IMPORTANT COPYRIGHT & LEGAL NOTICE: You Do NOT Have The Right To Reprint, Resell, Auction or Re-distribute This E-book

GUITAR NOTE MASTERY www.GuitarNoteMastery.com IMPORTANT COPYRIGHT & LEGAL NOTICE: You Do NOT Have The Right To Reprint, Resell, Auction or Re-distr...
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GUITAR NOTE MASTERY

www.GuitarNoteMastery.com

IMPORTANT COPYRIGHT & LEGAL NOTICE: You Do NOT Have The Right To Reprint, Resell, Auction or Re-distribute This E-book. You May NOT give away, sell, share, or circulate This E-Book or any of its content in any form. The copy of this e-book you have purchased is for your own personal use. The ebook is fully printable and one printed copy may be made for your own personal use. You are also welcome to copy the e-book to a CD-Rom, Zip disc or other storage media for backup for your own personal use. Electronic books, also known as e-books, are protected worldwide under international copyright and intellectual property law, the same as printed books, recorded material and other literary works. Under Copyright law, "Literary Work" includes "computer","computer program", "software", and all related materials sold online, including electronic books (e-books), and adobe acrobat PDF files. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: No part of this e-book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system, without expressed, written and signed permission from the author (with the exception of brief quotations as used in reviews or discussion groups, with attribution to the author and source).

Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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Hi there! Welcome and thanks for making the decision to purchase this e-book! I have no doubt that if you put in the effort, you’ll soon totally master the notes on the fretboard. To make things easy to find, here’s a list of all the 11 steps in this note learning system. Just click on the hyperlinks to go directly to the step…

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step Step Step Step Step Step Step Step

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Introduction (Go there now) Understand the Musical Alphabet (Go there now) Understand how the Musical Alphabet lies on the guitar (Go there now) Memorize note locations: Part 1 (Go there now) Understand Sharps and Flats (Go there now) Memorize Note Locations: Part 2 (Go there now) Memorize Note Locations: Part 3 (Go there now) Understand The “Weird Notes” (Go there now) Understand The “Super-Weird Notes” (Go there now) Understand Natural Notes (Go there now) Step 11: Some Final Ideas (Go there now)

If you have any questions at all about stuff in this e-book, please let me know. I am here to help! There is no such thing as a dumb question. J All right. Enough talk from me. Have fun with this stuff! All the best,

Craig Bassett. www.GuitarNoteMastery.com

Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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Step 1: Introduction Go Back To Index Learning the notes on the fretboard is one of most important things that you can do. Some of the benefits that you’ll get from learning the note locations include: §

You’ll learn at a much faster rate.

§

You’ll be able to apply music theory to the guitar.

§

You’ll save yourself hundreds, if not thousands of hours of frustration.

§

You’ll start to see relationships between chords, scales and other musical materials.

§

You’ll feel less intimidated by music theory.

I can guarantee that if you don’t know the notes over the entire fretboard you are NOT developing at your fastest possible rate. So this leads us to an important question…

Why don’t all guitar players learn the note locations? In my opinion, there are three reasons: Þ Lack of information on how to do it. Þ Lack of desire to do it. Þ Laziness! Well, the good news is that you don’t have to worry about the first two. In this e-book you have all the tools and information that you need. You also have the desire—you wouldn’t have bought this e-book without desire! But what about the third…

Are you willing to do what it takes to master the fretboard? If the answers yes, then awesome! You’re exactly the sort of person I like to help. J Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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There’s a LOT of information in this e-book. Let’s look at a few ideas on how to get the most out of it… Þ Get the big picture first. The best way to learn anything is to get an overview of the subject before looking at it in detail. For this reason, I highly recommend reading through the whole e-book once before you even get started with the exercises. With this initial reading, don’t worry too much about trying to understand everything. Þ Decide when you will practice the exercises in this e-book. I recommend setting aside at least 10 minutes a day to work on your note location knowledge. Decide now when you will do this. Þ Do the ACTION STEPS. In this e-book I’ve given you lots of practical things to do. Please don’t skip these. They are absolutely vital! Þ Be consistent. Do some note knowledge practice every single day. This consistency is the key to success. Þ Take notes. Don’t be afraid of printing out this e-book and writing on it. Þ Be creative. As well as learning the exercises in the e-book, it’s also a great idea to make up your own. And now for the first ACTION STEP… ACTION STEP: Read through the entire e-book once. Once you’ve done that move onto Step 2…

Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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Step 2: Understand the Musical Alphabet Go Back To Index The first step in mastering the notes on the fretboard is to understand and memorise the musical alphabet. The musical alphabet is simply this: A B C D E F G Everything that you play which involves pitch (e.g. chords, scales, melodies) will use these letters. So it’s definitely a good idea to get to know them inside and out! There are three VERY important things to remember about the musical alphabet… 1. B and C are always a semitone (1 fret) apart. 2. E and F are always a semitone (1 fret) apart. 3. All other consecutive notes are a tone (2 frets) apart. Some people find it helpful to see this information as a diagram… A

B

C

D

E

F

G

A

Important: The musical alphabet can start on any note. For example, if we started it on D the diagram would look like this… D

E

F

G

A

B

C

D

Notice how even though we have started on a different note, the order and spacing of the notes stays the same.

Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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ACTION STEP: Fill out the diagrams shown below.(I’ve given you the starting note in each one).

A B C D E F G All done? Awesome! I would recommend drawing these diagrams until you can do all of them from memory. Another useful way to memorize the structure of the musical alphabet is to visualize pairs of notes. What do I mean by this? Check out the diagram below… A

B

How to visualize the diagram: 1) Look at the diagram for about 5-10 seconds. 2) Close your eyes and see the diagram in your “mind’s eye”. See it as clearly as you can. 3) Open your eyes and look at the diagram for another 510 seconds. 4) Close your eyes. This time imagine yourself drawing the diagram with an orange highlighter pen. 5) Repeat Steps 1-4 until you can visualize the diagram clearly.

Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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I know it seems like a strange thing to do…but it works! Visualization is an extremely powerful technique for learning and memorization. Why do you think this technique would work so well? Important: Don’t panic if you can’t see the diagrams clearly right away. The more you practice visualizing, the better you’ll get at it. ACTION STEP: Use the visualization technique on the diagrams below. Spend about 10-15 minutes to memorize them.

A B

B

Even though this might seem really basic, it is essential.

C

People who don’t understand this stuff will NEVER

C

D

D

E

E

Important:

understand music theory fully. I’ve had a few students in the past that at first had trouble with understanding theory. But once they made the effort to totally understand the musical alphabet, their ability to learn

F

and memorize theory skyrocketed!

F

G

G

A ACTION STEP: Once a day for the next 21 days, (by memory) write out the diagrams on this page once. Visualize any that you get wrong or forget.

Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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Step 3: Understand how the Musical Alphabet lies on the guitar. Go Back To Index Let’s see how the musical alphabet lies on the guitar. Here are the notes of the musical alphabet shown on all six strings… Thick E-String.

A-String:

D-String:

G-String:

Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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B-String:

Thin E-String:

So what do you notice? Here are a few important observations… Þ The order and spacing of the notes on all strings is the same. The only thing that changes is the starting point. Þ The open string note name is the same as the 12th fret note name. Þ If you continued past the 12th fret the note names would repeat. For example, the 13th fret of the thin E-string would be an F note. Now…this brings us to an important question. What are some good ways to memorize the musical alphabet on the guitar? ACTION STEP: Spend 30 minutes brainstorming as many ways of memorizing the musical alphabet on your guitar. Write down all of your ideas.

When you’ve finished, please turn to the next page… Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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Step 4: Memorize note locations (Part 1) Go Back To Index In this step we’ll look at some exercises to help you memorize the note locations on your guitar. But before we get to them, let’s test your current note knowledge… Note Knowledge Test: 1. Please turn on your metronome and set it to 120 beats-per-minute (bpm). 2. Decide on a note you will work on. 3. Find that note on the thickest string in all possible locations.(One note location per click of the metronome). 4. Without pausing, repeat the process on all the other strings. 5. Repeat steps 2-4 for all the other notes. How did you go? Did you find it hard or easy? If you couldn’t do it easily, then you have some work to do. But don’t worry, by the time you finish the note learning exercises you’ll be a master! Before we start the exercises, let’s talk about how to get the most out of them… Þ Work on one string at a time. Don’t move onto the next string until you have mastered the one you are working on. Þ Be consistent. Do some note learning practice on a daily basis. 10 minutes once a day is far better than doing 70 minutes once a week. Þ Be patient. Take your time and enjoy the process. Feel confident knowing that if you do consistent practice, you’ll master the note locations eventually. Þ Do the exercises at the start of your practice session. Get it out of the way early on in your practice sessions.

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Þ Think benefits. Learning the note locations on your guitar can be a bit laborious sometimes. By thinking of how learning them will benefit your playing, you’ll be less likely to skip doing the exercises J. Ok.. Enough talk, let’s get started with the exercises… Important: Here’s how to do the exercises that follow: 1. Play each note shown in the TAB. As you play each note say the note name out aloud. 2. Move from one note to the next slowly. 3. Repeat the exercise until you no longer need the TAB. 4. Repeat the exercise from memory for 5 minutes. 5. Have a break for 1-2 minutes. 6. Repeat the exercise from memory for another 5 minutes. These exercises are VERY powerful. As well as helping you memorize note locations, they also help you memorize the logic of the musical alphabet. This is essential if you ever want to master music theory. Exercise 1:

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Exercise 2:

Exercise 3:

Exercise 4:

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Exercise 5:

Exercise 6:

ACTION STEP: Spend a minimum of 10 minutes daily practicing the note learning exercises. It is vital that you have this stuff memorized, so go for it with all the energy you can summon! On the next page is a table to help you keep track of your progress…

Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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Here is a table to help you keep track of your progress. Each time you practice an exercise, write down how much time you spent practicing it. Exercise

Time spent on exercise

Exercise One Exercise Two Exercise Three Exercise Four Exercise Five Exercise Six

How did you go? Good I hope! At this point you should have the musical alphabet memorized up to the 12th fret on all six strings. Well done! A lot of people are too lazy to do this. You should feel proud of yourself! So what’s next? In my opinion the next logical step is to learn to go to any note randomly. It’s all very well to be able to work out the notes in order, but is this how you’ll have to do it in real life? Let’s look at a couple of exercises…

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Exercise 7: Using drill cards is a fantastic way of learning to find random notes. Here’s how to do the exercise: 1. Print out this page and cut out the drill cards. 2. Shuffle them up. 3. Pull out a card. Find that note in all locations up to the 12th fret on all strings. Don’t worry about speed for now. Just take your time. 4. Repeat until you’ve gone through all the drill cards. 5. Repeat steps 2-4 until you’ve done the exercise for at least 10 minutes.

C

D

E

F

G

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

A

B

Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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ACTION STEP: Spend at least 10 minutes a day doing Exercise 7. Keep on doing daily until it becomes easy for you. When that happens, you’re ready for the next exercise… Exercise 8: You’ve already met this nasty one—remember the Note Knowledge Test? For this exercise we’re going to modify it slightly. Instead of doing it at a 120bpm we’re going to start of a little slower. We’re also going to limit the range to only the first 12 frets. Nice of me, isn’t it? J Here’s how to do the exercise… 1. Turn on your metronome and set it to 60 bpm. 2. Decide on a note that you will work on. 3. Find that note on the thickest string in all possible locations up to the 12th fret.. (One note location per click of the metronome). 4. Without pausing, repeat the process on all the other strings. 5. Repeat steps 2-4 for all the other notes. Once you find 60 bpm too easy, then the next step is to increase the metronome speed slightly. Keep on gradually increasing the speed over time until you can do it at 120bpm. ACTION STEP: Spend at least 10 minutes a day working on Exercise 8. Keep practicing it until you can do it easily at 120 bpm. When you can do that, move onto the next page…

Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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Step 5: Understand Sharps and Flats Go Back To Index Up until now we’ve focusing on notes that are called natural notes—notes that don’t have a sharp or flat. Don’t know what sharps or flats are? That’s ok—read on! Before we go further here are a couple of important things to memorise…

A sharp raises a note by one semitone (one fret). A flat lowers a note by one semitone (one fret).

Here’s a silly but effective way of remembering this… Remembering Sharps: What would happen if you stood on something SHARP (like a nail?). If you’re like most people, you’d jump UP in the air! ACTION STEP: Close your eyes and imagine yourself walking onto a SHARP nail. Then see yourself jumping UP in the air in absolute agony.

Another way to remember it is to do the following… ACTION STEP: Say to yourself in the most ridiculous voice you can think of “SHARP, UP…SHARP, UP”. Repeat this 20 times. The sillier your voice, the better you’ll remember it!

Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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Remembering Flats: What would happen if your car got a FLAT tyre? Chances are, the car would sink DOWN towards the ground. ACTION STEP: Close your eyes and imagine seeing one of your car’s tyres gradually going FLAT. See the car slowly but surely sinking DOWN towards the ground. And here’s another way to remember flats… ACTION STEP: Say to yourself in the most ridiculous voice you can think of “FLAT, DOWN…FLAT, DOWN”. Repeat this 20 times. The sillier your voice, the better you’ll remember it! How did you go? It’s pretty crazy isn’t it? But I can guarantee you’ll remember them! Here’s a table showing you what you’ve learnt. Notice in the first column I’ve given you the symbols that musicians use to indicate a flat or sharp.

Symbol.

b #

Name.

Means.

Flat

Lowers a note by one semitone (1 fret).

Sharp

Raises a note by one semitone (1 fret).

Let’s look at an example to make things 100% clear… Example : If G is at the 3rd fret then … §

G# would be at the 4th fret.

§

Gb would be at the 2nd fret.

Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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Let’s now look at the musical alphabet with sharps and flats added. Check out the diagram below… A

A#/Bb

B

C

C#/Db

D

D#/Eb

E

F

F#/Gb

G

G#/Ab

A

Notice how there is no B#, Cb, E#, or Fb. Why would this be? Important: B#, Cb, E# and Fb do exist in certain music theory situations. I’ve left them out of the diagram to keep things simple for now. We’ll be looking at them in detail a bit later on.

ACTION STEP: Below are some diagrams for you to fill out. A good hint is to fill out the natural notes first and then add the sharps and flats.

A B C D E F G How did you get on? What were some of the things that you learnt? Right…let’s now look at some smaller groups of notes for visualization… Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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Have a look at the following diagram… A

A#/Bb

B

How to visualize the diagram: 1. Look at the diagram for about 5-10 seconds. 2. Close your eyes and see the diagram in your “mind’s eye”. See it as clearly as you can. 3. Open your eyes and look at the diagram for another 510 seconds. 4. Close your eyes. This time imagine yourself drawing the diagram with an orange highlighter pen. 5. Repeat steps 1-4 until you can visualize the diagram clearly. ACTION STEP: Use the visualization technique on the following diagrams. Spend about 10-15 minutes to memorize them all.

A

A#/Bb

B

C

C#/Db

D

D

D#/Eb

E

F

F#/Gb

G

G

G#/Ab

A

Notice how there are only five to memorize. Why?

ACTION STEP: Once a day for the next 21 days, write out (from memory) the diagrams on this page. Use the visualization technique on any that you get wrong or forget.

Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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Step 6: Memorize Note Locations (Part 2) Go Back To Index In this step we’ll look at some more note learning exercises. Let’s jump right in with the exercises… Reminder: Here’s a quick reminder about how to do the exercises… 1. Play each note shown in the TAB. As you play each note say the note name out aloud. 2. Move from one note to the next slowly. 3. Repeat the exercise until you no longer need the TAB. 4. Repeat the exercise from memory for 5 minutes. 5. Have a break for 1-2 minutes. 6. Repeat the exercise from memory for another 5 minutes.

Exercise 9: In this exercise we’ll use sharps on the way up the neck, and flats on the way down.

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Exercise 10: This exercise uses flats on the way up and sharps on the way down.

Exercise 11: In this exercise you’ll say both options when you get to a non-natural note. For example, at the second fret you would say “F sharp, G flat”.

ACTION STEP: Spend 10 minutes a day working on Exercises 9, 10 and 11. Once you have mastered the low E-string, do the same exercises on the other strings.

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Here’s a table to help you keep track of your progress. Write down how much time you spend practicing each exercise. String

Exercise 9

Exercise 10

Exercise 11

Thick E-string A-string D-string G-string B-string Thin E-string

All done? Great! Let’s look at the final exercise in this Step… Exercise 12: This is similar to Exercise Seven, except we’ll use all the notes. 1. Print out the next two pages and cut out the drill cards. 2. Shuffle them up. 3. Pull out a card. Find that note in all locations up to the 12th fret on all strings. Don’t worry about speed for now. Just take your time. 4. Repeat until you’ve gone through all the drill cards. 5. Repeat steps 2-4 until you’ve done the exercise for at least 10 minutes.

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C

C#

Db

D

D#

Eb

E

F

F#

Gb

G

G#

Ab

A

A#

Bb

B

C

C#

Db

D

D#

Eb

E

F

F#

Gb

G

G#

Ab

A

A#

Bb

B

C

C#

Db

D

D#

Eb

E

F

F#

Gb

G

G#

Ab

A

A#

Bb

B

C

C#

Db

D

D#

Eb

E

F

F#

Gb

G

G#

Ab

A

A#

Bb

B

C

C#

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Db

D

D#

Eb

E

F

F#

Gb

G

G#

Ab

A

A#

Bb

B

C

C#

Db

D

D#

Eb

E

F

F#

Gb

G

G#

Ab

A

A#

Bb

B

C

C#

Db

D

D#

Eb

E

F

F#

Gb

G

G#

Ab

A

A#

Bb

B

C

C#

Db

D

D#

Eb

E

F

F#

Gb

G

G#

Ab

A

A#

Bb

B

C

C#

Db

D

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Exercise 13: This exercise is the same as Exercise 8 except we’ll use all notes including sharps and flats. Here’s how to do it… 1. Turn on your metronome and set it to 60 bpm. 2. Decide on a note that you will work on. 3. Find that note on the thickest string in all possible locations up to the 12th fret.. (One note location per click of the metronome). 4. Without pausing, repeat the process on all the other strings. 5. Repeat steps 1-4 for all the other notes. Once you find 60 bpm really easy, then increase the metronome speed slightly. Keep on gradually increasing the speed over time until you can do it at 120bpm. ACTION STEP: Spend at least 10 minutes a day working on Exercise 13. Keep practicing it until you can do it easily at 120 bpm. When you can do that, you’re ready for Step Seven…

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Step 7: Memorize Note Locations (Part 3) Go Back To Index Important: This step will help you master the note names from frets 12 to the highest fret on your guitar. If you don’t normally play above the 12th fret, then feel free to skip this step. There’s no point practicing stuff that you’ll never use. If on the other hand you want to play blazing, furious guitar solos then please work hard at this stuff! We’ll use the same exercises for this step as we used for up to the 12th fret. Because you already know how to do them, I won’t need to give long-winded explanations. J Exercise 14:

Exercise 15:

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Exercise 16:

Exercise 17:

“You can either become a great guitarist or you can make excuses, but you can’t do both”.

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Exercise 18:

Exercise 19:

ACTION STEP: Spend at least 10 minutes a day working on these note learning exercises. On the next page is a table to help you keep track of your progress. Don’t move onto Exercise 20 until you can do them easily.

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www.GuitarNoteMastery.com Time spent on exercise

Exercise 14 Exercise 15 Exercise 16 Exercise 17 Exercise 18 Exercise 19

Exercise 20: This is a drill card exercise for frets 12 and higher. It uses just the natural notes (i.e. No sharps and flats). Here’s how to do it… 1. Get out the drill cards that you used for Exercise 7 (page 15). 2. Shuffle them up. 3. Pull out a card. Find that note in all locations from the 12th fret to the highest fret on your guitar. Do this on all strings. 4. Repeat step 3 until you’ve gone through all the drill cards. 5. Repeat steps 2-4 until you’ve done the exercise for at least 10 minutes. ACTION STEP: Work on Exercise 20 for at least 10 minutes a day. Do this everyday until it becomes really easy for you to do. Once that happens, move onto Exercise 21…

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Exercise 21: Here’s how to do this exercise… 1. Turn on your metronome and set it to 60 bpm. 2. Decide on a note that you will work on. Stick to only natural notes. 3. Find that note on the thickest string in all possible locations from the 12th fret to the highest fret on your guitar. (One note location per click of the metronome). 4. Without stopping, repeat the process on all the other strings. 5. Repeat steps 2-4 for all the other notes. When 60 bpm becomes easy, then increase the metronome speed slightly. Over time, build up the speed until you can do the exercise at 120 bpm. ACTION STEP: Spend at least 10 minutes a day working on Exercise 21. When you have reached 120 bpm for all notes, then you are ready to move on… Important: Remember to say the note names out aloud. Exercise 22:

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Exercise 23:

Exercise 24:

ACTION STEP: Spend at least 10 minutes a day working on Exercises 22, 23 and 24. When you have mastered the low E-string, do the exercises on the other strings. On the next page is a table to help you keep track of your progress…

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Exercise 22

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Exercise 24

Thick E-string A-string D-string G-string B-string Thin E-string

Once you’ve mastered these exercises, you’re ready for Exercise 25… Exercise 25: This exercise is the same as Exercise 20 (page 30), except we’ll use all the notes. 1. Get out the drill cards that you used for Exercise 12. 2. Shuffle them up. 3. Pull out a card. Find that note in all locations from the 12th fret to the highest fret on your guitar. Do this on all strings. 4. Repeat step 3 until you’ve gone through all the drill cards. 5. Repeat steps 2-4 until you’ve done the exercise for at least 10 minutes. ACTION STEP: Spend at least 10 minutes a day working on this exercise. When it becomes easy, move onto Exercise 26…

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Exercise 26: This exercise is the same as Exercise 21 (page 31) except it uses all the notes… 1. Turn on your metronome and set it to 60 bpm. 2. Decide on a note that you will work on. 3. Find that note on the thickest string in all possible locations from the 12th fret to the highest fret on your guitar. (One note location per click of the metronome). 4. Without pausing, repeat the process on all the other strings. 5. Repeat steps 2-4 for all the other notes. When 60 bpm becomes easy, then increase the metronome speed a little bit. Over time, build up the speed until you can do the exercise at 120 bpm. ACTION STEP: Spend 10 minutes a day working on Exercise 26. When you can do the exercise at 120 bpm for all notes then you are ready for Exercise 27…

Exercise 27: This is the final exercise for this step. It’s identical to the previous exercise but with one change—you’ll use the entire range of your guitar! 1. Turn on your metronome and set it to 60 bpm. 2. Decide on a note that you will work on. 3. Find that note on the thickest string in all possible locations on your guitar. (One note location per click of the metronome). 4. Without stopping, repeat the process on all the other strings. 5. Repeat steps 2-4 for all the other notes. ACTION STEP: Spend 10 minutes a day working on this exercise. When you can do it at 120 bpm for all notes then move onto the next step… Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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Step 8: Understand The “Weird Notes” Go Back To Index Up until now we’ve left out a few note names that occasionally turn up in music. Let’s look at them now… Weird Note Name

Sensible Note Name

B#

C

E#

F

Cb

B

Fb

E

Yes. Believe or not, sometimes in music theory we have to use the weird note names. The best advice that I can give right now is this… Memorize the table NOW!

To make memorizing it easier here are two diagrams for you to visualize… B/Cb C/B# E/Fb F/E#

How to visualize each of the diagrams: 1. Look at the diagram for about 5-10 seconds. 2. Close your eyes and see the diagram in your “mind’s eye”. See it as clearly as you can. 3. Open your eyes and look at the diagram for another 510 seconds. 4. Close your eyes. This time imagine yourself drawing the diagram with an orange highlighter pen. 5. Repeat steps 1-4 until you can visualize the diagram clearly. ACTION STEP: Use the visualization technique on the two diagrams. Spend about 510 minutes memorizing them now.

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Step 9: Understand The “Super-Weird Notes” Go Back To Index Now we’ll look at a couple of nasty things—double-sharps and double-flats. They don’t crop up very often, but it’s definitely good to know about them. Here are the definitions…

A double-sharp raises a note by two semitones (two frets). A double-flat lowers a note by two semitones (two frets). And here’s a table showing you the symbols as well as the definitions…

Symbol.

Name.

Means.

bb

Double-Flat

Lowers a note by two semitones (2 frets).

x

Double-Sharp

Raises a note by two semitones (2 frets).

And finally, here’s another table… Super-weird Note Name Cx Dx Fx Gx Ax Bbb Dbb Ebb Gbb Abb

Sensible Note Name D E G A B A C D F G

I wouldn’t lose too much sleep worrying about these ones. All you need to do is remember the definitions. That way you’ll know what to do if you come across them. Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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Step 10: Understand Natural Notes Go Back To Index Earlier in this e-book I mentioned natural notes. I described them as notes that didn’t use a sharp or flat. You may be wondering what symbol natural notes have. Check out the table below…

Symbol.

Name.

n

Natural

Means. Cancels sharps and flats.

Let’s look at an example. I’ve written the note names under the music just in case you don’t read music. J

Here’s a couple question for you. Why did I have to use a natural sign? Why didn’t I just write a C note? The reason is that the sharp sign lasts for the entire bar. So any C notes after it MUST be played as a C# unless you put a natural sign to cancel it out. The natural sign tells you in this case to play a normal C not a C#. Important: Unless you are going to read or write music it’s not really necessary to know this. But if you are interested in learning to read and write music, it’s an absolutely vital rule to remember. OK…enough of this stuff. In the last step we’ll look at a few final ideas on how to improve your note knowledge… Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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Step 11: Some Final Ideas Go Back To Index In this step I’ll give you some ideas on how to apply and reinforce your note knowledge. This is essential. These ideas will ensure that you never forget the note names. Let’s get started… Idea 1: Chord Exercise. This is one of my favourites! I’m amazed how often people learn chords without being aware of what notes are in the chords. This exercise will not only reinforce your note knowledge, it will also help you learn more about chord construction. Here’s how to do the chord exercise… 1. Play a chord that you know. 2. Work out every note in that chord. Make sure that you say the note names out aloud. 3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 (each time with a new chord) for 10 minutes. ACTION STEP: Do the chord exercise for 10 minutes now. After doing it, write down what you learnt from it.

Idea 2: Chord Construction Exercise. Here’s how this exercise is done… 1. Play a chord that you know. 2. Work out what notes are in the chord. 3. Write down the notes that are in the chord. Don’t worry about repetitions of notes. For example, if there are two E notes in the chord, just write E down once. 4. Spend 10 minutes working out other ways of playing the chord. Let’s look at an example to make the instructions even clearer… Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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Here’s the chord that we’ll use…

The notes in the chord (from the thickest to the thinnest string) are E, B, E, G#, B and E. Because we don’t write down repetitions of notes, this gives us… E G# and B. Let’s now work out a few different ways of playing this chord. Important: As long as you stick to the three notes in the chord, it doesn’t matter what order you play them in. Here are a few chords that I made up…

ACTION STEP: Do the chord construction exercise for 10 minutes now. When you’ve finished, write down what you’ve learnt by doing it.

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Idea 3: Scale Exercise. Here’s how to do this exercise… 1. Think of a scale that you can play. 2. Play the scale very slowly. As you play each note, say the note name out aloud. 3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for 10 minutes. ACTION STEP: Spend the next 10 minutes doing the scale exercise. Once you’re done, write down what you learnt from doing the exercise.

Idea 4: Scale Construction Exercise. Here’s how to do the exercise… 1. Play a scale that you know. 2. Work out what notes are in the scale. 3. Write down the notes that are in the scale. 4. Spend 10 minutes working out other ways of playing the scale. Here’s an example of this exercise. Check out the music below…

The notes in this scale are: A C D E G and A. On the next page are a few other ways of playing the scale that I made up…

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ACTION STEP: Spend the next 10 minutes doing the scale construction exercise. After you finish, write down what you learnt from doing it.

Idea 5: Memorize scales on a single string. This has to be my all time favourite exercise! Here’s how to do it… 1. Choose a scale that you know. 2. Work out the notes in the scale. 3. Work out how to play the scale on a single string. 4. Play the scale very slowly with one finger. As you play each note, say the note name out aloud. 5. Repeat step 4 for 10 minutes. Here’s an example. Let’s take the scale that we used for Idea 4. Here’s the scale written out on a single string…

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ACTION STEP: Spend the next 10 minutes working on Idea 5. Write down what you learn by doing the exercise.

Idea 6: Learn to read music. This is one of the best ideas. It is impossible to be a good music reader without knowing the notes on the fretboard! It is beyond the scope of this e-book to talk about music reading. But here’s a book that I highly recommend buying if you want to learn to read music… “Music Reading for Guitar: The Complete Method” by David Oakes. You can find a link to this book on my useful resources page… www.guitarnotemastery.com/usefulresources.html Idea 7: Create your own exercises. Let’s exercise your creativity! Creating your own exercises is a great idea. It’s fun and it allows you to create exercises most suited to your style of learning. ACTION STEP: Spend at least 10 minutes designing a note learning exercise. Write it down below…

________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Copyright ©2006 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any form without the express written consent of Craig Bassett is prohibited.

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Idea 8: Visualization Exercise. This one’s a toughie! It will really help you develop your ability to see the fretboard clearly in your “mind’s eye”. Here’s how to do this exercise… 1. Think of any note (e.g. E). 2. Close your eyes. 3. See in your “mind’s eye” all the locations of the note over the entire fretboard. 4. Repeat steps 1 to 3 for all notes.

From: Craig Bassett Well my fellow guitar maniac, you’ve come to the end of this ebook. If you’ve been consistent with your practice I have no doubt that you are pleased with your results. You should feel proud of yourself! A lot of guitar players say they want to master the fretboard, but they don’t actually do it. If you haven’t done so already, I’d encourage you to check out Guitar Scale Mastery. This is an online membership website designed to help YOU master guitar scales. I'm very proud of it, and feel that it could help you a LOT. J You can get more information about it by going to here… www.GuitarScaleMastery.com/letter/ Thanks again for buying and using this e-book. To your musical success, Craig. Ps. I’ve included a small bonus on the next few pages. Feel free to print them out for your own use. Enjoy!

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