I always found it best to learn a few notes and then use intervals to find others. Eventually you will learn their absolute positions too
Show HN: I created a game to memorize the fretboard
111–120 of 143 posts
Re: Show HN: I created a game to memorize the fretboard
#112I will critique the training method.
The way the game is presented is as a kind of flash card app: Guess and check. That can work - spaced repetition has been demonstrated to work for symbolic knowledge.
However...the way in which we learn this kind of skill - which is also a muscle memory skill - is not in consciously making a guess "I think it's E here" as we play, it's in "monkey see, monkey do" - associating motion with an idea, and generalizing on that. We know how to "walk to the left" without guessing. That's why musicians play so many scales and arpeggios.
So when the game presents a randomized grabbag of question-answer knowledge demonstration, there's no preparatory step that would contextualize it in a relationship to a motion like "travel through all positions of E". You just grind through punishment until you figure it out. That's always been a problem with educational software because it's often difficult to successfully isolate a concept into a motion - if presented with lots of information we'll pick up on the most obvious cues and ignore the other parts that we might need to rely upon for a full memory.
Find a way of presenting an isolated pattern followed by the current knowledge demonstration, and the software will probably be 10x as effective.
Re: Show HN: I created a game to memorize the fretboard
#113> “Uhh…Where’s the C# here?”
> The stack is Vue 3/Nuxt 3/Firebase/Firestore/Tailwind deployed on Vercel.
Legit disappointed that you missed the opportunity to write this in C#
Re: Show HN: I created a game to memorize the fretboard
#114Is it necessary to learn the notes on the fretboard?
I grew up playing piano, so the keyboard is my reference. Years later, learning the fretboard has been less about learning which string/fret combination sounds a given note, but instead, given a certain chord:
1. where is the root of that chord, and with that as my anchor...
2. where is the 3rd, 5th, and 7th of that chord? Only once I can easily find those three intervals...
3. where is the 9th, 11th, and 13th. Finally, the sharps/flats of all of the above.
When it comes to organizing all of this across the fretboard, I've found the heptatonic approach to the fretboard to make the most sense and the most economical. YMMV.
Re: Show HN: I created a game to memorize the fretboard
#115Is it necessary to learn the notes on the fretboard? I grew up playing piano, so the keyboard is my reference. Years later, learning the fretboard has been less about learning which string/fret combination sounds a given note, but instead, given a certain chord: 1. where is the root of that chord, and with that as my anchor... 2. where is the 3rd, 5th, and 7th of that chord? Only once I can easily find those three in…
Agreed that learning intervals and chord tone degrees is important. It is indeed supported by having familiarity with the underlying notes since they comprise the chords and scales.
Learning the fretboard helps players to find chords and chord inversions further up the neck. For example, the player knows they can move the E shape to the barre A position, which preserves all of the interval relationships from a new root.
Knowing the fretboard notes is a bit like playing in daylight rather than campfire darkness.
Re: Show HN: I created a game to memorize the fretboard
#116Perhaps the first level of the game should start closer to the nut in the campfire zone. This is an important zone to understand and shows wear on many guitars. Players then use that as the basis to venture into open wilderness, e.g., by using octave patterns to identify matching notes on different frets.
Re: Show HN: I created a game to memorize the fretboard
#117Great idea!
- Name the chord (maybe give multiple choice) would be good
- Popular tunings would be good perhaps as a hard mode. Fining G on standard tuning is one thing, but if you're tuned to D or playing a 7 string, things get interesting.
Re: Show HN: I created a game to memorize the fretboard
#118Cool could you extend this to cello finger board?
oh man...how would that even work for a fretless instrument. Genuine question, not rhetorical
Re: Show HN: I created a game to memorize the fretboard
#119The sound when missing the note is repugnant.
yeah, I agree. I'll fix it
Re: Show HN: I created a game to memorize the fretboard
#120I was gonna ask about a bass version but poked around in settings and found the option to toggle it—glad you didn't forget about us :) My one suggestion there, then, is to perhaps make the guitar/bass toggle more prominent to grab the attention of four-string aficionados.
I'd use this for mandolin and ukulele if there were those options (there are more 4-string instruments than just bass!)
I would like to finish all the modules for the guitar before I venture into other instruments. The bass so far has been kindof easy..just hide a couple strings :)