Learnthenotesonyourguitarfretboard

How To Learn The Notes On Your Guitar Fretboard
Video Transcriptions:
Page
1 What To Expect From This 6
2 Why Should You Learn The Notes? 8
3 The Logic Behind The Notes 10
4 How Much Time? 13
5 Don’t Worry About Memorizing! 16
6 How To Practice 18
7 Exercise 1 - Single Note 20
8 Exercise 2 - Add The Metronome 24
9 Exercise 3 - Sharps And Flats 26
10 Exercise 4 - Note Pairs 29
11 Exercise 5 - Random Sequences 30
© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 2 musictheoryforguitar.com

12 Exercise 6 - Pedal To The Metal 32
13 Questions And Troubleshooting 33
14 What’s The Next Step? 37

Tommaso Zillio
musictheoryforguitar.com
This eBook is under international copyright protection. It cannot be copied, sold, rented,
loaned, or distributed in any way whatsoever, without written consent of Guitar Mastery
Solutions, Inc.

HOW TO ACCESS THE VIDEOS
IMPORTANT: This eBook is accompanied by a series of videos. It is absolutely recom-

mended to watch the videos while you read the eBooks, as I show everything we do on
the guitar
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If you experience any issue, send me an email to tommaso@musictheoryforguitar.com

VIDEO 1 What To Expect From This
Hello Internets, so nice to see you. I am Tommaso Zillio of musictheoryforguitar.com.

And in this series of videos, I’m going to show you how you can learn all the notes of
your fretboard.
Now, what are the goals of this instructional? And is this the right thing for you to do
right now? Let me answer that.
First thing, there are three goals of this instructional:
1. Goal number one is that we want to learn all those notes permanently. We want to
do the exercises, get those notes and then be done with it so that for the rest of your
playing life, you can know exactly where the notes are.
2. The second goal is, I want you guys to have fast note recall. It does not do you any
good if you need to think about what note is on the fretboard, if you need to go and
think: ”that’s the G string and then going up G, A, B, C, and D...” this kind of thing.
Or if you have to think: ”Okay, I am on the second string, and I need to think about
the octave pattern”.
All of those things are too slow. In real musical situation, you want to get the note
NOW. Period. You want to just know where the notes are. So I want you guys to
have fast (in fact, instant) note recall, so that you don’t have to think about it.
3. The third goal is that I want you to learn all those notes in five minutes a day or less.
To quote Pulp Fiction: ”you do what I tell you when I tell you, and we’re out of here
in five minutes a day”, okay?

So it’s easy if you do the exercises that I’m going to show!
Will this work for you and is it the right thing for you to do? People ask me: ”I’m a
beginner, Tommaso, is this the right thing for me to practice?”
It is ONE of the things you could and should practice! Whatever your level, if you don’t
know your notes, you want to learn them. Because the moment you learn them the fret-
board is going to open completely, and then you’re going to see many different things
that you were not able to see before, and everything will become easier.
The important point is, as I’m going to explain in the video on how to practice, you don’t
want to put everything else on hold. You want to spend only five minutes on this every
day. And then keep having fun with your guitar for the rest of the time.
And indeed, I’m going to show you how to even save time by doing this instead of other
things. You’re going to see, it’s very easy.
Okay, so you are a beginner, no problem; you’re advanced, no problem. You can do
everything that is here, and it will work for you. This system works. I’ve explained the
system to literally 1000s of people. I have a video on YouTube that to date as more than 2
million views about this, and that feedback is incredibly positive, so the system works!
Is it worth spending five minutes a day on it? In my opinion, to have the fretboard ”open
up” and to have this all this kind of fun on the fretboard, it’s absolutely worth it!
Okay, so let’s go and see what we have to do.

VIDEO 2 Why Should You Learn The Notes?
What are the benefits of learning the notes and is this the only thing you need to do to
understand the fretboard?
Well, the benefits are:
• You are never anymore going to get lost on the fretboard,
• You will always know where you are, and
• What notes you have under your fingers, and what are your musical options.
Simple as that.
I mean, if you don’t even know the notes, you have not a chance, okay? But if you DO
know the notes, you have a map of the whole thing.
If you know the notes it is much easier to learn other skills later. So learning scales,
arpeggio, connections, any kind of scale system patterns, learning anything else is going
to be 1000 times easier if you know your notes already because you’re going to be able to
move all those things around and have several reference points.
If at a certain point you want to learn how to read music? If you know the notes on your
fretboard, learning to read music is easy! The problem of people that find it hard to learn
how to read music is because they’re learning how to read AND the notes on the fretboard
at the same time. And so putting those two things on top of each other is too hard!
In general, when you learn the notes on the fretboard, everything opens up and you start
to see different options for playing the same thing. It’s just magic, right? It’s probably the

single thing that will give you the most progress for the amount that you practice on. It’s
just magic.
Okay, now, is this the only thing you need to know to understand completely the fret-
board?
Well, no. There are always many other things to learn, and there are all the patterns and
the intervals etc. And one question I receive often is if you should learn the fretboard by
learning the notes or by learning the intervals. Well, that depends.
Do you prefer to walk with your right leg or with your left leg? Okay, well, it’s optimal if
you can walk with both your legs. (Am I right or am I right?)
So you want to learn the notes, and then later you want to learn also the intervals, the
patterns, etc. After learning those two things and putting them together, those two things
will synergize and will just explode in how much useful they are to you.
I have another instructional available on seeing intervals on the fretboard, and I’m linking
it below the video. You can find it there and you can check out what it’s all about.
But learning the notes is probably the first thing you need to do to really understand the
fretboard. And as you’re going to see, it’s not going to take that much.

VIDEO 3 The Logic Behind The Notes
What is the logic behind the musical notes? I’m going to explain it to you using this super
modern piece of technology (i.e. a whiteboard!)
Okay, there are seven notes, A, B, C, D, E, F, G. we use just the letters of the alphabet.
That’s why we call it also the ”musical alphabet.”
Those notes are not at the same distance with each other, as I’m going to show you in a
moment.
The distance between the notes B and C, and the distance between the notes E and F is
just one fret. While the distance between all the other notes is two frets.
A · B C · D · E F · G · A
So between A and B, I have two frets of distance, which means there is another fret in
between. There’s another fret between C and D, and other fret between D and E, another
fret between F and G, another fret between G and A.
So here, in between A and B, I have another note. This note can be called in two different
ways: it can be called either A] (”A sharp”) or B[ (”B flat”), okay?
A] means ”one fret higher than A”, and B[ means ”one fret lower than B”.
For the time being, for us right now, those two notes are the same note because we play
them in the same place on the fretboard.
Same for all the notes here. So this note is going to be called either C] or D[, because it’s

one fret higher than C or one fret lower than D.
And the same thing happens for all the other notes, okay?
A A#/B[ B C C#/D[ D D#/E[ E F F#/G[ G G#/A[ A
If we do this on the fretboard this is what’s going to happen: I’m going to take string
number five (that is the A string), because it’s an A!
• As I show you in the diagram, between A and B, there are two frets. And so if I play
on fret number two I find a B.
• Then between B and C there’s only one fret. So playing on fret number 3, I find a C.
• Between C and D, I have two frets, I need to go here for D (on fret 5).
• Between D and E, I have two frets, so I need to go here for E (on fret 7)
• between E and F, I have only one fret, so just need to go here and that’s an F (fret 8)
• Between f and g, I have two frets,
• Between G and A, I have two frets, and now I’m at fret number 12.

8

0 2 3 5 7 8 10 12
A B C D E F G A

At fret number, 12, everything repeats. So that’s an A (open

string), and that’s another A (at fret 12).
G
D
B
A
E
E
And then again, everything repeats, so every time I move 12
C
F
F
frets higher, I get the same note.
That’s a B (fret2), that’s a B (fret 14), that’s a C (fret 3) and 12
A
E
frets higher, that’s another C (fret 15), and so on and so forth.
G
C
D
F
3
The strings are tuned EBGDAE, and in the PDF that comes
together with those videos, you’re going to find a fretboard
B
diagram with all the nodes mapped out:
G
D
C
A
A
E
5
The goal of this instructional is to transfer that fretboard
diagram and then imprint it into your synapses so that you
F
are going to have that forever in your brain.
D
B
B
A
E
7
We’re going to work in standard tuning.
If you use a different tuning, you’d have to use a different

G
C
C
F
fretboard diagram for that specific standard tuning. The ex-

ercises are the same, but of course, it’s going to change the
9
B
E
way you play them because the notes are in different posi-
G
D
D
A
F
tions.
12
G
D
B
A
E

VIDEO 4 How Much Time?
So how much time to dedicate to this? We want to dedicate five minutes a day to this. 10
minutes if you’re an overachiever, but definitely no more than that!
So, what does it mean five minutes a day? It doesn’t mean to do ALL the exercises in five
minutes, that’s impossible, I cannot do that!
The exercises are progressive.
So the first day you schedule five minutes to do those exercises and you start doing the
first exercise. Once the five minutes end, you stop there, and the day after you pick up
from where you left.
So as you will see, exercise number one will have you go through different notes. If you
do one or two notes today, the day after you don’t redo those notes, you go on ahead with
the other notes.
After a while, you finish all the notes. Once you finish all the notes in exercise number
one, then you start doing exercise number two, which means that you start practicing
your five-minute schedule and you start by practicing Exercise number two.
You don’t do exercise number one and two on the same day. Makes sense?
The exercises are progressive so that every day you will do one of those exercises for five
minutes. Not all the exercises every time; not from the beginning every time.
Now, what happens if you have no time, if you really, sincerely do not have five minutes
a day to practice this?

First of all, you must lead a very busy life. And I’m sorry for you! But if this happens, we
need to be organized.
So there are two ways to dramatically shave down the amount of time to dedicate to this.
1. Way number one is to practice all the exercises you’re going to see later away from
the guitar.
As you’re going to see, with a little bit of imagination, you can do all those exercises
completely in your mind. Which means that if you are at a boring meeting at work,
if you’re waiting in line at the bank, or at the grocery store, you can close your
eyes for a moment, imagine having a fretboard and do all those exercises for a few
minutes, even if you don’t have a guitar.
So that’s one possible option. And this will save you a lot of time because while
you’re waiting at the grocery store, you’re not doing anything else. Right?
2. OR... you can do this, you can use these exercises — and by the way, this is my
favorite way of practicing these — you can use this exercise as a warmup.
When you start your practice with your guitar, you need to warm up your fingers
because they are cold at the beginning, and they cannot respond immediately to
super-fast arpeggios and scales or other things.
Lots of people do those horrible ”spider” chromatic exercises. These ”spider” exer-
cises do not really do much for you. They don’t really warm you up, and you don’t
learn anything musical. Don’t even learn much finger independence from this exer-
cise, to be honest. I know they’re really popular... but instead, from today onward,
when you need to warm up, you grab your guitar, and you do five minutes of the
different exercises you find below.

This (the exercises you find below) is a high-intensity mental exercise, okay, but it’s
a low-intensity finger exercise, which is exactly what you want as a warm-up! You
want something that it’s low intensity physically on your fingers.
Those exercises are great. You do those for five minutes (10 minutes if you are an
overachiever). At the end of those five minutes, you are warmed up, you can start
playing all your super fast scales, strange chords, whatever you want, any other
exercises, or just have fun with your guitar.
And you have spent zero extra time because you need to warm up anyway!
If you were not warming up before your practice time, you were actually wasting a
lot of time because the first 15 minutes or so of your practice time your fingers were
cold and slow. And since you were going in immediately with hard stuff, with hard
exercises, they took actually more time to warm up, not less!
Okay, so, five minutes a day (ten if you’re an overachiever), and if you don’t have time,
either do the exercises in your mind when you are away from the guitar so you’re not
wasting your guitar practicing time and/or use those exercises as warmup whenever
you practice guitar.
It works!

VIDEO 5 Don’t Worry About Memorizing!
Whenever you practice those exercises, you should never worry about actually memoriz-
ing the notes.
I know it’s counterintuitive!
So let me tell you the story of memorizing Michael and practicing Peter, two of my virtual
students ;-)
I’m giving the very same exercises to both of them. And those are the same exercises
you’re going to find below in this eBook.
Memorizing Michael starts practicing the exercises, and he worries that he is not going to
remember all of these tomorrow. And it’s just thinking: ”even if I’m just doing this, I’m
not going to remember where the notes are”.
Practicing Peter simply does the exercise!
They practice for five minutes the first day, and they are good. The day after both of
themcstart practicing for another five minutes.
Practicing Peter simply sits down and practices his exercise.
Memorizing Michael starts practicing the exercise and he realizes that he does not remem-
ber what he was doing yesterday... meaning he does not remember where all the notes
are, and the exercise he was doing yesterday, and starts worrying: ”If I’m doing this, I’m
still not memorizing it!”
Practicing Peter keeps practicing.

A couple of days after Practicing Peter is practicing these exercises and he’s making good
strides forward and he’s learning all these notes!
Memorizing Michael is still there worrying: ”I’m doing those exercises and I’m still not
remembering the notes.”
Fast forward a few weeks. Practicing Peter, at this point, knows all his notes. He just
practiced through all the exercises, he never worried about memorizing: the memoriza-
tion happened naturally without him stressing.
Because, as neuroscience proves, if you are stressed and you worry, your memorization
ability goes down i.e. it’s harder to memorize and learn things.
Memorizing Michael instead is still there, trying to do the first exercise and still trying to
get the first exercise perfect and still thinking: ”I need to do this exercise and remember
everything I’m doing”
Don’t do that! Don’t be a perfectionist. Don’t worry about that.
You need to just practice the exercises. The learning happens without you even noticing.
Don’t stress if you forget the shapes, forget the pattern, forget where the notes are: that’s
absolutely normal.
Heck, every I forget the pattern. I know where the notes are, but I forget the pattern, too,
and you’ll see what that means later.
You just do the exercises... and you’re going to get instant recall of all the notes. Please do
not stress about it. Do not second-guess yourself. Do not even second guess the exercise.
Just practice them for five minutes a day. I guarantee, it works for you.

VIDEO 6 How To Practice
How to practice the exercises. The first thing I recommend is that you guys go through
the exercises in order, don’t jump ahead, even if the first exercise may look too easy to
some of you.
Just do them. Because if they really are too easy, you go through them in a few minutes,
so there’s no time wasted!
And anyway, if you jump ahead, it’s very easy that the next exercise is going to be too
hard because you haven’t built up the muscle memory of the first one. So just go through
them in order.
If the exercises are really too easy for you, you can still do them, and do them faster, or try
to do them with your eyes closed. This would be a better alternative than just jumping
ahead.
If the exercises are too hard, no problem: do them slower, write them down, use the
fretboard diagram in front of you at the beginning (I’m going to explain that).
So whenever they’re hard, make them easier. Whenever they’re easy, make them harder.
So that they’re always a bit of a challenge for you: not too easy and not too hard.
You are big boys and girls, you know exactly how much you can take when you practice.
And you know, when you have an ”off” day you’re going to make them a little bit easier
so that you can still practice them. And when you have a good day, you’re going to make
them harder. So you get more of a challenge.
A few other recommendations: do not use apps, okay? You will learn faster if you do all

the thinking by yourself, trust me on that. And then when you use an app, you need to
have a phone or a computer, and then as always the temptation of doom-scrolling and
procrastinating.
Don’t use an app, do everything in your brain, it’s the brain that makes you learn not the
app, okay?
Another thing: I do NOT recommend that do not stop everything else in your practice to
do only this. Do NOT do an hour a day or two hours a day of these exercises, because
you’re going to get tired of doing this and then you’re not going to do it anymore.
You do not want to ramp up intensity immediately. That’s a good recipe for not going
anywhere.
Instead, you want to do this five minutes a day consistently for a certain amount of time.
This will give you some real, solid, and permanent learning. Learning that you can trust
whenever you are even on stage or in situations where you need to think quickly.
So take your time, and keep practicing other things. This is five minutes a day of this, and
then keep practicing other things. Do not stop everything in your musical life to learn the
notes on the fretboard. Okay, so those are my recommendations, do those.
You do what I’m telling you, and you’re going to learn all the notes.

VIDEO 7 Exercise 1 - Single Note
Exercise number one: you’re going to choose one note — ABCDEFG — only natural notes,
and then you play it on all the strings of your guitar, staying between fret 1 and 12, no
open strings, nothing above the 12th fret.
No fixed tempo: you can go fast, you can go slow, you can speed up, you can slow down.
We’re just getting started in understanding what the notes are.
You can say the name of the note when you play it. You can sing it if you want. It’s
optional.
You can use the fretboard diagram to find where the notes are. But then you want to put
the fretboard diagram away and just play it without looking.
Any finger of the left hand will work. You can use the same finger every time or a different
finger every time. It doesn’t matter.
Let me show you how it’s done. Let’s say I pick my note: A. The note we’re going to play
is A, and I’m going to first search for it on string number six. I can start whatever I want,
but I’m going to go in order.
So I’m going to start with string number six, A is on fret number five, and I’m going to
play it. Just this.
Then I’m going to go on the next string, which is the A string and I’m going to find A
here. (The note) A would be the open string, but I said no open strings because I want
to actually fret the note every time, because this is an action and this action will help you

remember.
So I’m going to have the A on fret number 12.
So now I’m going to play those two back and forth. And I’m going to go on the next string
and find the A on the next string, and the A on the D string is at fret number seven. And
then I’m going to play those in order back and forth.
And I’m going to go back and forth a few times until I’m comfortable.
Then I’m going to go on the next string, which is a G string, and I’m going to find my A
here (fret 2). Then I’m going to play in order (on the strings I have so far). And, again, any
finger will work, I can use always the index finger, for instance, or I can use a different
finger every time.
And you can hear mistakes immediately because the (wrong) notes sound different. That’s
the genius thing about this exercise, it trains your ear too, and you notice mistakes imme-
diately.
Then I go on the next string (B) and then find my A here (fret 10), and then I’m playing
back and forth. Always in order, never jump a string, whatever you do, never jump a
string, always in order.
And then find the A note on string number one, which is on fret number five (just as it is
on string number six), and then I play the whole thing.

8
5
7
2
10 10
2
7
12 12
5 5

Now, if you can play the note, three times in a row, up and down without mistakes, you
can go on the next note. Oh, and without looking at the fretboard diagram! Then you can
go on the next note, simple as that.
Now, you may be able to do this immediately on the first day, in the first minute. Great:
go on the next note immediately.
Or it may take you a whole week to be able to play A up and down, with five minutes a
day. So you spend five minutes a day just trying to play A up and down and gradually
remembering the thing.
Okay? Make sense? it doesn’t matter how much time it takes five minutes a day, you’re
just working on this.
Then you go on to your next note, the next note will not be B, okay, because A, B, C, it’s
too easy. Pick a different note go far away (from A).
And do NOT go through the cycle of fifths either. Because you’re going to see the cycle of
fifths, will just mean that you’re moving all the notes ”one string down”. You’re going to
see if you do it.
So just pick C as the next note:

8
8
10
5
1 1
5
10
3 3
8 8
And if I can play this thing, three times, up and down at ANY speed (so it can be slow,

okay?) but if I can play three times up and down without mistakes, I can go on the next
note.
Do not stress, okay?
And by the way, very likely, what’s going to happen is that you do the A note, and that’s
great. And you do the C note. And once you’re finished with the C, you forget where the
A note is. This is not a problem. This is completely normal.
Just keep doing the exercise. Just play the next note, and the next note, and the next note.
Trust me on that. Do not worry about that. Just keep going. Go to the next not.
You need to do all the natural notes, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, twice. The order I prefer is A, C, E,
G, B, D F, and then once I finish I do A again, C again, E again, G again, B again, D again,
F again.
And once you’ve done all these at any speed, then you can go to exercise number two.
Again, do not worry about remembering these, do not worry about memorizing. Just
play the exercise. Do not go above fret 12. Do not use open strings.
And every time you play any note three times up and down, it’s supposed to be WITH-
OUT the fretboard diagram. You use the fretboard diagram to help yourself to find where
the notes are, when you build up the shape. But when you play it 3 times, up and down,
you want to do it without the fretboard diagram.
And that’s exercise number one :-)

VIDEO 8 Exercise 2 - Add The Metronome
Exercise number two: we introduce your best friend and worst enemy, the metronome.
And we set this metronome at 40 BPM. It is super slow. You’re going to see that this
”super slow”, it’s actually not as slow (as you think).
And we just practice the same thing we’re practicing on exercise number one, only now
with one note per beat. Don’t speed up just yet!
And you just need to do it once up and down. Then go on to the next note, once up and
down.
And if you can do this note once up and down without mistakes with the metronome....
And you can do all the notes twice.... so again you need to do the round of all the notes
twice, and you just need to do each of them once up and down with a metronome... then
you can go to the next exercise!
Now what you’re going to find is that, yes, this sounds super slow. But it’s actually going
to add a little bit of stress, if you want, to your playing because you need to get to the next
note in time. So you have a finite amount of time to find the next note.
I don’t want you to speed up yet. Please stay at 40 BPM. Trust me on this. We’re going
to speed up later. But right now, this metronome just adds a little bit of pressure to what
you’re doing. You have a deadline to get the next note, it is super slow, but it’s still a
deadline.
Again, you trust me. If the exercise is too easy, just do it! You’re going to go through it in

one minute. You can do all the notes one after the other with the metronome. If you can
do it, go on to the next one, no problem. But please do it!
If you never use the metronome, you’re never going to learn the notes. Because in real-
time, you’re going to have to find the note now! Now! Now! ...and so this starts putting
your brain in gear to get to that point. Follow the exercise. It will work.

VIDEO 9 Exercise 3 - Sharps And Flats
We introduce the sharps and flats. If you do not know how sharps and flat work go back
up and watch the video on the logic of the notes.
Now we’re going to practice them exactly as we were doing in exercise number one and
two only. But now we have sharps and flats.
So here’s how we’re going to do it first without the metronome, then with the metronome.
I’m going to practice A], and I’m going to think this way: I’m going to think A] is one fret
higher than A. So I’m going to find where my A is (on string 6, fret 5), and then in real
time I’m going to move one fret higher and play my A].
Then I’m going to go on the next string, and I’m going to say ”my A is here” (on string 5,
fret 12)... and in real time I’m going to think ”A] is one fret higher than A”, and I’m going
to move one fret higher...
...but now notice, I’m outside my window between fret 1 and 12! So I need to move very
fast 12 frets lower... so here (on fret 1) and I play my A] here.
It’s a bit of a pesky thing to do. But this helps you because it makes you think, while you
do all these exercises, and this is really, really, really helpful in fixing the memorization of
these notes.
And I’m going to go on the next string, and I know my A is here (on fret 7) and I’m going
to move one fret higher and play A]... and I’m going to keep doing this. And in real time
I’m thinking where my A is and play the fret just higher (or very much lower in case that
I was playing the A at the 12th fret, and then I have to play the A] on fret number one)

Okay, now attention, A] and B[, are the same sound, it’s the same fret on the guitar, but
you think about them in different ways because:
1. A] is thinking where A is and then going up a half step, while
2. B[ is thinking where B is and going down a half step down one fret. Because B[, is
that: it’s one fret below B
So even if they are the same sound, I want you to practice them as if those are two com-
pletely different things.
So if I wanted to practice B[, I think ”my B is here, move one fret down”.
And again, first you do these as in exercise number 1, so no set speed; you can speed up
and slow down, take your time, and do it three times, up and down.
And then I want to practice this as in exercise 2: so I put the metronome on at 40 BPM
(not faster!) and do this and make sure you hit all those A]s and B[ (and all the others) at
40 BPM, and play every note up and down once and do the whole round of all the notes
twice.

You’re going to find the list of all the sharps and flats here:
• A]
• C]
• D]
• F]
• G]
• A[
• B[
• D[
• E[
• G[
And that’s the exercise. Very simple. It requires a little bit more thinking. Just do it. It
will work for you.

VIDEO 10 Exercise 4 - Note Pairs
Exercise number four: pick two notes. Any two notes, natural, sharp, flat, whatever you
want. And just pick TWO of them.
I’m going to pick D, and B. Then I’m going to play D going up, so from string six to
string one, and then B going down from string one to string six. I’m going to do this in a
moment. And I’m going to do this with the metronome set at 40 BPM, and one note per
beat. So that’s the thing:

8
10 7
12
7
3 12
4
9
5 2
10 7
So I’m going to start playing D then B without stopping, Then D again without stopping.
And you keep doing it. If you can do this up, down, up, down twice, you’re done with
those two notes. Pick other two notes, any combination (it’s not important). You can have
A and F], or you can have a C and G[, whatever you want. Two notes and just do this.
When you’re done with this exercise, when you have a reasonable feeling that you can
do this (you move to the next exercise)... so there is not a specific, super precise moment
where you’re like: ”yeah, I’ve done this three times, I can move on the next one”.
You’re going to feel it when you can do this reasonably well... and then, you go on to the
next exercise.

VIDEO 11 Exercise 5 - Random Sequences
Exercise number five: you write down all the natural notes (o no sharps, no flats) in
random order. You find some random orderings below, and I’m going to use the first one
of those:
• DFCEAGB
• ADBFGEC
• GEBCFDA
• FBDGEAC
• ... write your own!
You want it written down because you don’t want to remember it. My random order
right now it’s D, F, C, E, A, G, B. And I’m going to do one note up, one note down, one
note up, one note down, at 40 BPM on the metronome.

8
10 1 8 12
12
7
3 6
10
3 10
5
1 5
5 8 3
10 1 8
6

8
5 3 7
9
2 7
2
10 8
12
5 9
4
12
7 12 10 2
12 5 3 7

Following that order my first note is D. So I’m going to go down with D; my second note
is F so I’m going to go up with F; my next note is C so I’m going to go down with C; the
next note is E so up with E; then down with A, up with G, down with B, and then I’m
done!
The important point is that you never stop. One note per beat, you never stop.
It is not easy to do this at the beginning. Remember, I’m going to repeat this several times:
just five minutes a day, please! It may take some time, but just five minutes a day (10 if
you’re an overachiever). Use this as a warm-up, it’s a great mental warm-up and hand
warm-up.
Once you’ve done all this, once you’ve done a few of these sequences with natural notes
(so, no sharps, no flats), then introduce also some sharps and some flats. In this case, you
don’t want to do all the 12 notes or whatever it is. You just have a sequence of five or six
notes that mix sharps, flats, natural etc. Again, I’m going to put some of the sequences
below so you have them.
• F D] A G[ E B C]
• A C F] B D[ G E
• C E[ A] G B D F
• F G] E C A[ D B[
• ... write your own!
Once you have a reasonable facility of doing these and you feel that you pretty much got
it, then you can go to the next exercise.

VIDEO 12 Exercise 6 - Pedal To The Metal
Exercise number six: this is where we increase the speed! Yeah, I know you guys have
the NEED for SPEED! That’s where we are!
So you’re going to do exercises 2 to 5, so all of them again. But we’re going to increase the
speed, and I recommend you guys increase the speed by 5 BPM at a time. ,
So do exercise number 2 at 45 BPM, then Exercise number three at 45 BPM, etc.
You don’t have to do all the possible combinations: once you can do something at 45 BPM
and you know you can do it, just keep increasing the speed. The beginning could be slow,
and then the speed will increase really fast.
Your ultimate goal is to be able to do exercise 5, so random sequence with all notes, sharps,
flats, natural, whatever... at 80 beats per minute, one note per beat.
Once you get there, for most people everything clicks and now suddenly you see all the
notes on the fretboard as if they are written on top. You wake up in the morning, you
look at your guitar and you just SEE where the notes are, with zero warm-up.
For some people, this enlightening happens at around 60 BPM. For some other round 90
BPM. But for most people, it’s around 80 BPM. 80 BPM is the speed here (see video) and
if you take a random sequence... I have one here A-D-B-F etc, etc. So it’s going to be
something like that (see video!)
Okay, when you can do this, you can see the notes on the fretboard. That’s your ultimate
goal. Congratulations. You’re done.

VIDEO 13 Questions And Troubleshooting
First of all, the vast majority of problems with this system happen when you practice it
for more than 10 minutes a day, and you get obsessed with this and you stop practicing
everything else.
Then the system doesn’t work, you’re not having fun, your practicing is sliding back, and
you’re getting worse at guitar.
So don’t do that! Five minutes a day, 10 if you’re an overachiever, please.
And I’ve been saying this throughout all those videos... and I know some people will still
not listen to it because they want to learn the notes NOW... but trust me, this is the source
of most problems. So don’t do that.
Do what I’m telling you when I’m telling you, and we’re out of here in five minutes a day!
The second problem happens when you start thinking about patterns rather than trying
to natively find the notes on the fretboard.
So essentially, you don’t really want to think about the octave pattern, or other things. If
you don’t know them, even better, so you can’t think about them!
But some people, especially the most mathematically inclined will start thinking: ”Every
time I go from one string to the next, I just need to go x fret higher or x fret lower for the
next string”.
Don’t do that. Don’t do that just raw (memory): sit down and see where the notes are.
Refresh your mind with the fretboard diagram and then just do it without the fretboard

diagram.
Don’t try to find systems, don’t try to find patterns. Don’t try to think about intervals.
Because all of these will make your mind concentrate on the wrong thing.
Eventually, your final goal is to know where the notes are. If you use all those crutches
like octaves, intervals, etc. to learn the notes, you’re not going to learn the notes you’re
just going to think when the intervals are, and then you’re going to add this extra layer of
thinking whenever you play. You don’t want that!
Intervals are great, and I have an instructional about intervals and how to see them on
the fretboard. But you do not want to use intervals to learn notes!
You want to learn your notes. You want to learn your intervals. And then you want those
two things to synergize together.
You don’t want to build one of those on top of the other because it will not work. They
are two different things that you need to see (and learn) separately. Trust me, that’s how
you make your fretboard knowledge work really well.
This is why some people learn the same thing as you do, but they are great at the fretboard
and then you are not, for instance, because they learned those two things separately, and
they don’t try to mix them up.
Learn your notes without the intervals. Then learn your intervals. Then put those two
things together. A nd you’re going to see what I mean if you get the other instructional I
have about intervals.
Some people find that when they use the system I just explained and all these exercises,
they learn perfectly the note under fret 12... and then they have problems going higher.

Well, everything repeats (above fret 12). So for most people, once you see that everything
repeats, the next frets above for 12 come ”for free”, essentially, you don’t have to study
them!
But if you have any problems and you find that you’re not as familiar here... for a while,
just take the window of fret one to 12 and move it up. Say, do the window from fret 5 to
17 or from fret 7 to 19 or something like that. And then practice finding the notes in this
fret window, so that you start learning the beginning (of the fretboard above fret 12).
But in general, it just takes a couple of practice session to get the idea and then you just
see the notes up here too. It’s really not that hard!
Everything I explained will work for every stringed instrument, not only for guitar, as
long as you have notes in there, and strings:-)
So if you have a bass, a seven-string guitar, an eight-string guitar, a lute, a mandolin...

everything will work exactly the same.
What else? What are your questions? If you have any other questions, guys, write me. I
can add a bit more videos and explain those but make sure you watch the videos before,
okay?
Now, what if the whole system is not really working for you?
I’ve tested this system extensively with literally 1000s of people. I taught my system to
practically all my students in person and online. I know this system works.
I know a very small minority of people have problems making these exercises work at
the beginning. It’s because they are either practicing too much or because they start to

”mathematize” the whole thing. Like I was saying before: they try to think of ”five frets
higher, seven frets lower” or something like that.
Don’t do that! Just practice the exercises, and just practice them as they are.
And I know at the beginning, the first few days or maybe weeks, you’re not going to see
much improvement. Trust the system.
This will give you permanent learning of the notes. Trust the system. Keep doing it. Five
minutes a day, please, and keep practicing other stuff... and with that, this is Tommaso
Zillio of musictheoryforguitar.com, and until next time, enjoy!

VIDEO 14 What’s The Next Step?
First of all: CONGRATULATIONS!!! You have just taken the first step in learning your
guitar fretboard in an effective and musical way.
If you started practicing the exercises above, you already see that they are:
• practical
• effective
• ... and also fun to practice!
(It definitely beats staring at the fretboard for hours, hoping it suddenly makes sense...)
Now remember that You should not practice only these exercises and neglect everything else.
If you spend ALL your practice time doing only these exercises, you will soon hit di-
minishing returns... and also, playing guitar will feel less fun. So make sure you keep
practicing other things!!
But WHAT exactly should you practice? If only there was a way to have exercises that
you can perform:
1. to learn the fretboard better and at the same time. . .
2. understand how music works, and at the same time. . .
3. get endless ideas for how to write or arrange your own music. . . all on your guitar.

Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? But wait, this thing exists. I know it exists because
I wrote it! It’s called Complete Chord Mastery:
Complete Chord Mastery is the course you want

if:
• You want to learn harmony on the guitar

fretboard.
• You are interested in songwriting and com-

position.
• Your are not afraid to practice a little bit ev-

ery day and getting better and better
It’s a course for both beginner and advanced

players.
Now, a word of warning: as I wrote above, this course contains a series of exercises. So
let me point out that the course works perfectly if you do the exercises.
If you have no intention or ability to do the exercises - that is, if you don’t want to practice,
or if you don’t have at least 15 minutes every day when you can concentrate and practice
the specific things I am showing you in the course - then don’t get the course.
If instead you are able and willing... then go right ahead and get Complete Chord Mas-
tery!
Now, you may be thinking: ”Of course this guy Tommaso is telling me his Complete Chord
Mastery course is great. Any teacher out there is promoting their own things. How can I be sure
that this course will do what it promises and actually help me?”

Great question! Rather than answering myself, let me show you what my students are
saying about Complete Chord Mastery:
”At last I have found a ”Writing music is no ”Some of the topics (for
true guitar music theory longer that endless, example the harmoniza-
course. Now I know what painful trial-and-error tion with 7th chords) were
chord inversions are, how process. All of a sudden, so amazing and easy to to
to use them and why. I I can tell what’s going on that I couldn’t stop play-
still can’t believe that’s in a piece of music as I ing the guitar afterwards.”
me who’s playing.” play it, right on the spot.” (René Kerkdyk)
(Paolo Taras) (Massimo Di Croce)
You find Complete Chord Mastery at this link:

https://www.musictheoryforguitar.com/chords-and-harmony-guitar-lessons.html
Whatever you do, never forget that the guitar exists so that we can have fun with it.
FUN COMES FIRST!
Tommaso Zillio of MusicTheoryForGuitar.com signing off and until next time... ENJOY!

Other Courses Available:
Master Of The Modes

Master Of The Modes is the course you want if:
• You want to focus on lead guitar.
• You want to completely master scales over

the guitar fretboard.
• You want be able to improvise over ANY

backing track or chord progression.
It’s a course for both beginner and advanced

players.
Some guitar players seem to create unique, cre-

ative and awesome guitar solos. Somehow, being creative just comes easy for them. How
do they do it? They have mastered how be creative with scales & modes on guitar... and
with this I don’t mean a bunch of scale patterns thrown together: I mean REAL musical
insight.
Scales and modes are one of the most difficult (and controversial) topic in music theory...
To make them easy-to-understand you need a simple and consistent system. A system
for learning, mastering, and actually using scales and modes in real music without any
limitations.
Armed with the core knowledge of Master of the Modes, you will learn and connect all
there is to know about the modes. And yes, together we will use everything you are going
to learn to play real music.
Learn how to finally master completely scales and modes on guitar. Learn a system that
is musically useful and will help you to write, improvise, and play the music YOU want
to play!
http://www.musictheoryforguitar.com/scalesandmodesguitarlessons.html

Scales For Blues Guitar

Scales for Blues Guitar is the course you want
to take if you want to focus on pentatonic Blues
and Classic Rock leads.
• You hear great Blues players creating solos

that sound amazing but have no idea how
to do it by yourself?
• Do you struggle in playing the Blues in

all keys and over all the fretboard (as op-
posed in just one basic position)?
• Are you thinking too much about ”what

to play next”? Wouldn’t you rather than
let your emotions speak through your playing?
If you have answered ”yes” to any of the questions above, then you need to learn how
music theory applies to Blues. And you need to understand how to use this knowledge
into your guitar playing in an effective way.
Here’s how to finally master all the scales for Blues guitar. Get rid of your frustration and
lack of confidence once and for all. Learn how to play Blues from your heart!
http://musictheoryforguitar.com/scalesforbluesguitar.html
Private Sessions
For people who need 1-on-1 attention with their music theory. These are intense private
sessions that focus on the topics you need in your music theory development.
If you need help on topics that are not covered in the courses, or you need special feed-
back, then these Private 1-On-1 Music Theory Lessons are the option for you.
https://www.musictheoryforguitar.com/private-lessons.html

About the Author

Tommaso Zillio is a recording artist, composer,
session guitarist, guitar trainer and instructional
author.
His expertise as a teacher is on training guitar

players on how to use music theory to create their
own style and express themselves. His main fo-
cus is on helping guitar players thinking both in-
side and outside the box and to eliminate any-
thing that can restrict their free expression on the
instrument.
Tommaso holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics

from the International School of Advanced Stud-
ies (SISSA/ISAS) in Trieste, Italy. He has been a
Postdoctoral Fellow with the Smithsonian and to
date he has published a dozen peer-reviewed re-
search articles on topics ranging from Physics to
Ecology.
Tommaso’s influences are very varied, expressing

the love of music that transcends genera and instruments. Some of his favorite musicians
are: Dream Theater, Pink Floyd, Joe Satriani, Andy Timmons, Mike Oldfield, Jean-Michel
Jarre, Nightwish, Astor Piazzolla, John Williams, Gustav Holst, Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Tommaso is a graduate of Tom Hess’s Music Careers Mentoring Program and is a charter
member of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. He earned the esteemed ”Elite Master
Guitar Teacher” title given to less than 10 guitar teachers world wide to date.
For more info about Tommaso, or to contact him, go to:

https://www.musictheoryforguitar.com/abouttommasozillio.html.

This eBook is under international copyright protection. It cannot be copied, sold, rented,
loaned, or distributed in any way whatsoever, without written consent of Guitar Mastery
Solutions, Inc.

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How To Learn The Notes On Your Guitar Fretboard

1 What To Expect From This 6

2 Why Should You Learn The Notes? 8

3 The Logic Behind The Notes 10

4 How Much Time? 13

5 Don’t Worry About Memorizing! 16

7 Exercise 1 - Single Note 20

8 Exercise 2 - Add The Metronome 24

9 Exercise 3 - Sharps And Flats 26

10 Exercise 4 - Note Pairs 29

11 Exercise 5 - Random Sequences 30

© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 2 musictheoryforguitar.com

12 Exercise 6 - Pedal To The Metal 32

13 Questions And Troubleshooting 33

14 What’s The Next Step? 37

© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 3 musictheoryforguitar.com

How To Learn The Notes On Your Guitar Fretboard

© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 4 musictheoryforguitar.com

HOW TO ACCESS THE VIDEOS

IMPORTANT: This eBook is accompanied by a series of videos. It is absolutely recom-

To access the videos, follow these instructions:

1. Go to this link: www.musictheoryforguitar.com/notes-guide-login

2. If you already have an account on musictheoryforguitar.com, use the ”log in to

If you experience any issue, send me an email to tommaso@musictheoryforguitar.com

© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 5 musictheoryforguitar.com

VIDEO 1 What To Expect From This

Hello Internets, so nice to see you. I am Tommaso Zillio of musictheoryforguitar.com.

First thing, there are three goals of this instructional:

© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 6 musictheoryforguitar.com

So it’s easy if you do the exercises that I’m going to show!

Okay, so let’s go and see what we have to do.

© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 7 musictheoryforguitar.com

VIDEO 2 Why Should You Learn The Notes?

Well, the benefits are:

• You are never anymore going to get lost on the fretboard,

• You will always know where you are, and

© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 8 musictheoryforguitar.com

© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 9 musictheoryforguitar.com

VIDEO 3 The Logic Behind The Notes

© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 10 musictheoryforguitar.com

one fret higher than C or one fret lower than D.

A A#/B[ B C C#/D[ D D#/E[ E F F#/G[ G G#/A[ A

• Between f and g, I have two frets,

© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 11 musictheoryforguitar.com

At fret number, 12, everything repeats. So that’s an A (open

That’s a B (fret2), that’s a B (fret 14), that’s a C (fret 3) and 12

If you use a different tuning, you’d have to use a different

fretboard diagram for that specific standard tuning. The ex-

© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 12 musictheoryforguitar.com

VIDEO 4 How Much Time?

The exercises are progressive.

© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 13 musictheoryforguitar.com

© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 14 musictheoryforguitar.com

© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 15 musictheoryforguitar.com

VIDEO 5 Don’t Worry About Memorizing!

I know it’s counterintuitive!

Practicing Peter simply does the exercise!

Practicing Peter simply sits down and practices his exercise.

Practicing Peter keeps practicing.

© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 16 musictheoryforguitar.com

Don’t do that! Don’t be a perfectionist. Don’t worry about that.

© Guitar Mastery Solutions, Inc. 17 musictheoryforguitar.com

VIDEO 6 How To Practice