-05-04 14:08:24 +0000 UTCgood stuff
Efrain Arroyave
2022-11-15 20:51:29 +0000 UTCAwesome, woof! Happy to hear that. This is a good one to really sit with and get familiar with.
Scott Paul Johnson
2022-08-10 23:21:55 +0000 UTCBeen slowly chugging away at the intro courses and this is the first one to really give me an "aha!" moment. I've watched so many guitar music theory videos on youtube and never once had someone show the octave method and I'm so excited I joined the patreon and stumbled on this. Thanks so much Scott!
Shawn G
2022-08-10 03:07:06 +0000 UTCI'm so happy to hear that! Have you watched my CAGED Basics series? That might make things even more clear
Scott Paul Johnson
2022-04-12 13:43:09 +0000 UTCHi again Scott, unbelievable please ignore my previous post. I watched your Lesson for the Third time and Eureka I finally got it. So happy. Now I understand it I can put in the quality effort to learn it. Thanks Scott
Phil Butler
2022-04-12 07:55:58 +0000 UTCHi Scott, I only wish the caged system was as clear to me as the good folk who have commented. Specifically, where does the word CAGED fit in? i.e. is the C shape supposed to refer to the starting notes c on the A string and c on the B string? What relevance does the A shape have to the C on fret 3 on the A string and fret 5 C on The G string? and so on. I hope you get this rather vague question. Cheers
Phil Butler
2022-04-12 07:38:48 +0000 UTCIf anyone is looking for the earlier post that Scott was discussing re: Conor, you can find it here: https://community.scottpauljohnson.com/t/memorizing-fretboard/139
Mocha
2022-03-25 21:08:55 +0000 UTCExcellent lesson , thx
Matías
2022-02-13 23:49:05 +0000 UTCBrilliant! It all makes sense now. I'm so much more confident of knowing the fretboard now. Thank you Scott. You're my guitar hero!
Jason Cohen
2022-01-11 22:15:07 +0000 UTCEYE OPENING!
know idon
2021-11-23 11:53:12 +0000 UTCGreat lesson, and a Major step forward to be familiar with the fingerboard! All these "hooks" make a nice grid!
Rafael
2021-08-23 15:23:12 +0000 UTCThat's great! Could also be a kite, hehe... thanks!
Rafael
2021-08-23 15:18:35 +0000 UTCI'm with you on this one! I had to do a search to find it but glad I did. Haven't practiced it yet but I can see the utility for sure. Great lesson
Mr K
2021-04-16 22:08:33 +0000 UTCFollowing the intervals quiz link you posted under Theory Lesson 3 video, I found this very cool fretboard note identification quiz. Might be useful to someone: https://www.musictheory.net/exercises/fretboard
Sven S
2021-04-09 18:40:25 +0000 UTCScott this was a great helpful information. Why I couldn’t see before? Maybe you should tag this on MTFG. I wish I could have seen it in the beginner of my SPJ carrier.
DeDé
2021-04-09 16:47:31 +0000 UTCI like that mnemonic! I think its important to practice knowing, but when I'm performing I don't want to have to think about anything.
Scott Paul Johnson
2020-12-15 00:29:48 +0000 UTCGreat stuff. Weirdly I've never got my head into being too aware of which notes I'm playing as long as I'm in the right key, but this is really helpful, so I'm going to start applying myself. For anyone looking for a handy mnemonic for the open strings... from high E down: Every Bunny Gets Drunk At Easter.
Tim Rowley
2020-12-14 21:31:32 +0000 UTCSorry Raul! I don't speak spanish
Scott Paul Johnson
2020-11-02 20:48:08 +0000 UTCHola Scott seria posible que se pudiera traducir al español? Las explicaciones en los vídeos
Raul Vargas
2020-11-01 15:26:12 +0000 UTCWow ! I have never heard about BEAD. Thanking you so much ! BTW. I see a fascination bass guitar on a wall. I was wondering if you could prepare a few lessons how to create bass accompaniment for solo guitar.
Konstantin
2020-09-17 19:16:10 +0000 UTCThe second fret reads BEA starting from the A-string. Bea is a female name, so this is another point of reference. Another mnemonic that I use to memorize these shapes, is that you have a fish-like figure when going from string 3 to stings 1-6, and then from 1-6 to 4. The "tail" of that fish is longer, spanning 3 frets, and the "head" is shorter, spanning 2 frets. As a fish would normally be :) Another mnemonic that I use is "2-5-3"' (same note 2 frets apart), then the said "fish", then back to "2", which is also 3 frets apart from the nose of the fish. So it's like the fish is chasing its pray but the latter is getting away (and so the distance is larger, 3 frets there). And then everything repeats from "2".
Maxim K
2020-09-11 10:21:12 +0000 UTCI knew the octaves but always keen to find new ideas and loved BEAD-GB. I live in England so the GB is easy to remember ;-). Great lesson
Riccardo Emanuele
2020-09-03 08:09:17 +0000 UTCGreat lesson really really useful ....thx
Campbell Mathieson
2020-07-10 22:29:10 +0000 UTCGreat lesson. And a new guitar as I see.
Armel Chiza
2020-06-23 23:12:58 +0000 UTCValuable lesson. Thanx.
kent tomaselli
2020-06-23 13:47:16 +0000 UTCNice lesson; greatly simplifies and makes finding notes much easier. I liked "BEAD" on the seventh fret; that's a good word clue that will help finding notes mid-neck. It also repeats on the 19th, so that's a good thing as well.
Charles Biggs
2020-06-23 07:26:37 +0000 UTCsomehow most of the videos cant be played. why?
Charles W Mendez
2020-06-23 06:43:21 +0000 UTCYep! Just finishing that one up
Scott Paul Johnson
2020-06-23 05:02:23 +0000 UTCHi Scott, thank you for another great lesson. Out of curiosity, are you by any chance planning to do a lesson on intervals in general?
Alex
2020-06-23 04:16:41 +0000 UTCHi Patrick - I messaged you about this!
Scott Paul Johnson
2020-06-22 20:33:41 +0000 UTCHello Scott, for some reason I can't see any of the previous videos including this one of course. it is likely a Dailymotion related parameter. The video does not start and I get instead a fixed image with the following message "Sorry, this video can't be played' due to its confidentiality settings". I am located in Belgium. Have you changed something ? thank you
Patrick Vliegen
2020-06-22 18:42:04 +0000 UTC
