Finding Notes On The Guitar Neck Using Octaves (Guitar Lesson IM-116) How to play IF Stage 1

Justin's Completely Free, Intermediate Guitar Course Lesson IM-116.
Stage 1, Lesson 6.

In this guitar lesson I will show you a cool way to work out the notes all over the guitar neck using octave shapes. All you need to know is the notes on the bottom (thickest) two strings, which you should know if you did the beginners course!).

Find the related course notes on the following link:
http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-116-NotesOnNeck.php

This is part of Justin's Intermediate Guitar Method, Foundation. A series of lessons available free online!

http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-000-IntermediateMethod.php

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

Full support at the justinguitar web site where you will find hundreds of lessons on a wide range of subjects, and all the scales and chords that you will ever need! There is a great forum too to get help, no matter what the problem.

And it is all totally free, no bull. No sample lessons, no memberships, no free ebook. Just tons of great lessons :)

To get help with this lesson (and for further info and tabs), find the Lesson ID in the video title (like ST-667 or whatever) and then look it up on the Lesson Index page of justinguitar.com

http://www.justinguitar.com

Have fun :)

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Hi, how ya doin'. Justin here.

Welcome to IM-116,

which is all about using an octave shape

to figure out every note
on the entire guitar fingerboard.

Now in order to do this you must know
the notes on the thickest two strings,

on the 5th string and the 6th string.

You should know all of the notes
from the nut right up to the 12th fret.

This is a really, really important guitar skill,

and you will have a lot of trouble
making progress on the instrument

if you don't know the notes
on at least those two strings.

Hopefully on the entire fingerboard,

which is what I'm gonna try and help you out with a bit now.

It does make a big difference
when you're learning your scales and your licks,

and your chords if you know what the notes are.

And it's quite funny on the guitar a lot of times,

guitar players kinda don't think they need to know that stuff.

They're somehow immune to knowing the notes on their instument.

But on any other instrument if you didn't know the notes,

how to play every note on your instrument

and you didn't know what they were called,

you'd be considered a kind of a moron,
so let's not be one of those,

and let's be a proper musician,

and learn where all of the notes are on the fingerboard.

Now we do this by learning these 4 octave shapes,
which I'm about to show you,

and then using these octave shapes,
you can figure out every note on the fingerboard.

So, let's get to a close up now
and I'll show you these 4 octave shapes.

OK, this first shape I'm gonna show you here,
I've called this Octave Shape 4.

Not because it's officially called
Octave Shape 4 or anything,

but just because it helps you figure out
the note on the 4th string.

This is the pattern here.

If we look at this as being the Root note,
this is the note G here,

on the 3rd fret of the thickest string.

If we go down 2 strings,
and two frets further up the neck,

we get to another note G.

This works of course with any note,

if you've got a note on the 4th string,
anywhere on the neck,

if you count backwards two frets,
and two strings up towards the ceiling,

you get to another note,

you can hear if you play them,
that they sound right.

They sound like the same note.
So, this is what I'm calling Octave Shape 4.

Now, the next one,

is actually exactly the same shape,
but down towards the ground 1 string.

I've called this Octave Shape 3,

because it helps you find the note on the 3rd string.

Again of course, there's our Root note,

we go down toward the ground 2 strings,
and then up 2 frets,

and we end up with this Octave Shape 3.

So, Octave Shape 4,
Octave Shape 3,

exactly the same thing,
just over a string.

Now the next one,
which I've called Octave Shape 2,

Slightly different,
here we've got the Root note here on the 5th string,

we're going backwards two frets,
and up 3 strings,

and we figure, I've called it Octave Shape 2,
'cause it gives us what I note is on the 2nd string.

Very important. OK, that's that shape.

And the last one, it's actually a double octave,
to be completely correct,

but I've called it Octave 1,
but really it's a Double Octave,

cause the two outside strings,
hopefully you know that both of them are an E string,

so of course whatevers in the same fret
on the outside two strings

are going to be exactly the same.

Now the exercise that I would recommend that you do
to practice this, is just to pick a note,

any note at all, let's pick this one here,
which is the 4th fret of the 2nd string.

Now it's on the 2nd string,
so we'd use Octave Shape Two,

which meant that we counted back 3 strings,

or rather up 3 strings,
and then forward 2 frets.

We can test it sounds the same,
this note here

we hopefully know
that the 6th fret of the of the 5th string is the note D#.

So this note here, is also the note D#.

Hopefully getting the idea of this.

If we wanted to know say this note here,
which is the 2nd fret of the thinnest string,

which is the 1st string,

we'd use Octave Shape One
and we'd just count it over,

look over to the thickest string,
it's the note F#.

So that note there is the note F#.

Let's say we wanted to figure out this note here,

which is the 3rd fret of the 3rd string.

It's the 3rd string
so we'd use Octave Shape Three.

which was back 2 frets, up two strings,
we'd end up with this note.

Which is the note, hopefully you know
1st fret of the 5th string is the note Bb.

So really what I'd recommend you do,

is just pick a note anywhere
on the thinnest four strings,

just in anywhere,
right up the neck and off the screen,

wherever you like on the neck,
pick a note,

and then use the correct Octave Shape
to figure out what that note is.

That will take a little bit of practice,
but not that much,

if you go through,
and you just go in and find out,

and you learn your Octave Shapes.

Octave Shapes get used for playing a lot as well,

they're a really useful thing to know.

But in this instance,

we're using it for kinda a little basic bit
of Music Theory

to figure out where all of the notes are
on the fingerboard.

It's lots of fun doing this,
will take a little bit of practice,

don't stress if you don't get this done right away.

I'm not expecting you by the end of Foundation One
to be able to do this.

I'd like you to be able to do it
by the end of Foundation Five.

So it's far of those things
that you'll probably want to keep

on your practice routine for a little while.

It really is, it's a great skill to be able to know
what all of the notes are.

You'll suddenly find
so many things kinda open up to you

when you start looking at the scales
and you know what the notes are,

and when you learn a new position
you can see how it's been moved,

and new chords, and figuring out what the notes are
in the chords that you're playing and stuff.

It really is definitely worth quite a bit of time working on this.

Just like I said, find a note,
figure out what that note is,

using the Octave Shapes and name it.

It'll probably take you a little while
to get it so can do it instantly,

but that's what you should be aiming for,
really good skill.

Remember there's always help at hand at the Forum,

if you go to justinguitar.com/forum

there's plenty of people around, including me,

to help you out with any issues that you may have,

and help you getting all of the notes
on the fingerboard into your memory

as quick as you possibly can.

Take care of yourselves.
See you for another lesson real soon.

Bye bye.