The Map
Naming the neck without memorising 72 dots
Anchors plus octave shapes beats brute force, and it is faster to learn.
Take the guided lessonLearn two strings properly
The low E and A strings carry the root of most barre chords, most riffs and most bass lines. Know those two and you can find everything else.
Better still, you only need the natural notes on them. The sharps and flats are the frets in between, and you already know where the two gaps are.
The anchors
Frets 3, 5, 7, 9 and 12 have dots on them for a reason. On the low E string those are G, A, B, C sharp and E. On the A string they are C, D, E, F sharp and A.
Say the dotted frets out loud on the low E string, then the A string. That is ten notes, and it is most of the work.
Then move
Any note on the D, G, B or high E string is an octave shape away from one of your two anchor strings. You are never more than one jump from something you know.
This takes a couple of weeks of short sessions rather than one long one. Naming notes is recall, and recall responds to frequency, not duration.
Grade 10 comes back to this and turns it into speed. For now, accuracy beats pace.
The ten notes worth memorising first
Dotted frets on your two anchor strings. Learn these and the rest of the neck is one jump away.
| Fret | Low E string | A string |
|---|---|---|
| Open | E | A |
| 3 | G | C |
| 5 | A | D |
| 7 | B | E |
| 9 | C sharp | F sharp |
| 12 | E | A |
Fret 12 repeats the open string, which is your proof that you have gone exactly one octave. Say these out loud rather than reading them.
Put the method in the right order
You want to find F sharp on the B string. What do you do, in what order?
- 1first step here
- 2first step here
- 3first step here
- 4first step here
What is the fastest way to find C on the D string?
Find C, F and A anywhere on the neck
Anchors and octave shapes. No labels, no counting.
C is fret 3 on the A string. F is fret 1 on the low E string. A is an open string. Start from whichever you are surest of.
How to actually practise this
Naming notes is recall, and recall responds to frequency rather than duration. Five minutes daily beats an hour on Sunday, and the difference is not small.
Two weeks of short sessions gets most people from hesitant to instant. Keep the sessions short enough that you stay accurate, because practising a slow guess teaches you to guess slowly.
Grade 10 comes back to this and turns accuracy into speed. For now, accuracy is the whole job.
Takeaways
- Learn the natural notes on the low E and A strings first.
- The dotted frets are your anchors, so start there.
- Everything else is one octave shape away from something you already know.
- Short daily sessions beat long ones, because this is recall rather than understanding.