Fretboard Mastery

I can not stress enough the importance of KNOWING the fretboard. It is absolutely essential for soloing and improvising. But it will also benefit even the most novice player by helping him understand how to build chords all over the neck, and by giving him confidence when playing the guitar.

Fretboard logic, or fretboard mastery is the concept of understanding how the fretboard is laid out end to end, and across all six strings. It is the concept of seeing any note on the fretboard, and immediately knowing where every other note is in relation to it. Imagine how much easier playing could be if, when seeing your finger holding a root note on the guitar, you immediately knew where to find the 3rd, 5th, 7th, b3rd, #5th, 4th, and/or any other note of the scale. It should be easy to see how this would help with soloing AND with chord creation across the fretboard.

There are some great books out there that will teach you fretboard mastery. Here are a couple available from MusicDispatch that I recommend. (You might want to right-click the links, and open in a new tab. The links will take you to the product page.)

Guitar Fretboard Workbook

I have used this one extensively, and have even bought a few extras for family and friends. This MI press book is laid out like a workbook with exercises, and places for you to fill in your answers. Bring your pencils to class!

Guitar Fretboard Mastery

This book looks to be another in the Grimoire series. Although I haven't tried any of the Grimoire books myself yet, I'm thinking this might be my first one to try! Looks very useful.

Ok, that's it for this installment. Now get out there, and master that fretboard!