How to memorize the fretboard

This 11th Fret Science video was released on December 28, 2023. It quickly became the most successful by far. As of December 2025, it has been watched ~1.2 million times (with 111k hours of watchtime, this is about 12.5 years of human life) and has yielded 37k new subscribers. All for a video I thought was going to bomb!

Original video description: Learning the notes on the fretboard (and practicing to get faster recall) pays off massively by speeding up your ability to learn new songs and solos, as well as by being one of the keys that will unlock your ability to improvise. This video explains why it's so valuable to memorize the notes, shows three powerful ways to think about the fretboard, and demonstrates four useful exercises that will accelerate your progress.

Once you've watched it, put it into practice with the Fretboard Trainer — a free note-recognition game that drills exactly this, right here on the site.

How to memorize the fretboard

Memorizing the notes of the fretboard has multiple benefits:

1. Communication - talking with other players, writing down your musical ideas, and more
2. Faster learning - being able to identify and name patterns of notes gives your working memory bigger chunks to work with, so you can hold more in mind at once
3. Improvisation - the master skill is to be able to quickly find the root of every upcoming chord, near wherever your fingers happen to be

The chromatic scale has 12 notes, each separated by one semitone (on guitar, that’s one fret). There are seven natural notes — C, D, E, F, G, A, B — plus five chromatic notes that fall in between the natural notes (except between B/C and E/F). A chromatic note that is one semitone higher than a natural note gets a sharp (#) added to its name. One that is a semitone lower gains a flat (♭). Thus, each chromatic note goes by two different names that are equivalent for our purposes. So the full scale is C, C#/D♭, D, D#/E♭, E, F, F#/G♭, G, G#/ A♭, A, A#/B♭, and B, and this cycle repeats indefinitely.

Each string on the the guitar embodies the chromatic scale, but starting on a different note. Here it is on the B string:

If we repeatedly move in 5-semitone steps, we outline a very important sequence called the cycle of 4ths. This is traditionally started on the note B and we use the “flat” names for the chromatic notes.

If we reverse the order of this sequence, it is called the cycle of 5ths, and typically we use the “sharp” names of the chromatic notes.

The chromatic scale corresponds to horizontal movement on the fretboard. Moving one fret toward the bridge moves you one position clockwise in the diagram. Moving one fret toward the nut moves you one position counterclockwise. When moving horizontally, it can speed things up if you learn to skip over the chromatic notes by moving two frets at a time.

The cycle of 4ths/5ths corresponds to vertical movement. Since the guitar is mostly tuned in fourths, moving to the next higher string is equivalent to moving one step clockwise in the diagram. Moving to the next lower string is the same as moving one step counterclockwise. For a very important exception, see the next page!

Unlike the other pairs of adjacent strings, the G and B strings are tuned to be a major third apart (4 semitones). So if you want to move along the cycle of 4ths/5ths, you will need to move along a diagonal between these two strings. I call this quirk of the fretboard “the warp”, and in my opinion, it’s the single most important thing to understand about the guitar.

The cycle of 4ths more or less wraps around the fretboard like a coil of rope. Notice how the sequence B-E-A-D-G-C-F-B♭-E♭-A♭-D♭-G♭-B starts on the 7th fret of the low E string, wraps upward, shifting over diagonally at “the warp” and then continuing around:

A third way to move around the fretboard is in jumps of an octave. There are two “chess moves” that always land you on the same note you started from. Their shapes change slightly when they straddle “the warp”, so they become four shapes:

And these octave shapes form the backbone of the CAGED system. That’s a whole separate lesson, but I include this teaser because it’s incredibly valuable to make this connection.

Here are four great exercises that will help you practice recalling note positions from memory. Whenever you struggle to recall a position or a note name, use horizontal or vertical movement from a known position to figure out the note in question. For horizontal movement, use the chromatic scale sequence, and for vertical movement, use the cycle of 4ths/5ths.

Practice method #1 - Practice multiple things at once

Combine note recall practice with another technique. In the video, I suggested combining it with recall of the pentatonic scale, using the “rectangle and stack” method. Choose a note to focus on. Repeatedly find different locations of that note on the fretboard (perhaps by using octave moves), and each time you find the note, build a pentatonic scale in that location. See my video “The Only Pentatonic Scale Lesson You’ll Ever Need” for the full details on how to do that. Once it becomes easy to find your note everyone on the fretboard, move on to a new note. Start with the most common root notes, like B, E, A, D, and G, and then move on to the others.

Practice method #2 - Follow a chord progression by finding roots and triads

For each song you learn, memorize the sequence of chords. Choose a limited region of the neck, such as a five-fret range on the top four strings, and for each chord, find the root of that chord and build a triad there (major or minor depending on the type of chord). Take as much time as you need to do this at first, but eventually practice doing it along with a recording of the song. “Little Wing” is a great chord progression for this because it includes chords for each of the natural notes.

Practice method #3 - Play the cycle of 4ths/5ths on one string

Choose a string, and practice finding all twelve notes by playing the cycle of 4ths or 5ths in order. This forces you to move a significant distance on the fretboard after each note. Do this first on the E string, and then move on to the other strings. Memorizing the A string is especially helpful for rhythm guitar, and the higher strings are especially useful if you are focusing on improvisation.

Practice method #4 - Play the chromatic scale one-note-per-string

Start with any note, anywhere on the fretboard, and then move one step of the chromatic scale while moving to the next string. Like method #3, this keeps you moving large distances on the fretboard, and many players find this to be a challenge.

Invent your own exercises. The key to all of this is to move on to a new exercise any time something becomes easy. The point of doing these exercises is to make your brain work hard at recalling or figuring out the names and positions of the notes. If your brain isn’t working hard, you’ve either learned it, or you’ve worn out the exercise. You can get more life out of exercises by alternating between them. Spend five minutes on one, then switch to another and mix things up.