How well do you know the fretboard?

[AntLockyer]

Anthony Wellington asked this question in a clinic he did in New York recently. His test was starting at the highest note on your bass (in his case a G) play all the Gs or all the As or F#s etc. do all the ones on the highest string first then move down to the next string.

He played it to a click set to 100 bpm one note per click

Yesterday I couldn't do it at all, I knew the business end only and even then the E and A string better than the others.

Today I can play all the Gs at 60 bpm which is a start. I find it much easier on my 2 octave bass, it is almost like I have to learn it twice, once on the Aria and then once for Fenders.

A long way to go but this is the first drill I've had for a while that really makes me feel like I'm improving.

[Sibob]

Yes I've done that excercise with Anthony at Wooten Woods. I was fine at it, slightly surprised myself, but then I was on a 20 fret Fender.
Now I'm using a 26 fret 5 string (high C)......it's harder lol....but getting there

Si

[AntLockyer]

I've printed out a 24 fret 6 string board, might as well learn them all just in case. Going to write out index cards too like Anthony has.

[Guest bassman7755]

http://www.5diamondmusic.com/bass-apps/bass-note-workout-app/

Very simple to use, highly recommended, there are android and iphone variants.

[Bilbo]

Well, we once shared a cab but I haven't got it's phone number.....

[CompleteThink]

Wrote an Android App to help practice this - has a bunch of different matching games similar to what you described. Settings for 4,5,6 string basses.

[url="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fretboard.game.android&hl=en"]https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fretboard.game.android&hl=en[/url]

[url="http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Think-Fretboard-Learn/dp/B00TMTQWU2"]http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Think-Fretboard-Learn/dp/B00TMTQWU2[/url]

[Grangur]

Surely, this becomes easier, irrespective of the number of frets if you know the circle of 5ths?

Do you know the circle of 5ths?

[discreet]

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1432900844' post='2786036']
Do you know the circle of 5ths?
[/quote]

Er... a secret society..?

[ambient]

I teach people the note positions using the chromatic scale. Usually starting on the 3rd fret of each string and moving up and down. Seems to work well enough, C# follows C, then D etc.

[Grangur]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1432908535' post='2786135']
Er... a secret society..?
[/quote]

LOL. I was only wondering. My thinking is if you know the order of the 5ths then you automatically know what note you'll find above/below another note.
C, G, D, A, E, B, F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, F, C

[Hector]

Stupid question but how is this giving you something different from just learning e.g. scales all over the fretboard? Maybe it's a metric of fretboard knowledge, but is it useful in of itself, and if so can it only be attained by this exercise? In my (ignorant) view, it smacks of a technical exercise that is a bit too separate from actual music.

[AntLockyer]

For me knowing the tetra chords and where the root is all over the neck opened things up massively.

[Bilbo]

The merit of knowing the fretboard is for improvising. If you play a B on the A sting and you want to play a Eb (10th), if you know the fretboard, you can find it easily and without 'learning; anything new. If you don't know the fretboard, it's an act of faith. I know the electric fretboard very well but, on my double bass, I struggle in ways that I don't on my Wal.

[Guest bassman7755]

[quote name='Hector' timestamp='1432918239' post='2786233']
Stupid question but how is this giving you something different from just learning e.g. scales all over the fretboard? Maybe it's a metric of fretboard knowledge, but is it useful in of itself, and if so can it only be attained by this exercise? In my (ignorant) view, it smacks of a technical exercise that is a bit too separate from actual music.
[/quote]

IME thoroughly knowing the note names cold massively reduces the amount of rote learning to be able to play a particular scale or arpeggio anywhere on the neck. Instead of having to learn lots of interlocking patterns and how to shift between them I just locate the nearest root and derive the rest from intervals, it also means I know exactly how every note I play is functioning e.g. whether its a 2nd 3rd 5th 7th etc which for me is a much more musical approach than rote learning shapes.

[JTUK]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1433064967' post='2787389']
The merit of knowing the fretboard is for improvising. If you play a B on the A sting and you want to play a Eb (10th), if you know the fretboard, you can find it easily and without 'learning; anything new. If you don't know the fretboard, it's an act of faith. I know the electric fretboard very well but, on my double bass, I struggle in ways that I don't on my Wal.
[/quote]

I don't know how people can play effectively without knowing where they are going or have to go...
Playing boxes and positions are shortcuts but you only short cut from knowing where you start from in the first place.

If you have to learn the track by memory of position but don't actually know what that note is... is limiting in the extreme, IMO.
At the very least...you should always know the octave of your start position on every string.
Unless you have perfect pitch, you wont be able to play informal pick up bands.... and more to the point,
other players will know this, not have confidence in you and therefore you wont get asked...??

[Hector]

There's the question of the exercise itself and what the exercise teaches you.

I'm not questioning the value of fretboard knowledge or knowing note names (who would?).

What I'm questioning is how this particular note finder exercise is a better route to this knowledge than just learning your scales? For example, fingerboard geometry helps with learning scales arps etc. but saying the note names as you play (or in general being aware of note names as you use patterns) will also give you this kind of understanding of the fingerboard in terms of note names. But you're also placing this information in context, rather than taking it in via an exercise which is some distance from how you want to use it.

In short, does it help or hinder to learn note names outside of the context of scales and arpeggios? Context is a powerful tool for memory. There's lots of psychology/ neuroscience literature out there about it. For example, some memory champions (and notably Hannibal Lecter!) build a memory palace to help them retain information. But context can also help when understanding new information (and when information is understood, it is retained best).


EDIT - Don't want to derail this thread in any way, or be overly critical - hope nobody thinks I'm being a downer. I do think it's a useful exercise, but just find these sorts of pedagogical questions really interesting.

Edited May 31, 2015 by Hector

[Dad3353]

I'm a drummer, so my 'learning discipline' has a slightly different slant to it from the outset. I found that, for pitched instruments, be it bass, guitar, piano, xylophone etc, the most effective way was to sing, to pitch and out loud, the note name wanted, then play it on the instrument, rinse and repeat. I would do this for scales, melodies, arpeggios; everything, in fact. It's not a 'speed' technique; in fact, the slower the better, I found. One could vary by singing out the interval instead of, or as well as, the note name. Doing this in Europe, I also found it useful to use both the Anglo Saxon version ('C', 'D' 'E' etc...) and the Latin version ('Do', 'Ré' 'Mi' etc...). As an extra bonus, this trains the voice a little (although it matters not a jot that one has a 'singing' voice, or that one is going to sing at all...) and the ear.The essential is to be able to 'think' stuff, and play it. Rhythmically this comes from firstly uttering the rhythm, then playing it, much like the Oriental oral tradition for tabla and such. Here's an example of how one would vocalise a Tal for tabla; note the vocal aspect on the last line...



Just my take on things...

Edited May 31, 2015 by Dad3353

[Guest bassman7755]

[quote name='Hector' timestamp='1433076205' post='2787544']
In short, does it help or hinder to learn note names outside of the context of scales and arpeggios? Context is a powerful tool for memory. There's lots of psychology/ neuroscience literature out there about it. For example, some memory champions (and notably Hannibal Lecter!) build a memory palace to help them retain information. But context can also help when understanding new information (and when information is understood, it is retained best).
[/quote]

Its a fair question, but IME its knowing them fluently without a specific context and without a system to work them out that is most useful because then the knowledge can be applied to anything and recalled at the fastest possible speed.

Regarding learning and pattern and context etc I think music is different to academic subjects because in certain cases speed of recall matters, a lot, being able to recall something in a few 10/ths of a second vs 1 second is often the difference between it being useful and useless. Using patterns & context to learn and recall something works great when dealing high volumes of information but, at least for me, slows down recall significantly at the fraction of a second level which is where music happens.

So these days I often seek to actively remove the use of patterns or "systems" to learn something musical thats going to be applied in real time. A good example of this would using the cycle of 5ths to work out one note from another that was suggested above - in real time I cant afford the time it takes to apply the system.

I also believe that using patterns and system to learn gives your brain an easy way out which it will take by default pretty much forever thus making it very hard to attain ultimate instant recall fluency. It would be interesting to know for example how many experienced electrical engineers have not memorised resistor colour codes "cold" but instead still rely on a certain very politically incorrect but memorable rhyme to derive the sequence B B R O Y G B V G W but thats OK because its not a highly time critical skill.

Edited May 31, 2015 by bassman7755

[AntLockyer]

Anthony says if you know them by knowing where they are in relation to something else all you are doing is working out where they are really fast rather than actually knowing. The difference between knowing your times tables or being able to do multiplication quickly.

[Hector]

Interesting stuff at play here about the nature of memory, we're fascinating machines aren't we? I should apologise for the slight derailment if it's of no interest to anyone else.

You might [i]learn [/i]them in relation to something else (e.g Eb is 2 frets and 1 string away from C) and/or in a specific context (Eb is the minor 3rd of C), but that doesn't necessarily mean that you only [i]know[/i] them in that way. I guess I mean that I'm not certain I agree with Anthony's assumption that if you learn the notes by a particular method, that you only have to use that method to recall them. Sure it'd be slower to recall if you had to go through the whole process, but over time might you not need the process itself as you build up familiarity? As an analogy, as a toddler you might have to go through your 7 times table to work out that 5x7 = 35 (i.e. doing 1x7, 2x7), but eventually you will just know that 5x7 = 35 without having to do all the intermediate steps.


Anyway, I'll stop waffling. Regardless of the (slightly irrelevant) academic side of things, if it will potentially help then I'm all for it. Especially as it wouldn't take long at the start of a practise session. I just tried it at 75 bpm (metronome there from last time I used it), and coped fine but I reckon I might struggle when upping the tempo!

[Guest bassman7755]

[quote name='Hector' timestamp='1433099498' post='2787850']
Sure it'd be slower to recall if you had to go through the whole process, but over time might you not need the process itself as you build up familiarity?
[/quote]

I read derren browns book 'tricks of the mind' (a brilliant book BTW with lots of interesting insigts into human psychology) some time ago and he outlines some methods for quickly learning number sequences. They sounded really cool and so I used one of these methods to memorise a numeric id for an investment site that I use and at first I though it was great - half a minute or so to encode the number using this technique he outlined and I could remember it by replaying a story sequence in my head. Trouble is a couple of months later I was still having to mentally run the story sequence to remember the number and I got really fed up with doing it as well as it taking me 10 seconds or so to run through it, so eventually I though s*d this and memorised the number old school by just saying it out loud every now and then for a few days and for the first time felt like I actually knew the number.

Since then I've made a point of learning important things requiring fast and frequent recall by rote directly and actually making sure that I'm not reliant on any system or using any trick or shortcut to work them out.

Edited May 31, 2015 by bassman7755

[Bilbo]

I think the kinds of fretboard memory skills we are talking about here are very much at the peripherly of playing the instrument. What I mean by that is that, say I am playing a B on my A string and decide I need to add a 10th. I NEED to know where the requisite Eb is on the fretboard before I go there. Completely agree. The fact is, however, that, for me to WANT to play that 19th, I NEED to know what a tenth is and how it sounds before knowing where the requisite Eb is. Learning about 10ths and how they sound will give me the knowledge I need to make useful musical decisions whereas knowing where and Eb is on the neck will make no more contribution in it's own right than knowing where to plug the lead in. The geography is useless on its own.

I was at a Jazz gig last night watching a highly skilled electric bass player who was all over the neck all night. He clearly knew the neck very well and was able to move positions naturally and gracefully without dropping a beat. Trouble was, it was clever but it was often quite unmusical. He did it because he could not because it needed doing. Knowledge is not power; wisdom is power. I think that knowing where notes are is crucial but knowing what they are there for and what you can do with them is infinitely more important. Learning these disciplines comes first; the geography will sort itself out.

[AntLockyer]

The intention was never to learn anything in isolation. The idea that anything we learn is useful on its own is questionable. I can play 2 octave major scales in all 12 keys. It really lets me do nothing other than play the scales.