The Fretboard "No Man's Land", or...
The second and third positions on the guitar. (Part One)
I remember learning the guitar as a teenager, learning most of the open-string chords and some of the scales. I also remember being intimidated by anything that included notes and chords past the third or fourth frets of my guitar. All I knew was that everything was "higher" notes. Other than eventually being able to figure "barre" chords going up the fretboard, I had no idea what strange types of scales and mysterious jazz chords were lurking in the shadows on the second and third positions. Turns out, I wasn't alone in trying to solve the mysteries of "no man's land".
Intermediate Beginner Lesson
Most of my students are relatively familiar with the first three or four frets on the guitar. They know several basic "open-string" chords, and some even know how to figure out and play easy melodies. This is a completely normal expectation for beginner guitarists. However, most of these students know very little about figuring out chords and scales in the higher fret ranges between the fourth or fifth fret and beyond.
​T​​he Positions​.
There are three positions on the guitar: The first position is the area from the open strings to the third or fourth frets. From about the fifth fret to the eighth fret is the second position. Everything above that is the third position.
Since the twelfth fret is the octave of the open strings, we can think of these twelve frets divided into three positions. Each position is four frets.
Position One: Open - 3 or 4, Position Two: 5 - 8, Position Three: 9-12. Fret thirteen would be the same as position one, only one octave higher.
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Thinking in terms of root notes on the fifth and sixth strings.
As a practicing guitarist, you sometimes have to think like a bass guitarist. Well, what does a bass guitarist do? The bass guitarist generally plays the root or the lowest notes of the chords in the progression. Most of those notes get played on the third and fourth strings of the bass guitar. This is where the lowest notes exist. Most bass guitars have four strings. The names of these four strings are the same names as the sixth, fifth, fourth and third strings on your guitar.
Guitar: 6 = E, 5 = A, 4 = D, 3 = G, 2 = B and 1 = E
Bass: 4 = E, 3 = A, 2 = D and 1 = G
They are the same notes only one octave lower than the notes on the guitar.
As a bass player, I normally play almost everything on the fourth and third strings. I know that my lowest note on my bass guitar is the low "E". I normally play the fourth string notes that exist from the open string to maybe the seventh or eight fret depending on what I am actually playing in the chord progression. I also know that when I play the notes on the third string, I will usually play them between frets one and maybe fret eight.
Just like the guitar, the notes on the strings are tuned in a linear system. This means that you can sometimes play the same note on more than one string. Each string overlaps the previous string. This means that you do not have to play all of the notes all the way up the fretboard. You can play them in box patterns across the fretboard.
Why is this important?
Like the mantra for real estate, it's all about "location, location, location". Knowing where the root notes are on the lower strings, will help you understand the notes on the higher strings. One of the best ways to learn the notes on the higher frets is to practice and memorize the "natural notes", in boxes of three to five fret frames.Â
In this example, you can see all of the natural notes in a box frame between frets four and eight. This is how you can learn the notes in the second position.
If you can memorize these notes, then learning the enharmonic notes (highlighted in blue), in the frame, is just a matter of moving left or right on the fretboard.
How to practice these notes.
Use the "Circle of Fifths". Play each of the notes in this order:
C - G - D - A - E - B - F# - Db - Ab - Eb - Bb - F.
Repeat this pattern ten times each day. You should have the second position memorized well enough to understand where all of the notes exist in that position, within a week.