Guitar Stuff

This is a repost of a blog I put on myspace on Christmas Day.

Guitar stuff. Warning I am going to ramble.
Current mood: smart

First off, Merry Christmas everyone! If you are a guitarist, and a person who, like me, 'plays by ear', I am going to give you a present that is going to annoy the everlivin' daylights out of you. But I think - jury is out - I think that it will help your playing, too. This is my latest find in the attempt to learn the fretboard, something 26 years of piddling around by myself hasn't accomplished.
My first moment of clarity came from a lesson on youtube from Richard Lloyd, whereby he plays a major scale up the fretboard to illustrate the circle of fourths. Since a guitar is tuned in fourths (except, yeah I know) this is a good way to think about moving around on the instrument.

Next moment of clarity - I read in an online guitar forum about an exercise that (legend has it) Mr. Satriani describes, which I will relate to you now. And here is the irritating part, because I am not going to lie to you - it's annoying as hell to do this exercise. But I think it will help me. Simply put, start with a note (let's do E first) and find it everywhere on the fretboard, to the beat of a metronome(lots free online). And once you get to where you find the E on every spot on the fretboard, speed up the metronome a bit and find the E's faster. And faster. And if you mess up, go back to the first E. And when you have the E down pretty damn well try another note. I'm still on E so I have not decided whether or not my next note will be F or A. I am going to stay on E for quite awhile, folks.
Days? A week? Who knows?
p.s. feel free to give me crap for being a Satch fan, because I am not, but hell if this helps me I'll buy his music in gratitude... lol

Third idea - future - t'was recommended to me to learn the fretboard via arpeggios, but seriously, can I until I know where the heck I am?

This wasn't an issue, any of it, on piano, because piano keys all look different (in context) and once you learn 'em, you got 'em. I had my last lesson at 11 and I can play 'guess the note' with you on a keyboard all day and get them right. But this fretboard... oh man, as I wrote a friend, I wander thru the fretboard forest looking for crumbs. Well, here are some crumbs!

For those of you who might murmer, "Circle of what? Fourths fifths huh? I didn't learn that in piano class", well yes you did, you just didn't realize it. The way to read key signatures on the staff illustrates the circle of fifths. I remember being a kid and learning this, because I had to in order to read music. Remember, no sharps - key of C? One sharp meant the key of G? Two sharps - key of D? Three Sharps - key of A? Four sharps - key of E? Five sharps - whew what a thing to play - key of B? I still remember seeing those 'key of B' sharps on the staff and going, Oh yeah all those black keys. Then you got into weird territory where the whole key was sharp like F sharp. BTW this blog won't let me use the symbol for sharp in it so I'm writing "sharp".

0- C
1 - G
2 - D
3 - A
4- E
5 - B


Well that is the circle of fifths.
..
And if you run that pattern backwards, it's the circle of fourths, which happens to be what guitars are tuned in (except for, yeah I know) - fourths.

I hope this information didn't make your face melt. I am all about it. Would love some feedback.
Merry Christmas!!!