C: Exercise 2 of 4

exercise 4 for a major
Memorizing the fretboard
Date posted: 17 November 2023

Purpose

Filter-out the extraneous "scale-tone" notes from Exercise #1, leaving only the "chord-tone"/arpeggio notes for each position/mode.

Requirements

  1. Sing/speak every note-name aloud while (or moments before) plucking them
  2. Play in-time with a metronome ensuring zero errors
†: this is the ingredient that builds the neurological/brain link, assigning the exact fret a "name" to later remember & visualize it by. It's as challenging to do as it is effective; without this, it renders the exercises and fretboard memorization method fruitless

‡: an analogy is lifting weights, where the tempo you can: (a) speak note-names aloud and (b) play in-time, is the achievable "weight" to bench-press. Pushing the "weight-limit", aka increasing the tempo, determines how firmly the neurological/brain connection of the fret<-->note-name is achieved.

Tips

  • "Get it off the paper".. practice without having to read the sheet music
  • Start with a tempo (bpm), any tempo, no matter how humiliatingly slow, to immediately satisfy the 2 requirements

Estimated time

1 week

Note reference

(The notes of the Cmaj scale)

Mode 1

Note: could take time to load MIDI tablature...

Mode 2

Mode 3

Mode 4

Mode 5

Mode 6

Mode 7

About the author

The author, blah148, is an Albertan musician, whose been struck with a curiosity for acoustic blues music since initially posting on Youtube in 2006. A first album was released by blah, in 2025, largely after incorporating the library of guitar tablature, which comprises the bulk of this Ploddings pre-war blues project. The author would be greatly indebted to the reader, who may spare some precious minutes, in listening to one of the recent releases, shown below :) Also, in case of any interest to learn the pre-war blues style, on the guitar, the Youtube channel can be visited, for long-form pre-war blues video tutorials, livestreams of the note-for-note transcription of original recordings, and more.

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