These exercises are taken from the PraxTrax.org Complete Fretboard Course.
More Free Exercises

Learning the Fretboard

Here we look at the Fret 5 - a "Super Fret"

The Super Frets are the most important reference points on the fretboard.

Fret 5 - A "Super Fret"

The three most important positions on the fretboard are probably:

  1. The Nut or Open Position
  2. Fret 5
  3. Fret 12 - The Octave Fret

The importance of the Nut and Fret 12 are fairly obvious. The Nut is the starting point and Fret 12 is an octave higher and the "second starting point" where everything starts over again.

The importance of Fret 5 is not so obvious. As you probably learned on day 1 or 2 of your guitar adventure, since all the strings except the B string are tuned 5 frets higher than the previous string, you can use the fifth fret position as a tuning aid. Once the E string is tuned properly, A is tuned to match E5, D is tuned to match A5, G to match D5, B to match G4*, and E to match B5.

This makes Fret 5 an important reference point because it is relatively easy to memorize the note values at Fret 5. We just move the open position (nut) values over one string and adjust for the B string.*

Any way you look at it, the importance of learning the notes at Fret 5 can not be overstated. Just to remind you, the notes are:

A - D - G - C - E - A

First, they are important in themselves, because they are all commonly used natural tones. But just as important, they provide an important reference point for lower notes (especially at frets 3 and 4), and, perhaps more importantly, for higher notes at frets 6, 7 and 8 and even higher at 9 and 10. This what I want to emphasize in this lesson:

Fret 5 is the most important reference point when learning the fretboard.

What do I mean by this? Simply that when you know that G5 is C, you can easily calculate that G7 is D, G9 is E and G10, F.

And it is the same for the other strings. Once I know that D5 is G, I know (or should be able to quickly figure out) that D7 is A, D9 is B and D10 is C. And so on for the other strings.

So, to repeat, this is why I have called Fret 5 a "Super Fret". It is packed with important notes. And it is the transition point between the commonly used first five frets, and the less commonly used frets above Fret 5.

This makes the following exercises very important. You want to make the notes at Fret 5 automatic - just like G at E3 and C at B1 are automatic for most of us. This exercise will help you make the notes at Fret 5 automatic, along with some of the more common relationships with notes above and below.... So let's do it!

Here's another exercise that you may find a bit more difficult.


The BEAD-G Rule for the G String

Now let's get back to our focus on the G string. In this exercise we use the BEAD-G Rule to help find the notes adjacent to notes on the D string.

*The value of the G string at fret is C, but, unlike the other strings, this does not correspond with B0, the nut position of the next string. Rather, it corresponds with fret B1. This is because the B string is only 4 frets (rather than 5 like the other strings) above the G string.



These exercises are taken from the PraxTrax.org Complete Fretboard Course.
More Free Exercises