
Musician’s Corner: You Must Practice Your GuitarNotes If You Want To Be Great
by Lory Gil
January 21, 2013
Welcome to the next installment of Musician’s Corner, where we talk about all things music related. Last week, we broadened our scope and talked about a world music app that teaches you how to sing traditional Bhajans and play the Tabla.
This week, we are going to go back to the basics for guitarists. You may think you’re pretty good at playing the guitar. You may think you know the notes on your fret board. Think again. GuitarNotes is a very simple app that helps you memorize every single note on every single string of a six-string guitar, left-handed and right-handed. By the time you’re done with this app, you’ll know your guitar better than you know your mother.
When I first heard about GuitarNotes, I dismissed it because it seemed too simple to be effective. However, after spending only a few minutes with it, I realized how much I don’t know about my guitar and how well this app works as a training device.
I’ve been playing guitar for about 15 years. I’m self taught and didn’t learn music theory until college. It wasn’t until then that I memorized the notes on the fret board. Before that, I would just watch someone play a note and copy them, or listen for the notes and play by ear. In my first band, we actually had code for the notes - big string, little string, little-little string, plus the fret’s number. So, writing out the song’s notation would look something like this: B3, B3, B3, L5, L5, B5. I’m not making this up. These are the things you do when you don’t have anyone to teach you. It’s like twin speak.
Although I did eventually memorize the guitar notes, I’ve never really put that information into practice. I just play chords that I know and develop solos by playing notes that sound good. Because I haven’t kept up with my studies, I’ve practically forgotten everything I learned.
GuitarNotes is actually a game. There are two modes of play. In “Guessing Note” mode, you’ll see a guitar fret board with a question mark on one spot. Your job is to figure out what that note is. There is a list of notes (in order, as a helpful reminder) at the bottom of the screen. Tap the one you think is correct.