Many players struggle to learn the guitar fretboard. This is understandable for several reasons. For one, the guitar has a lot of places to fret notes—specifically 114 places for a 19-fret guitar. Another challenge is that the same notes are repeated on different strings up and down the neck. It’s all a bit confusing, really.

The goal of this post is to offer you 10 ways to learn the fretboard, each suited for a different type of guitarist. Some ways are easier than others on the surface, but you’ll also find any effort you put in to be rewarded many times over. Hopefully you find a strategy you’d like to start using below!
 

Sight reading is the art of playing music “at sight,” meaning without practicing it first. This is an incredibly efficient mode of practice in general, but it will also help you learn the fretboard. You can find a full beginner’s guide to sight reading right here.

How do you learn the fretboard by reading alone? Well, the more music you put in front of you, the more you’ll be exposed to every part of the neck. It forces you to explore the fretboard while playing new pieces.

The beauty of sight reading is that it not only teaches you where the notes are, but it helps you gain familiarity with them. You won’t just learn how to find B on the sixth string; you’ll also pick up common musical contexts for that bass note.

Sight reading was my personal method for learning the fretboard, so this is all close to home. I forced myself to do at least half an hour of sight reading every day, and after a few months I had learned the entire fretboard. Frankly, I’d use the exact same method if I had to do it again.

I know that sight reading may seem hard. In many ways, it is. Yet if you convince yourself that the rewards of sight reading are worth it, you’ll have an easier time putting in the effort.

The best tips I’ll give you for getting started are to choose really easy music to read (and build your way up) and to keep your sessions short. Sight reading is mentally exhausting. Just as you probably can’t sprint for very long, you won’t be able to read for very long either.

The key is to persist with it and trust the process. If you can do that, you’ll be a great reader before long!
 

The CAGED system should already be familiar to many of you. Basically, it centers around the fact that the guitar fretboard has recurring patterns of notes. We can think of these note-patterns as corresponding to five basic chord shapes: C, A, G, E, and D, hence CAGED.

Outside of the world of classical guitar, CAGED is perhaps the most common way folks attempt to learn the fretboard. However, I think the CAGED system as a fretboard learning tool is seriously flawed. While it can help you conceptualize the layout of the fretboard in a certain way, I just don’t think it actually helps that many people gain real fluency up and down the neck.

My biggest issue with CAGED is that it revolves around C, A, G, E, and D shapes without explaining why. Yes, we can make the open C, A, G, E, and D chords into barre chords and play them anywhere on the neck or use them as a basis for scales, but we can do the exact same with any other chord. In fact, there are countless ways to understand the fretboard’s layout, and CAGED teachers often make you feel like their way is the only viable one.

So the good news is that you absolutely don’t need to use, understand, or teach the CAGED system. Given its popularity, you should probably familiarize yourself with it to some extent, but by God don’t feel like you need it to learn the fretboard. Frankly, I learned the fretboard by sight reading all the time, and I still wouldn’t know it if I’d relied on the CAGED system.

However, take note that mine is a dissenting opinion. The CAGED system is taught everywhere these days, so if it makes sense to you, you’re in good company. But if you’re trying to wrap your head around CAGED and nothing is clicking, don’t be afraid to abandon it for another method. It’s not necessarily the best way to learn the guitar fretboard.
 

Many diligent schoolkids will recognize this one. If you want to learn the guitar fretboard quickly, you won’t do better than this strategy.

Start with an online search for blank guitar fretboard diagrams, find an option you like, and then print a bunch of copies for yourself. Practice filling out all the notes you can without looking them up, and eventually use a guide to fill out whatever remains. Every time you do this, you’ll get a little better.

The key is to repeat this process until you know all the notes cold. I want to emphasize that simply being able to fill out the diagram isn’t good enough. You want the fretboard layout to be second nature, as though it were something you’ve always known by instinct. Think back to mastering your times tables.

This approach is best used in combination with other methods. You definitely want to be able to place every note on the fretboard, but it also helps to have some context around the musical alphabet. Sure, you need to know everywhere you can play Ab on the guitar, but ideally you also have a working sense of when to play Ab and why.

You don’t just learn where to find salt in your kitchen without having any idea of how to use it, right? It’s the same with learning the notes on the fretboard; they’re your musical ingredients.
 

Using music theory is a perfectly valid way to learn the guitar fretboard. Honestly, you don’t even need to know much theory at all, just the musical alphabet and the open strings.

Let’s start by learning the open strings of the guitar. If you don’t already have them memorized (EADGBE), then you should try to do that right away.
One simple method is to pluck the strings one by one, moving from top to bottom, and say the names of the strings as they’re ringing out. You can also write “EADGBE” 100 times in a notebook or recite it to yourself until you have it down. Finally, you can employ the following mnemonic device: “Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie.”

Once you know the open strings, you just need to practice the musical alphabet. Starting from each open string, you should be able to quickly count across the frets, from the first all the way to the twelfth and beyond.

For both E strings that would go like: E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E. . . in terms of sharps or E, F, Gb, G, Ab, A, Bb, B, C, Db, D, Eb, E. . . in terms of flats. If you do this enough, then you’ll be able to find notes by “counting” instantly.

I recommend you learn as much theory as possible. Beyond knowing the notes themselves, theory can teach you how they relate to each other and why songs are written the way they are. All of this will prove helpful in the long run.
 

If you’re serious about learning all the notes on the fretboard, flashcards are a great shortcut. I’ve found that you can memorize almost anything pretty quickly using flashcards; it’s a tried and true method for A-students everywhere.

You can go about this in a number of different ways. The most obvious method is to create 78 flashcards, one for each open string and one for each note on frets 1-12.

For example, to represent F on the first fret of the first string, you could have one side say, “F, 1st string” and the other side say, “1st fret, 1st string.” You’ll notice that you need to repeat “1st string” on both sides to allow you to practice memorizing the note from both sides of the card.

You could also keep things more simple. Just create 12 cards that name a note on one side and all its possible locations on the other. Example: “C#” on one side and “1st string/9th fret, 2nd string/2nd fret, 3rd string/6th fret, 4th string/11th fret, 5th string/4th fret, 6th string/9th fret.”

Finally, if you want to learn to read music, you might want to create flashcards listing every possible note on the staff and its corresponding location on the guitar.

Once you have your flashcards, you just need to spend a little time with them every day. Before you know it, your fretboard struggles will be over.
 

Scales are a cornerstone not only for developing technique, but also for exploring the guitar neck. Most beginner players have their first exposure to 5th, 7th, or 9th position through scale patterns, especially in jazz, blues, or rock guitar.

Like any other practice tool, you’ll get the most out of scales if you use them thoughtfully. That means you shouldn’t spend all your time ripping through scales you don’t understand. Rather, you want to hone in on each note of the scale, its tone and its location.

One helpful tip is to say each note aloud as you’re playing through a scale. I know firsthand that it’s easier to suggest this than to actually do it, but if you can push through your initial reluctance, this strategy will work wonders for you. Be sure to try it out, especially for new scales.

You might be wondering which scales you should learn. I’d say it mostly depends on your guitar style. In fact, some styles require lots of scale knowledge while others require little. Jazz guitarists usually know lots of scales, but less so pop guitarists.

From a fretboard-mastery perspective, I’d have you practice chromatic scales. These scales are easy in the sense that you just play every note in sequence. For instance, A chromatic goes like: A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, and so on.

In a certain sense, all scales are derived from chromatic scales. Thus, if you really get to know the mother scale, you’ll be in good shape to learn the others.
 

You might think I’m playing games. Learning the fretboard is serious business! Why would you mess around with kid’s stuff?

Let me tell you a story. For some reason or other, I didn’t learn to type properly as a kid. Well into my late teens, I would basically poke at the keyboard with a couple of fingers. This worked well enough for me to get by, but I could never type as fast as my friends.

When I was 19 years old, I decided to cut my losses and relearn typing the right way. Most of my friends had used Type to Learn gameplay to get their typing chops, so even though the program was designed for children, I tried it for myself. Even as a young adult, the gameplay approach really clicked with me, and I finally got a hold of typing.

The moral is that you’re never too old to play games productively. You absolutely can (and should) use games to learn the guitar fretboard. One straightforward program I’ve found is My Fretboard Trainer. It’s free and highly practical. You can also give this cool app a try.

Another option, of course, is to create your own game. This could combine with a flashcard-learning approach, but you could also get a musical friend involved. Have them quiz you on the fretboard in a number of different ways, possibly even putting a prize on the line to keep you incentivized.

In any case, don’t feel like you can’t have some fun while you’re learning the fretboard!
 

Many guitarists are either mostly or entirely self-taught. Some can’t afford to take guitar lessons, while others choose not to, feeling like they can learn everything they need online.

My two cents is that if you can afford to take lessons, you should seriously consider it. When it comes to learning the guitar fretboard, a good teacher can be invaluable.

If your teacher knows you well as a guitarist, they’re also going to know (probably better than you) how well you actually know the fretboard. As a result, they’ll offer good suggestions to fill in any gaps you might have. Ideally their experience working with you gives them a sense of what fretboard-learning methods would be most effective.

However, you might not have a teacher available to you. If that’s the case, you should substitute that as best you can by getting advice from guitarists you trust. Deciding to be self-taught is one thing, but that really means you need to be your own teacher. Try to separate your teacher-self from your student-self.

So whether you hire a teacher or become one to yourself, try to take full advantage of that to learn the fretboard.
 

Chords are the skeleton of all Western music, including but not limited to pop, rock, folk, jazz, blues, and classical. The more chords you know, the better. This is especially true when it comes to learning the guitar fretboard.

You want to avoid thinking of chords as shapes that your left-hand fingers make. Clearly you’ll be making those shapes, but you should also push yourself to know all the notes in each chord. This is a fantastic way to familiarize yourself with the neck.

Interestingly, learning chords and learning the fretboard compliment each other perfectly. Once you understand the layout of the guitar grid, you’ll gain access to a host of new chords. And whenever you learn a new way to play a chord you like, you’ll gain a new perspective on the fretboard.

I would prioritize learning chords outside your comfort zone. If you’re always in first position (first finger lined up with the first fret), you might want to learn some chords in 5th position. The more you push yourself like this, the more every zone of the fretboard will finally be familiar.
 

As you can see, there are many ways to learn the guitar fretboard. You’ll also probably discover that a hybrid approach will work best for you. That is, learning the fretboard using flashcards will be faster than using scales, but scales are going to give you a valuable playing perspective. Use multiple strategies to address the weaknesses of each one.

Above all, don’t give up on learning the fretboard. I know that it might feel unrealistic for you to know the entire neck of the guitar like the back of your hand, but it is possible. Maybe as a kid you didn’t think you could learn all fifty state capitols, but with enough study, you probably got there.

Best of luck getting to know the guitar grid!

Are you looking to upgrade your gear or browse some awesome guitar learning materials? Check out my recommendations page to see all my favorite stuff. 

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