How To Find and Memorise The Notes On The Guitar Fretboard

The fretboard (also called fingerboard) is the top part of the neck on a guitar, between the body and the headstock. On the diagram below you can learn all the notes on the guitar fretboard – after the 12th fret it is all repeating (the 13th fret is the same as the 1st, only one octave higher).

As a new guitarist, one of the most difficult endeavors is that of digesting and internalising the notes of the guitar neck. The fretboard is a complex grid that overlaps on itself and often leaves it’s handler confused and frustrated. What’s more, the neck’s uniform nature lends itself to patterns that can easily be moved around the neck without having to actually know what notes are being played.
When you start out at a slow tempo, it gives you time to think about your movements and see what’s coming ahead.
Unfortunately, this leads to many guitarists being able to play quite well but feeling boxed in by their fundamental lack of knowledge of the fretboard. Blues in A? Great. Move to the 5th fret and ready to wail. But what if you want to move out of your stock pentatonic shape and play that high E at the 12th fret? You may know a shape up in that area as well, but still you feel boxed in because the rest of the fretboard remains uncharted waters, grey and fuzzed out by a lack of fretboard knowledge and fluidity.