Learning the Fretboard: Part Four

As if you needed another way to learn the fretboard, I have come up with another pattern to help you learn it.

You may have heard before that a guitar fretboard is set up mathematically. This is perfectly true. If you are to look at the fifth fret on the low E, you’ll find the A note. Now, mathematically speaking, if you subtract 5 from the number of the fret you note is on, you’ll find the next A…obviously, the open A string.  However, if you were on the third fret playing the G, and you wanted to find it’s easier to think of the third fret as the fifteenth, seeing as everything repeats after the twelfth fret, then subtract 5 to get the next G on the tenth fret of the A.

Continuing on, if you were to think now of the A as 12 instead of zero, you would then be able to subtract 5 to get the next A on the seventh fret of the D, and of course you can continue to subtract 5 to get the next A on the second fret of the G.

Seeing as the B string is the only one that isn’t set up the same as the others, there’s a slight adjustment in the math of finding the next A. Thinking of the second fret now as the fourteenth, you are only going to subtract 4 from the B string to get the next A. Finally, to check your math, you should be on the tenth fret of the B and ready to subtract 5 more to get the fifth fret of the high E…which is the same as where you started on the low E.

So, knowing this, here’s the math:

All strings except the B

A (5th fret of E) – 5 = open A

Math for the B string

A (14th fret of the G) – 4 = A

As you’re learning were each note is, try learning where groups of notes are. For instance, if you know where the A is on each string, learn where B and C are as well. This would be a whole step for the B and half a step for C.