Mastering the fretboard is a lifelong pursuit. From learning the names of each string to being able to play literally any chord or scale or lick anywhere on the fretboard, guitar players have to figure out a system of ‘mapping’ their fretboard. In this article I will briefly explain the process that most pros and many of my students go through to learn their fretboard. This should provide some direction to those that are struggling to break out of the ‘open chord zone’. This also applies to players only comfortable using one pentatonic shape.

Mastering The Fretboard Tip 1: Learn Your Note Names

The first step is pretty simple and involves learning all 12 notes of the musical alphabet. This is known as the chromatic scale. How these notes map onto the fretboard is an essential tool. The notes names are A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#. The starting point to unlocking your fretboard is this. You should be able to find any of these notes on any given string. These will become the ‘root notes’ for your chords and scales.

Mastering The Fretboard Tip 2: Octaves

The next step involves learning the 3 main octave shapes for each of the 3 string sets (E-A; D-G; B-E). This will allow you to find the more difficult note names much faster. It is also a way of short cutting the process of trying to memorize endless note names up and down the fretboard. Knowing these octave shapes also lays the essential foundation for the rest of the process. These octave shapes should be present in your mind when playing any associated scale or chord.

Mastering The Fretboard Tip 3: Major and Minor Barre Chords

Learning your major and minor barre chords will enable you to construct major and minor chords on any root note that exists on the E string or A string. This often represents an important departure for beginners who are used to only playing open chords.

Mastering The Fretboard Tip 4: Learn Your Scales, Starting from Each Root Note

Learning scales is a very long process, but with a solid understanding of the above concepts, you will learn how to play each scale from their root notes rather than just learning a bunch of shapes to be memorized. This will assist not only the development of your theoretical knowledge but also the development of your musical ear. For each scale, there are 5 main positions to be learned that will cover the entire fretboard.

Mastering The Fretboard Tip 5: Learn Major 7, Minor 7, Dominant 7, and beyond

Once you can visualize the octave shapes within each of the 5 scale positions you learn, you begin to realize how different chords fit like a puzzle piece into each of these positions. For each root note in each scale position, you will eventually learn to construct any type of chord. These can range from a simple major 7 chord to a minor-9, #11 chord or, any strange jazz chord you can think of.

Putting It All Together

Pro guitar players know how each of these scale and chord shapes relate to each other and how to use them. For example, you might be using a dominant 7 arpeggio in an improvised solo and decide to play the associated dominant 7 chord in the same position to spice up your solo.

Everything mentioned here is a very brief overview of a very lengthy process. But hopefully it should provide some insight into how it is possible to eventually erase the gap between the mind and fretboard. Then you can hopefully play like Joe Pass or John Petrucci in the near-distant future.

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