The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #76

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    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    Of course you're probably right, in that once you learn to read in all positions another fretboard. I think some players like Reg would say that it's helpful to have a starting point FROM WHICH to learn to read, like knowing the basics of where diatonic notes are in given positions etc.

    Reg has always talked about those basic diatonic scale positions as being the "starting reference" and that they can become the physical organization from which you learn to read, even chromatically etc. There's a degree of separation on the guitar from the kind of kinesthetic reference that you have on the Sax or piano. Guitar is more like a piano keyboard with black notes between EVERY white note etc.
    '

    Maybe it helped that I did it at age 14, but, as I recall, it only took a few months months to get thru Mel Bay 2 and onto Complete Rhythms (Colin and Bower), the latter read as written and also an octave up. I didn't need any prior knowledge of the fingerboard to do that. It was easy enough to count frets to figure out what the notes were -- and then it was just a matter of some repetition. As I recall, I was reading clarinet books all over the neck in less than a year from first touching a guitar. I don't think I was especially quick at it, but I did practice 2 hours per day.

    That became the foundation. If I needed to learn a scale or arp, I'd figure out the notes and find them. I did practice some fingerings over the years. If I had it to do all over again I would not have spent as much time playing scales in order C D E etc. I'd have practiced them on tunes, initially focusing on using the notes of the scale (or arp) to create melody. I do find having muscle memory for arps to be helpful. When I have to play something practiced because the tempo is high, the arps often sound better than the scales. But, it depends on a lot of other factors.

    I did it this way, not some other way, so I'm in no position to compare approaches based on personal experience. But, it makes sense to me and it is the way I'd teach it, if I was still teaching. You learn the fingerboard and you learn to read, all at the same time. I don't see why it's any more trouble than an alternative approach.
    Last edited by rpjazzguitar; 11-25-2019 at 03:20 AM.

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  3. #77

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    Learning the fingerboard is one thing. And once you've learned it, even if another way to learn it is better, you can't go back to not-knowing it and then learn it anew.

    I learned the fretboard in a slapdash way, starting with just knowing the notes on the low E and A strings as roots of power chords. Gradually I learned the other notes. I could have learned it a lot quicker if that had been a priority. It wasn't. (Probably should have been but it wasn't.) But I learned it. And once it's learned, you know it.

    Now, that learning may be refined, as with learning chord inversions on different string sets or various scale-fingering systems (3nps, CAGED, whatever) but if you already know the fretboard, learning those things is not learning the fretboard, it's learning fingerings. Fingerings are huge, but they are a separate matter.

  4. #78

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    I was told to learn the fretboard with the circle of fourths

  5. #79

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    Yea... anyway works... if that's right, why do some players get better. And so much quicker.

    So reading music is the same with any instrument or no instrument. the notes don't change, what instrument you realize the notes on the pages on...or how you hear the notes changes. With the guitar, it generally works better when you have an organized fingering system that reflects how the guitar is constructed. I know, it's pretty basic, simple... but many players use fingerings that only use parts of the fretboard.

    So the organization is... how you finger that Guitar Fretboard Vis. Chart as the labeled notes change, all 12 frets. The chart was in key of "C"... so now how does it look when you change the key to Db, now Db Lydian, now Db Mixolydian b5.

    And the organization is how the fingerings of those key changes works... most use caged and the fingerings are? Embellished versions of those caged open position chords with capo.

    For a lot of music you don't need much more. But the practice of learning a little at a time and then trying to create an organization after the fact creates conflicts, every time something new comes along... you need to embellish what you have memorized, which requires reorganization and lots of practice, a lot of starring at the neck and frustration...... not to mention, tempo becomes a problem.

    Analogy... when you learn new tunes do you start at beginning and just keep adding notes until end of tune. Take just the melody...do you start at beginning and keep adding notes, bars etc... until you memorize the tune. If you do... you might want to reorganize how you learn tunes. It's better to start with big picture and connect the dots. By that I mean start with the Form of the tune, how the tune is organized within space... time. OK... same for different thread. It's the same approach, learning music within space, and how the space is organized is much faster and you'll get the big picture quicker and have a better understanding of what the tune is musically. Rhythm is not 1+1+1+1 etc..... it's the organization of patterns within periods of time and how they are organized to each other.

    Fingerings are the organization of all the notes on the fretboard and how they are related to each other. Some approaches work better than others. (obviously names and sound of the notes also) Generally all that becomes instinctive... you don't physically or mentally label and hear each note as you play. You see and hear the bigger pictures... larger groups of notes. Maybe think of chord changes... can you hear chords? or do you go through process of one note at a time.

    Start playing solos with voicings below.... chord solos, but starting from the Top down. Don't worry about the roots. Good exercise for getting fingerings together.... after you have them together.

  6. #80

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    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    Yea... anyway works... if that's right, why do some players get better. And so much quicker.


    Fingerings are the organization of all the notes on the fretboard and how they are related to each other. Some approaches work better than others. (obviously names and sound of the notes also) Generally all that becomes instinctive... you don't physically or mentally label and hear each note as you play. You see and hear the bigger pictures... larger groups of notes. Maybe think of chord changes... can you hear chords? or do you go through process of one note at a time.
    Couple things here. I think you're treating as one thing something that I treat as at least two.
    I think learning the notes on the fretboard is one thing. It's pretty easy. At least straightforward. They are what they are. (And they vary a bit becuase what is, say, Gb in one key is F# in another.) But you just have to learn them, like the keys on a typewriter. It is THIS PART OF IT that I say, "it makes no difference how you learn where the notes are, and once you know them, you know them. You can't go back and re-learn them some other way, even if you come to think that other way is more efficient." (I learned the fretboard in a very inefficient way. I wouldn't recommend it to a friend. But I learned it. The FASTEST way I've seen to learn it is Carol Kaye's way but that's another story.)

    FINGERING is something else. I agree that's huge. Much more involved than just learning the notes. (But one needs to know the notes...) But it's a separate thing. One can change one's fingering (as, for example, someone who was taught the "CAGED" approach and later switches to a 7-fingering system, or someone who was taught a scale system and switches to a triad-based approach such as Garrison Fewell taught---very diffferent fingering, but of course, the G is still G, Bb is still Bb, D is still D in a Gm triad.)

    Your fingering approach is great. I have no quarrel with it.

    I prefer thinking in terms of chords rather than scales. I know the 5 fingerings Jimmy Bruno teaches and the 7 fingerings you recommend. Again, I'm not saying anything is wrong with them. I'm not AGAINST them. I learned them, but they're not my "default".

    As for getting better, well, not everyone who uses 7 scale fingerings as a default turns out great either. Greatness is exceptional, and few achieve it.

  7. #81

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    I learned the notes by reading.

    I learned Chuck Wayne's system for fingering/picking and, later, Warren Nunes' system. I have spent more time than I should have, in retrospect, practicing that material in a rather mindless way. Much later, I focused more on arps (although so did Chuck) and constructed some fingerings of my own to fill in gaps.

    But, when I'm improvising, none of this is particularly helpful for the goal I'm trying to achieve. That goal is to be able to sing a line in my mind and play it instantly. When I can do that, I'm never thinking about fingering. Of course, I'm not always able to achieve that goal, or even approach it. So, for example, at high tempo in unfamiliar harmony, I'll use the arp fingerings as a kind of safety net. I rarely think about scale fingerings, instead I just find the notes in the scale I want by sound. I rarely play, in a solo, a prepared scale fingering, at least not consciously.

    I don't know if other people do it this way or not, or if they simply arrive at this place through some other route. It works great if the tempo is slow enough and breaks down at breakneck tempos. When the tempo is fast enough I can't execute the lines I sing mentally. Unclear if more fingerings would really help that.
    Last edited by rpjazzguitar; 11-27-2019 at 06:20 PM.

  8. #82

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    Quote Originally Posted by pauln
    Maybe pro pit musicians avoid memorization in order to maintain exclusive reliance on extraordinary sight reading skills for performance quality?
    It is the other way about: they develop reading skill to avoid memorisation. Memory is defective and subjective. An orchestra is band of musicians who must play together; the scores tell each member exactly what he or she should be playing at a particular moment.

  9. #83

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    Quote Originally Posted by pinbridge
    If I may toot my own horn, I released a book some time ago about learning the notes on the fretboard, called "Guitar Note Finder". It does focus on just that but also maps the notes to the staff, in case, like Joe Dalton and Jack E Blue, you want to kill some birds!
    For anyone who may be interested, I just updated this book and released a workbook to go along with it. No excuse now not to know the notes on the fretboard!

  10. #84

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    Lear triads naming the notes all over the fretboard.