If your child is a guitar player, one of the things they will need to learn is the notes on the guitar fretboard. Without knowing these notes, they won’t easily be able to play any sound, regardless of its genre or difficulty. During your child’s private guitar lessons for kids, they’ll learn the fretboard, but you can give them a head start by helping them identify some of the basic notes. Once they know which note is which, they will have a better mastery of the guitar.
Do Players Need to Know the Notes on the Fretboard to Play Guitar?
While it’s certainly very helpful to know the notes on the fretboard, your child can begin playing basic songs without them. Some players or guitar teachers in Houston do learn the notes early on, but it’s possible to play basic chords without knowing them. Learning to play simple songs often helps gets young players excited about the guitar. Spreading out learning the notes on the fretboard with learning songs can help keep children engaged with their lessons.
Learning the Notes
Learning the notes on the guitar can be done in a number of ways. Many teachers start students out with learning the notes string by string. They begin with the notes played open, which means the student doesn’t hold down any of their guitar’s frets. Young players usually start with the notes on the E and A strings. These notes are important because they form the basis of most chords.
Once they have learned the notes for playing open, they can start learning the notes on the fretboard. Each string plays a different note if the player holds down the string at a particular fret. For example, the first fret changes the lowest string from an E note into an F note. The string above goes from an A to an A# or A Sharp.
Each of the six strings plays a different note depending on which fret the player presses down on. This means that every note could potentially play 12 different notes. That’s a large number of notes to learn, but fortunately, you can find fretboard stickers to place on your child’s guitar to help them learn where to press for each note.
Practice Makes Perfect
Just knowing where a note is on the fretboard is only the beginning, however. Your child needs to begin to understand how the notes connect to each other and which notes create which chords. One way your child can learn this is to learn the scale for each note. The G major scale, for example, is fairly easy to learn and is a good place for your child to start. This will also help them get familiar with fretboard fingering. Once they’ve mastered one scale, they can move on to another note until they’ve learned them all. Practicing these scales regularly will help commit them to memory.
One way of practicing scales is to use a game. There are a number of different apps out there that will help your child learn the notes on the fretboard. You can also have your child try to find the same note on each string and then play them quickly in succession. No matter how your child practices, the more they do, the more familiar with the frets they will be.
Does Your Child Need a Good Teacher?
While learning the notes on the fretboard on their own will help them form a foundation for guitar playing, a good teacher will help them expand their skills. Our teachers will come right to your home for every lesson, plus we offer virtual music lessons, too. However, our online music lessons are being taught by local music teachers with live lessons tailored to your child! Contact us today to learn more.
