Confused by the Guitar Fretboard? This will help!

The guitar fretboard is a confusing place, particularly as the same pitch can be found on multiple strings (perhaps even all six of them!). That’s why it’s essential for fretboard navigation to understand exactly how the guitar strings relate to one another.

The reference for this is relative (or 5th fret) tuning. That tells you all you need to know! There's a 5 fret gap for the same note (5 frets lower on a lower string, 5 frets higher on a higher string)...except...between strings 3 and 2 in which there's a 4 fret gap (4 frets lower when moving 3(G) to 2(B), 4 frets higher when moving 2(B) to 3(G)).

But that's not all. The key to really unlocking the fretboard is to memorize your guitar octave shapes. These shapes occur either by skipping over one string (in a diagonal towards the guitar body) or when skipping over two strings (in a diagonal towards the headstock).

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FRETBOARD MASTERY

GUITAR BLUEPRINT

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WHO AM I?
Hey! I’m Ry Naylor, a British-born guitar instructor and professional transcriber based in the south of France.

You’ll find loads of song lessons in my archives, but my focus more recently has been to share my passion for the benefits of music theory when learning guitar in a fun, visual, and accessible way. You will find more instructional content on my Instagram and Pinterest pages. If you like what I do please help support my work on Patreon or check out my premium guitar video courses and PDF eBooks in my online shop 🙏🏻

0:00 Video intro
0:35 How I think about it
0:49 Unison
1:01 Relative tuning
1:40 Moving string
1:57 Example 1 (Strings 3-4)
2:24 Example 2 (Strings 2-3)
2:49 Why the fretboard is so confusing
3:00 The same note on ALL 6 strings
3:30 Octaves overview
3:54 6-4 octave
4:41 GUITAR BLUEPRINT
4:51 5-3 octave
5:12 4-2 octave
5:44 3-1 octave
6:10 4-1 octave
6:59 5-2 octave
7:29 6-3 octave
7:55 Summary
8:17 Patreon Group
8:30 Like-Subscribe
8:43 End Screen

[MrOsmanaujiram]

I have struggled with this for so long. Thank you so much. I’m so lucky to have found this!

[JaiHighVibes]

Great tips! Learning the notes on the E, A, D and G strings took a while to get that B things is/has always been trick, always have to think about it a bit but this should definitely help memorize it quicker for most if not all.

[roberthughes]

This was a very big help. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[leonbanks]

hello there my friend. Followed here from Instagram. I love the video