Is it worth learning every note on the fretboard?

axisus

I've gotten away without it for the past 4 decades of playing. I do spend rather a lot of time improvising. I'd like to get better at that. I'm not sure if in my case it would be a lot of effort for not that much gain? After all, I can improvise without that knowledge. 

I know all the keys on a piano (it's easier!), but I don't really use that knowledge much to play. I generally just check what sharps of flats I need to stick to in any given piece. Which I guess is related.

When I say improvising, I'm not soaring like an eagle. It's more like a woodpecker hammering the same thing over and over.

Yay or nay?

lesyeuxnoirs

A hard yay from me

AK99

Often wondered this (from which you can correctly deduce - yes, I haven't taken the time to learn the fretboard yet).

For anybody giving it an aye, could you elaborate why so please ?

fastonebaz

No not at all,  just focus on learning notes A to D on strings 4, 5 and 6 and that'll be fine. 

CoffeeAndTV

AK99 said:

Often wondered this (from which you can correctly deduce - yes, I haven't taken the time to learn the fretboard yet).

For anybody giving it an aye, could you elaborate why so please ?

I think it makes communication a bit easier with other people.  It depends on what you want from learning the notes.  It’s helped me understand more about music, and its helped me map the fretboard in terms of keys, scales, and chords.  

monquixote

Yes but you don't have to 

LionAquaLooper

Yes but for me the best way was to learn the notes on just the low E to D strings up to 12 th fret. Then i learned my intervals, especially octaves, 4ths and 5ths. 

Considering that the two E strings are identical in standard tuning and that notes just repeat after the 12th fret, that just makes it easier. 

S56035

When you say "learning the notes" do you mean "just want to know what they are" or know it in "get asked what the 9th fret on the 5th string is and immediately know it" way?  I "know" all the notes but I'd have to be given a few seconds to work them out.

blobb

Yes, but by ear, not necessarily by name. 

sev112

yes, and no

digitalkettle

blobb said:

Yes, but by ear, not necessarily by name. 

…or, indeed, in the right order.

kelpbeds

Absolutely crucial. It will hold you back eventually if you don't. 

thecolourbox

I certainly shan't bother doing it. I'm stricter with my piano and theory/literacy so I can be freer with the guitar, so I'm not going to want to bother learning all of that. It's a visual instrument, so just go right to go higher and left to go lower, and basic spatial awareness will get me near enough and my relative pitch ear will do the rest. One of the things I enjoy about singing is that I'm not always thinking what notes I'm singing, whereas on piano I'm literally analysing every note and dynamics and how I've tapped it too much too little too percussive not percussive enough. Life's too short, always sounds the same to me anyway when I play so prefer to just follow that

ewal

Depends on you and what you want to achieve. For what I do with a guitar - definitely not. I will never read music for guitar (I have read music for other instruments) and play entirely by ear.

octatonic

I’d say yay, personally. Not because it’s “essential”, but because it removes friction.

You can absolutely improvise without knowing the fretboard deeply. Plenty of people do. But there’s a difference between expressing ideas freely and sort of circling familiar shapes by instinct. Most players eventually hit a ceiling where the hands know a few safe routes and keep returning to them. That “woodpecker hammering the same thing” feeling is usually the sign.

I don't ever have to pick up a guitar and think about what I am doing, I just do it. But I learned all the notes of the fretboard more than 30 years ago, along with major/minor scales & modes and arpeggios. It is just the alphabet. It isn't unattainable or particularly difficult. It just seems that way until you've done it, then it is just normal. How you use it can be incredible and life changing though.

The thing is, learning the notes isn’t really about becoming academic or turning music into maths. It’s more like learning the map of a city you already drive around in. You can still get places without it, but once the map clicks, suddenly you stop taking the same roads every time.

And honestly, the people who try to do the absolute minimum often end up making life harder for themselves long-term. They spend years building workarounds for knowledge they could have learned in a few focused months.

Also, knowing the piano keyboard already puts you way ahead. Guitar is just more visually chaotic at first because the same note exists in multiple places.

You don’t need to become Allan Holdsworth overnight. Even just knowing where the intervals and chord tones live across the neck will massively improve your improvising vocabulary and confidence.

Roland

axisus said:  Yay or nay?

Yay

octatonic

thecolourbox said:

I certainly shan't bother doing it. I'm stricter with my piano and theory/literacy so I can be freer with the guitar, so I'm not going to want to bother learning all of that. It's a visual instrument, so just go right to go higher and left to go lower, and basic spatial awareness will get me near enough and my relative pitch ear will do the rest. One of the things I enjoy about singing is that I'm not always thinking what notes I'm singing, whereas on piano I'm literally analysing every note and dynamics and how I've tapped it too much too little too percussive not percussive enough. Life's too short, always sounds the same to me anyway when I play so prefer to just follow that

I realise we are coming at this from *very* different perspectives but I reject this idea that someone is 'freer' because they don't know the notes of the fretboard.
When the guitar neck is no longer a mystery and is something that is familiar, easily understood and able to be navigated with fluency- that is freedom.

There are all sorts of reasons for people not wanting to do this but the idea that you are somehow freer because of it, no I don't agree with that.

As to being a visual instrument... if you play in a shape based way then it is.
But this is a beginner to intermediate approach.
If you put in the work and get away from shapes, think harmonically or intervallically then it doesn't need to be.

I teach students to play melodies in different positions to get them out of shape based playing.
It transforms their fluency.

Supportact

I think it does help, just for the reason that you can find a note in various places around the fretboard more easily.  So it's good for writing interesting parts, as well as improvising.  

I'm not sure it would be as much work as you think though.  If you've been playing that long you probably know where all the E and A shape barre chords are. So therefore you know the notes othe bottom E and A string. Obviously the top E is the same as the bottom one. So it's only the notes on the other three strings really that you'd need to learn. 

fretmeister

Yes. 

Ability to communicate easily with band members is the main one, but there are other things too - like linking pitch to note names in your head makes it easier to memorise songs. None of that "I think the next note was B string at fret 8" You'll remember it easier as a G and knowing that automatically means you can decide whether to play it in that position or change the octave or pick a harmony to it.

I admit when I down tune I am really bad at remembering the shifted note names and often I'll just use the original names for ease - but that seems to be the approach of many guitarists. It can infuriate piano / keys players in a band though!  

axisus

octatonic said:

The thing is, learning the notes isn’t really about becoming academic or turning music into maths. It’s more like learning the map of a city you already drive around in. You can still get places without it, but once the map clicks, suddenly you stop taking the same roads every time.

I love that analogy!

thecolourbox

octatonic said:

thecolourbox said:

I certainly shan't bother doing it. I'm stricter with my piano and theory/literacy so I can be freer with the guitar, so I'm not going to want to bother learning all of that. It's a visual instrument, so just go right to go higher and left to go lower, and basic spatial awareness will get me near enough and my relative pitch ear will do the rest. One of the things I enjoy about singing is that I'm not always thinking what notes I'm singing, whereas on piano I'm literally analysing every note and dynamics and how I've tapped it too much too little too percussive not percussive enough. Life's too short, always sounds the same to me anyway when I play so prefer to just follow that

I realise we are coming at this from *very* different perspectives but I reject this idea that someone is 'freer' because they don't know the notes of the fretboard.
When the guitar neck is no longer a mystery and is something that is familiar, easily understood and able to be navigated with fluency- that is freedom.

There are all sorts of reasons for people not wanting to do this but the idea that you are somehow freer because of it, no I don't agree with that.

As to being a visual instrument... if you play in a shape based way then it is.
But this is a beginner to intermediate approach.
If you put in the work and get away from shapes, think harmonically or intervallically then it doesn't need to be.

I teach students to play melodies in different positions to get them out of shape based playing.
It transforms their fluency.

I think maybe I've misunderstood the question here. I obviously know the notes names and how many semitones between any intervals etc, and have a general background of harmony and pitch  that informs most of what I do on any instrument really. The way my brain perceives and manages the harmony and pitch systems is in kind of number forms, so I don't necessarily think "it's Dm7 to G to C" as much as I'd think it's ii7 V I, or I'd think in inversions like figured bass, cos I come from classical musical theory and harmony work. Notes of the scale I think of as like tonic, supertonic, mediant etc. So I can change key and play stuff just the same cos I think of it in terms of relative to a root. For example I did a concert the other day where I started playing one of the tunes in the wrong key as i'd forgotten to scribble out the intro (the intro started not on the root), but it was fine cos I just thought of the chords in terms of the numbers and did it in E flat instead of B flat.

I think that's probably closer to what you mean, and therefore I've misunderstood the question. 

What I thought the question meant was if somebody said "where is the A# on the D string" and I wouldn't be able to say, but I'd be able to join in if somebody said "we're in B harmonic minor" and I'd be fine. Most of what I play on guitar is thought of in my head or at the piano first to be honest so I just have to find where my general root is and I'm good.

Regarding being freer, again I've not explained myself well. My music obviously isn't "freer", it's the same drivel I always come out with. I mean my brain is freer to just enjoy making simple noises on a simple instrument without the mental drain of my brain analysing the constant moving patterns, harmonies, modulations, densities of touch, pedalling, whether i'm using classical or romantic or jazz phrasing  correctly etc. Guitar (and singing to be honest) is just a "nothing box" activity for me, I don't want to think any further than my instincts. That's what I mean by "freer", maybe it's not the right word.

Basically, I spent 2 hours a day practising piano and theory for 10 years as a kid and guitar/singing are very much required as the antithesis of that for me

I don't doubt that if guitar is your main thing then learning everything the way I did with piano would be worth it! I just can't be arsed for myself. It's like having a fancy technological car but also appreciating going out for a walk for me