Fretboard Map:
master the guitar fretboard and unleash your creativity!

In order to fully master the fretboard, you need to think of it as a map: the guitar fretboard map.

Let's take this analogy to its final consequences. Just for the hell of it. Let's imagine you have only just moved towns. You get there by train, and you have directions to get to your new house. So you walk there, taking extra care to take in every detail of the buildings along the way.
You take a mental note of certain easy-to-remember buildings, monuments, etc. With these reference points, you find it's not so hard getting back to the train station when you go there the next day to pick your girlfriend up... she couldn't make it on the same day you did.

By now, you know the way to the train station and back to your new home. You next follow a similar procedure to learn the way to the grocery store. So get really good at going from your house to the grocery store and back. And you're also great at getting to the train station and back. You think you really know your way around, and you've only been here for two days!

One day, your girlfriend has to go back to your old hometown to do some paperwork. You have arranged your schedule so you can pick her up at 6PM at the train station. It's only 4, so you are at you are at the grocery store getting the special ingredients for her welcome-back party. All of a sudden, your phone rings. It's her. She says her train is early: she'll be there at 4:30.

So you pay and rush out, only to realize you don't know which way to turn. If you go all the way back home, so you can find your way to the station, you'll be late. So you bravely decide to try to find your way to the station from here...

You walk in what must be the right way. But the winding streets soon confuse you. You walk around for two hours, and then finally, as if by mere chance, you spot the train station in the distance. You get there, exhausted, only to find your girlfriend has left. She's waiting for you at your place.

Ok... this is a long winded way of putting it, but I think it's clear enough. In order to really master the fretboard, you need to be able to get to any point from any point. Just knowing a couple of scales and chord patterns is very much like knowing the way to the grocery store and back.

You might even be at the point where you know a million different specific routes that get you to all your favorite places. But what the hero of our story (You???!) never found out is that the grocery store and the train station were only a block away. What he needed was a map, a fretboard map in which he could get a view of his whole town -the fretboard. With it in hand, our friend could easily have found his way from any point to any other.

If he had a nice maps with coordinates, all the better. He could now have accurate reference points to help him remember where all his favorite spots are, and the shortest possible routes between them all. And he could then start exploring alternate routes. Maybe he will discover a scenic route with an amazing landscape that inspires him. And he might discover an amazingly quick route for when he is in a rush and needs a practical solution.

Let's summarize this long article by saying this:

The best way to learn the fretboard is by cross-relation: a fully cross-related fretboard map. Find out what all the possible relationships between the different scales and chords are -from a purely theoretical point of view. Then find out how they relate to the guitar. Then find out how they relate to each other on the fretboard.

By then, you will have a full 3D topographical fretboard map in hand. With it, you can take your time to explore all the possibilities within the instrument. And enjoy yourself while at it!

Be sure to explore the Fretboard in Depth series: it will give you some great initial pointers for you to start charting out your very own Guitar Fretboard Map