How to Learn the Fretboard

To really play guitar you need to know where all the notes are on your fretboard. There are many ways of doing this, but this is the one I used to help me find every note in less than an hour.

I'm not kidding, this amazingly simple system really does work and it's on two levels, one of which is free and the other has a small fee attached. This fee also lets you into a members area with over 300 guitar lessons, exercises, licks, scales and so on. It's great value for money.

There's also some free stuff that includes a metronome and a guide on how to read guitar tab(lature).

Now don't get me wrong. I didn't actually learn the entire fretboard in one sitting, or even five. What I learned from this was how to quickly and easily find every note on the fretboard using the software and a simple memory exercise. I still had to apply the learning technique, but boy did it make the task a whole lot easier and, I'm pretty confident, a whole lot quicker than just learning by rote. It was a lot more fun, too.

Now, on the assumption that you will find the free guitar software irresistible and that you will therefore pay the 15 bucks or whatever it is to get the rest of the stuff, I just need to point something else out. The blokes behind TabGuitar know a lot more about music than they do about building a website (sorry, guys, but it's true). So when you become a member and sign in you will find yourself bewildered and in the middle of a forum with no obvious menu for downloads in sight.

The answer is to click on the first item in the forum setup which is called "Members Downloads" and go from there. They do also provide a direct link in the welcoming email, but that's pretty easy to overlook a few weeks down the track.

Enjoy what's there, even if you only use the free guitar stuff. I've found the site very helpful and the software even more so.