Learning the notes on the fretboard.
Using "5th's" (Part One)
It is highly beneficial to know where the all of the notes are located throughout the entire fretboard of your guitar. Knowing the note names and positions can help you better understand chord structures and scales.
Memorizing your Roots and 5th’s.
The “I” and the “V” in music are like brother and sister to each other. No matter what style of music you like to play, the “I-V” combination, always sounds good. In chord structures as well as scales, the “I” is considered the root or the “Tonic” note. The “V” is called the “Perfect 5th”.
Power Chords.
Let’s say that you really like rock guitar. Who doesn’t? Chances are if you play the guitar, one of the first chord shapes you learned was probably the “Power chord”. Some call is a “Rock chord”.
Plug a Fender Stratocaster into a vintage Fender tube amplifier, turn up the gain, the distortion and the reverb - then play any power chord. It’s gonna sound really cool! The power chord is one of the easiest chords to play on the guitar because requires only one or two fingers. Maybe that’s why so many rock songs use this chord.
Your exercises.
The following exercises are combinations of “I-V” chords throughout the fretboard. In the first image, you can see the two notes: C and G. In this key, C is the tonic note and G is the perfect 5th. You can practice playing each combination throughout the entire fretboard. Remember to identify and name each note as you play it.
C and G
G and D
D and A
A and E
E and B
B and F#
Notice, the F# is colored with a black background. That means that it is an “enharmonic” note. The position on the fretboard for that note has dual names: F# and Gb, as you will see in Part Two of this article.
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