Tag: fretboard knowledge

Fretboard knowledge

It was time to combine all previous challenging exercises into an ultimate one. Today I finally got to figuring out every note on each string. My first attempt was not fast at all:

After 7-8 repetitions I managed to get it in less than 3 minutes, which is faster than 30 seconds per string. I recorded two attempts but they weren’t the best ones:

After a short break I returned to this exercise and managed to record my best attempt yet – 2:26. I’m quite sure it’s possible to go below 2 minutes, so that’s gonna be the ultimate goal for the next few days. My best attempt:

1234 on a single fret

Yesterday I successfully made it at 270 bpm, so today I decided to increase the speed to 300 bpm and to see what would happen. I did pretty decent, just a few slips and mistakes during 5 minutes.

1234 on the 1-12 frets

I tried this at 300 bpm too, but there was too much mistakes, so I didn’t record it. Will practice more to improve consistency. My pinky was the main reason of mistakes I made. It moves too far from the neck when I use my other fingers to press the strings. I’ll try to do something about it.

Summary

I’m happy with the fretboard knowledge results. It’s cool how fast I got to the point of knowing every note on the neck. I don’t know yet how to use this information, so I’m looking forward to the next modules to figure it out.

Fretboard knowledge

Before learning the notes on the B string I remembered EADG strings notes. String by string.

E string

A string

D string

G string

B string

It was time to learn something new, so I recorded my pre-practice attempts to find all the notes on the B string, then I had been doing it again and again over 40 times. After that I got the result on camera.

e string

I skipped this one for obvious reasons 🙂 Will definitely use it tomorrow to find each note on all 6 strings

1234 on a single fret

After fretboard routine I continued to increase my accuracy, dexterity and endurance. I set metronome to 270 bpm and practiced for 5 minutes with minimal amount of mistakes made.

1234 on the 1-12 frets

I tried to set the same speed for across-the-neck routine, but it was not very clean. Guess I’ll continue this task at the same speed tomorrow to master it.

Summary

I messed with the 1234 routine off-camera. Tried 1243 and 1423 at 100 bpm for 5 minutes each and it went quite well. After mastering the whole fretboard I will pursue progress in every possible 1-2-3-4 combinations. There are 24 of them, so it will take some time. The ultimate goal is to consistently do every one of them at 300 bpm for 2-3 minutes. But I’ll practice something else as well not to become bored to death with the same routine for hours every day.

All notes throughout the neck are now familiar – that’s great. It’s quite simple knowledge which is a bit tedious to get. Obviously it will pay off in the future, so I’m glad I learned it in just 6 days.

Tomorrow I’ll practice with all 6 strings at once in order to be able to quickly find all existing notes on the fretboard quickly. Not sure what time will be great for that exercise. We’ll see…

1234 on the 1-12 frets

I decided to do this exercise on the significant part of the neck to develop muscle memory for different fret sizes. The metronome is set to 240 bpm.

Fretboard knowledge

Didn’t have much time to practice new strings, so I tried if I could save the sub 30 seconds speed per string if I was to do three strings one by one without a break.

Summary

Given the time I had today, the practice went quite well. Surely tomorrow I’ll practice the G string and become a step closer to the whole fretboard mastership.

Fretboard knowledge

I started with repeating the E and A strings results to confirm them. Then moved to the D string.

The D string was kind of tricky one, so I spend 30 tries to master it. Most of them are in videos this time.

In the end I decided to return to E and A strings to practice them a few times again.

1234 on a single fret

I started at 300 bpm but gradually decreased the metronome to 200 bpm as I started to be tired and my fingers slipped the strings a few times.

Summary

3 string mastered, 3 more to go (actually 2, E and e strings are pretty much the same).

I’ll practice 1234 on 240 bpm for a few more days to become consistent. Then I’m going to increase the speed. My closest goal – 5 min at 300 bpm without mistakes.

Fretboard knowledge

I started to master the E string. After repeating the exercise for 20-25 times I became pretty consistent in finding all 12 notes in 30 seconds or below.

All the same with the A string. 20-25 tries and I got to numbers below 30 seconds, which is pretty decent.

1234 on a single fret

After another one E string fretboard knowledge try I started the 1234 exercise. I set the metronome to 120 bpm and quickly realized it’s too slow. So during this part of practice I increased the speed to 200 bpm.

Working on 1234 alone was quite boring so I decided to try different combinations of fingers starting with 1324 at 100 bpm.

Then I tried 4321 at 100 bpm, which was kind of easy too at this speed.

After realizing there are 24 possible combinations, I decided to practice and master them later in order to increase the 1234 speed. So I went through 240 bpm to 300 bpm but the latter was not too consistent cause I was already tired of this exercise.

Summary

I’m happy with the fretboard knowledge results. The approach I took – to practice strings one by one – is definitely worked out. Looking forward to increase time for other strings.

1234 exercise is fun, will increase the speed and maybe try to do it across the frets to train muscle memory for every position on the neck.