About Know the Fretboard

The reason Know the Fretboard started

Hello, my name is Michael McCatty. I decided to start this site because I discovered after years of being taught guitar and learning several other methods for learning scales, modes, chords, songs, and so many other things on the guitar; there must be a much simpler way of knowing the fretboard.

I started taking lessons about 28 years ago and learned from my teacher (Charlie Thomlin) for about 10 years. He taught me so much and I was lucky to have him teach me all that he did. I also have had about 4 others teach me things since then. I have also spent a lot of time on YouTube always trying to take myself further on my journey. About 4 years ago, I decided I needed to learn modes and I spent over a year learning all the shapes and positions for all the modes. I did all of this practice almost every day for about 15 minutes doing all the shapes, patterns, etc.

While doing this all. I became convinced there MUST be a better way of teaching all this information. However, I searched and searched the web and YouTube and never found anyone that taught me the way I’ve become convinced is the “better” way. This is NOT the way I learned, so I don’t know how it would be to learn this method, as opposed to the way I was taught. However, I’m convinced that this way needs to be taught. Even if “like me” others learn using the methods everyone else teaches. The reason: It’s simple and can be taught in way less time.

Two things you need to know about this method:

1. You will need to know what all the notes are on the fretboard. This can be done in about 5-10 minutes per day for about 2 months.

  • It is extremely embarrassing to admit, but for the first 20 years of playing guitar, I could not do this.
  • I was surprised by how easy it was to accomplish this.

2. You will need to understand how to handle how to manipulate these simple shapes as they move over the “B” string.

Once you know those two things it will be simple to follow the examples and you will be surprised how quickly you will “Know the Fretboard”! 

I use two main shapes for my lessons.

One:

Two:

Because these are such simple shapes it will be extremely easy to remember each shape. The shape never changes except when it crosses the “B” string. But if they do they change the way stated on the “B” string post. Simple.