Learning the Fingerboard......Where to Start?

Ah yes, the guitar fingerboard. All those notes, all those frets, I'm confused!

Yes, the fingerboard can be very confusing. As a beginning guitar student it's even more daunting. When I first started playing guitar, it just didn't make sense. Unlike the piano or a keyboard, you can play the same notes in several different places. On the piano, there's only one middle C for example. Even though there are other notes with that name, that's the only one with that sound. On the guitar you can play the same note with the same pitch in as many as 6 different places. It's no wonder you're confused. Most guitar teachers, if they're teaching notes at all, start with what we call the 1st position. These are the notes in the first 4 frets and you make the C major scale from those. In addition, there are other scales you can also play using that same position. The best way to learn and understand all of this is to not try to learn too many concepts at once. The whole idea of position playing on guitar is using one finger per fret and not going out of position by more than one fret in either direction.

Position markers. Dots, snowflakes or other designs.

The way to learn to find your way around the fingerboard is to learn what the dots, aka position markers are for. Basically it's to keep you from having to count the frets and to help you jump right to the correct or fret or position. Plain or fancy, they serve the same purpose. Most guitars have them inlaid in the fingerboard as well as having dots on the side of the neck.

When does it all start to make sense, or does it?

It starts to make sense after you've been playing for a while and learn about how logical the fingerboard really is. The key is to learn to visualize the fingerboard and what notes reside there. Once you start to see patterns it becomes a lot easier. There are many good websites that go into great detail, but I recommend sticking to the basics at first and trusting your guitar teacher. A common problem that a beginning guitar student has is trying to figure out too much at once. This is especially true when you're trying to teach yourself. Don't worry about barre chords, pentatonic scales or other scale forms until you've built a good foundation of knowledge.