The MOST Overlooked Fretboard Trick - 483

Opening fretboard exercises

0:00Lee here from Play Guitar Academy. The most obvious thing visually about the fretboard is the double dots. Everything on the fretboard repeats after the 12th fret. I've got three exercises for you that are going to get you actually using this repeat instead of just knowing it's there. Let's take a look. Exercise one. Here it is on the top row. What we're going to be doing is playing one note. Low. And then playing it on the octave. So this is the first fret and then the 13th fret. And then we're going to play two notes low. First fret, third fret. 13, 15. And then we're going to play three notes low. And then three notes high. 13, 15, 17. So it sounds like this.

0:59You think it's easy. It gets tougher. We're going to use this as a technique exercise. We're going to take it across the fretboard.

1:29And to add another step to it, let's say the note names as we play. F, F, F, F, G, F, G, F, G, F, G, A, F, G, A, B flat, B flat, B flat, C, B flat, C, B flat, C, B flat, C, D, B flat, C, D. Exercise number two. The C major pattern five. We're going to take this idea and put it to real scales.

2:01Doing some scale practice while jumping from the low to the high where it works. So here we're going to play our lowest notes.

2:11Down at the third fret, fifth fret, second fret, third fret on the A string. We're going to do that up an octave on the low strings. So our first one.

2:24Sounds like the Adams family.

2:27Now we're going to go our next octave. So now we start on third fret.

2:33And continue through pattern five.

2:37Then do that above. Starting with the 15th and 17th, 14, 15, 17, 14, 16, 17. Then we'll do the rest of the pattern low.

2:50And do that high.

2:56Let's take a look up close.

3:09Again.

3:13And finally, let's take some harmony to this. Let's get some arpeggios, chord tones in this. I'm going to use a chord progression of C, F, and G major. And we're going to split them up in arpeggios. And we're going to play those arpeggios down here in the low area. And then up high, back and forth. Here is our 12th fret arpeggio exercise.

3:44I'm going to play my C arpeggio. This is C, E, and G. Then do that an octave up. Then my F. And F an octave up. G. And then we'll do the next octave.

4:14Let's take a look at that up close.

Understanding the octave map

4:15And that brings us to our podcast topic today. Just working through these exercises. This simple idea, everything starts over the 12th fret, it becomes something you can immediately

4:48practice in another area of the guitar when we don't do it. That leads to the question I want to dig into today. How can you use this 12th fret to make more of the fretboard usable? Because most guitar players already know that, hey, that's an octave above. Everything starts over. They know the notes repeat, but knowing that and actually using it are two different things. And I use this a ton when I'm playing live and making up solos. So let's take a closer look at what the fretboard itself is showing us. And then I'll show you how this simple idea can help you with chords, scales, and playing

5:22more confidently above the 12th fret. So the fretboard is showing you an octave map here. I'm going to switch over here to the close-up. What do you notice right away? Now, if you're in the car, think about a fretboard. What's the one thing that sticks out? The 12th fret, right? We have two dots. Most guitars have single dot position markers. And then at the 12th fret, something happens. Something's important right there. We all know the names of the strings, E, A, D, G, B, and E.

5:55And we know that the dots happen on the 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th fret, but then they go to the 12th fret. So there's two frets between the 9th and the 12th that don't have a dot on them. Most of us know, well, you know, if you think of the low E string, the G is the note at the 3rd fret. The A is at the 5th fret. The B is at the 7th fret. C sharp is at the 9th fret. And E is at the 12th fret. That's where it starts over again. But if you take a look, the design of these dots is the same as well, too.

6:30If you think of the open string as just like our 12th fret, and we go E, F, F sharp, G, that's two frets between our open string and our G note, our first dot. Well, if you go to the high string at the 12th fret, E, we have two frets before we get to our first dot, which is also a G. See where we're going with this. The note that's at the 3rd fret with the 1st dot is the same as the 1st dot above the 12th fret, as well, too.

7:00The 2nd dot is an A. 2 dots above the 12th fret is an A. The 3rd is the B. 3 dots above the 12th fret on that same string is an E. And that happens for all of the strings, meaning those markers are showing you a dividing point on the fretboard. Look what happens after these dots. These dots start everything over. It's like a whole new guitar above there. Now, some guitars will have 24 frets. Most electrics don't. They'll have 21 or 22.

7:31Most acoustic guitars may not even have that. But we've got a good chunk of the guitar that repeats over. So you say, Lee, I've been listening to you for a long time. I know this stuff. Well, I've got a certain phrase that comes to mind an awful lot. And this is happening with my coaching students all the time. Just because you know something doesn't mean that you're good at using it or good at playing it. Just because you know this A note is the same up here, it is down there.

8:01Do you use that in your playing? Do you feel comfortable playing over the 12th fret? A lot of people don't. They feel good in open position around the 5th fret and that's about it. And I'm trying to get you to think using the whole fretboard, not just one area. And this is an easy way to get into that. The shift is going from knowing it repeats to repeating it in practice. I'm also of the opinion that if you don't practice it, it's not going to happen.

8:31So you've got to play something bad before it's going to sound good. That's the key to getting better at this. Use this repeat to expand what you know with the guitar.

Applying repeats to chords and scales

8:42What's the first thing we learn with the guitar? Chords. Think about this. We've got this D chord here. And that is 1st finger on 2nd fret of the G string, 2nd finger on the 2nd fret of the E, and a high E, and then 3rd finger in the middle on the 3rd fret. Well, that starts 1 fret behind the 1st dot. Well, there it is up high there too. Now, I can use the open D string or either of those chords. Okay, so now I've got an easy chord.

9:17And let's say you're playing in a little band or got together with some friends and everybody's playing open position chords. You can play that up here. And now you've got something that's filling the sound out a little bit better, getting some higher notes above all the mud of all the guitar players. And if it works for the D, it works for lots of chords. Let's try the C. Pretty neat. I'm still leaving the open strings. Here's an E.

9:47Very cool. Let's see here. An A.

9:54I'm not even barring the notes. I'm just sliding them up to their octave. You don't have to approach this upper neck as something completely new. Oh, you can take the chords that you know. Use what it is. Let's do bar chords first. So let's do our G chord. Now, it may be hard to do the full bar chord. It's tough to do a full E-shaped bar chord on those high frets.

10:25Why? Because the frets are smaller up there. But you can do half of one. You can do the F shape. So do it at the third fret and up at the 15th fret, the first dot. Right? A is at the 5th fret, and it's also at the 17th fret, the second dot.

10:59Sliding up into them is a very cool sound, too. Lots of good things you can do. But how about arpeggios? We already did arpeggios today in our exercise. I went through.

11:25Very cool thing to use in your solos. It's almost a call and response sound. I play something low, then I play it again. High, moving the same idea, 12 frets higher, works very well. It's connecting the sound and the shape of the lower position with its octave position. So you see what I'm doing? I'm taking things you already know, and I'm giving you another way to use them that requires no thought. No thinking today. Right? Using this repeat as well, the 12th fret repeat, to expand your scale and lead playing.

11:59So your scale patterns don't disappear at the 12th fret either. Scale pattern you know below the 12th fret happens again above the 12th fret. And you may understand that. You know that's how it works. But when's the last time you practiced it? When did you practice your scales all the way up top? In this exercise, I'm doing it by one octave.

12:27So here, let's do pattern one. Great way to get more out of the things that you already know. The notes, the intervals, and the relationships all remain the same. And the shapes. It's exactly what you experienced when we did the exercise with C major pattern four. We turned a normal scale practice into a scale practice 2.0.

13:01So what's a good way to use this when you're actually playing? When you're getting together with some friends to play a solo, and you're comfortable at the fifth fret, what can you do? Well, you can slide up to the 17th fret. It will be exactly the same. You're going to get some higher notes. You might want to crawl up there throughout the other patterns if you can do that. But you can take the same shapes. I ran out of frets there.

13:47I forgot I didn't have that fret up there. But what I was doing was starting off playing a little call and response, repeating when I was playing between the octaves. Then I started changing it up a little bit. I didn't play exactly the same the next time. But I was getting ideas just from going to these other registers. It's really, really good for you playing. Practicing jumping from the original and the repeated positions first feels very tough. You're going to have to start thinking like the tennis match.

14:18Sometimes you're going to have to move your gaze back and forth like people watching a tennis match, right? So you have to look at the lower octave and the upper octave back and forth, kind of like you had to do in the beginning when you were just getting your picking going. You had to stare at your picking hand a whole lot, right? It's going to feel unfamiliar at first, but it starts becoming very easy. And it's another place for you to play. So the 12th fret isn't where the fretboard ends. It's not the cliff.

14:48It doesn't get any more difficult. This is just where it starts over. It repeats. The double dots are your friend and the rest of the dots are too. And these repeating markers have been showing you that you can do this the whole time. You just haven't sat down to do it yet. So don't just know that the fretboard repeats. Start taking the scales, chords, arpeggios, technique exercises, and the licks you already know, and start to use them back and forth above and below the 12th fret. And don't forget to check out my post, How Do I Learn Guitar Notes on the Fretboard?

15:23I have a link for you in the description. Thanks for hanging out with me today, and I hope you give this a shot. Bye-bye.