ET01 / FT06 : note names vs solfege vs degree

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bill ashmanskas

4 months ago

I decided to give the ET01 / FT06 method a try for (a) learning the fretboard (no-memorization approach), (b) ear training, and (c) learning single-octave major scales with root on strings 6,5,4,3.

Here's a question: as I play, do I make my inner voice say note names (which would seem to aid fretboard learning), or make my inner voice say solfege alphabet (seems helpful for ear training), or make my inner voice say degree (could be similar benefits to solfege names?).

Also, if I use the single-string approach on string 2, it is obvious to focus on C major scale.

Then moving up to strings 5 and 6 next seems very useful for remembering where to find the roots of barre chords and power chords. But my ear is so used to hearing Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do. If I start on string 5 and play only natural notes, my ear is hearing La Ti Do Re Mi Fa So La or similar. So do I sit at the piano and get my ear used to hearing natural notes starting from A (I guess that's A minor, I should get used to it), or do I start at the third fret and play a familiar C major scale in order? Then I could ask a similar question for string 6, and so on.

I suppose if I just start, over time it will fall into place. Don't worry; don't expect too fast. But I'm curious if there is advice on strategy for following the method outlined in ET01 and FT06.

-Bill

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Kurt Schubert

4 months ago

Hi Bill!
So smart to dig into those lessons. Triad lessons are great for learning fretboard and intervals.
You ask good questions.
Tomo always simplifies things for me.
Keep us updated!

Kurt
Don't pay attention to what I'm doing :-)

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bill ashmanskas

4 months ago

Thanks, Kurt! I really liked the triad video that included bits of Sultans of Swing, with major and minor triads on strings 3,2,1, root, first inversion, second inversion. That does seem like another good way to learn the fretboard and intervals. I also liked the barre chord video that included bits of Hotel California, which seemed helpful for remembering where to find the root notes on strings 5 and 6.

-Bill

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Kim Sun Ho

4 months ago

What I am doing now is saying note names as I go across a single string. and sounding out intervals when I am playing positionally (single octave scales in this cntx)

I think its useful to think in note names like you said for chord changes, like: "ok, so I wanna grab the root of the next chord change on the 5th string now!" and in those instances when you are searching for a note in a new chord change, I personally use note names instinctively, so it made sense for me to practice note names going horiztionally on the guitar.

Then when I am practicing playing positionally, then I will always think and count in terms of intervals, as one of the biggest benefits of playing positionally (for me at least) is that you can grab intervals within one/two octaves with ease.

P.s, I've found that (now that I hve finally committed to doing 10 minutes of sightreading a day) sightreading is very very helpful for learning note names on the fretboard.

P.p.s using my out-loud voice and singing the intervals/note names helps me internalize it faster i think

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bill ashmanskas

4 months ago

I agree about sight reading. I found that sight reading, mostly in open position (EADGBe), but then sometimes in 5th position (ADGCEa), has helped a lot with learning note names up through the 8th fret. I should do more sight reading in 5th position.

That makes sense, to think of intervals/degree when playing scales positionally, since the patterns are moveable to change keys.

I am so used to hearing the notes of a major scale (and should make myself get used to a minor scale) that I was mainly curious how best to do string 4 and 6 such that my ear knows what sound to expect. It will take me a while to get used to hearing DEFGABCD or EFGABCDE. I think CDEFGABC on string 2, and ABCDEFGA on strings 5 and 3 (skipping the open G) are more familiar.

[Maybe that's my answer: do CDEFGABC on string 2. Then do ABCDEFGA on strings 5 and 3. Then later I can learn the sound of EFGABCDE (Phrygian?) and use that for strings 6, 4, and 1.]

I think the Do Re Me Do etc and the Do Mi, Re Fa, Mi So, etc will be fun both single-string and vertically. I can also warm up my ear first at the piano.

-Bill

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Kurt Schubert

4 months ago

Bill and Kim-you guys are working! Love your energy and creative ideas. Do and know everything!
I haven't sight read in 5th position yet, but I know where all the notes on the fretboard are.
It was a big deal to really learn them and helped me so much to keep going.
Follow all those theory lessons in order. They really help learn the fretboard. (One string one finger).
Keep us updated!
Kurt

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Tomo Fujita Mod

4 months ago

Thank you Bill for learning the ET01 & the FT06. Those lessons are so important.

Keep it simple like this. When you are learning C Major scale on 2nd string. Just using your first finger.
1) Think about name of that note: C
2) Think about intervals of that note: Root
3) Sing that pitch: Do

So you do this very slowly. I think you should say it then gradually just think about it when you are practicing.

You can apply this approach to any other strings. You can do 1st string if you want to do. Eventually you need to do this on all 6 different strings.

Do it very slow without any expectation or worry about! Don't pay attention what others are doing.
Don't worry!
Don't compare!
Don't expect too fast!
Be kind to yourself!

You are doing so good! Good job!

Tomo

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bill ashmanskas

4 months ago

Aha -- videos #21 -- #27 linked from Tomo's kindle e-book mostly answer my question. In videos 25,26,27, Tomo is singing out the solfege name for each note before he plays it.

I think with some mix of the advice in these 6 short videos, the tips from Sun Ho above, and my above thinking of ways to turn 6 strings into just 3 modes whose sound to learn, I can do it.

Also, I know the Guitar Wisdom spirit is mostly to avoid visual patterns, but in the spirit of turning something one wants to learn into a single sheet of paper, I made this visual representation of the single-octave C-major scale patterns, with root on string 6, 5, 4, 3, that were written out in text in the ET01 video. I try to practice them slowly, thinking of whole steps and half steps and note names or solfege names.

https://github.com/ashmanskas/misc/blob/main/c-major-scale.pdf

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Kurt Schubert

4 months ago

Thanks Bill.
The new Guitar Wisdom book is amazing.
Singing before playing was something I learned during the July challenge.
Keep practicing them slowly and you'll forget you have that paper!
I appreciate your spirit!
Kurt

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Sammi Fujita Mod

4 months ago

Hey Bill! I appreciate you sharing your way of learning. We all learn differently! I can tell you are adopting the Tomo Fujita/Guitar Wisdom approach by keeping it to a single sheet of paper! Like Kurt said, eventually, you won't need that paper - that knowledge and understanding will be inside of you. Keep going!

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bill ashmanskas

4 months ago

Hi Sammi - Already, the only thing I need the sheet of paper for is to remind me of the recommended finger placement when the root is on string 4 or 3. I think after another day or two, I won't need the paper at all. But I think the exercise of making the sheet of paper helped me to internalize the plan that was outlined in text within the ET01 video.

It is interesting how quickly one can tell if a note is wrong when doing the single-string method without looking. So maybe the ear is there, and just needs some training.

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Sammi Fujita Mod

4 months ago

That is so great to hear! I also feel that writing things down helps internalize what is being learned. A little bit of training each day will go a long way.

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Sunil

4 months ago

Hi Bill!
That is a cool idea to use GitHub to share files. I will add that to the list! I was thinking how to share *.jpg on YouTube haha.
I did something like you did on the pdf.
I have a long rectangular piece of paper that represents the fret board one octave 12 frets only and I marked pattern of octaves, 5 patterns which stay true for all keys. Then I found major key between octaves. Then you can mark relative minor scales, all the scales. I spent a year doing this to understand scales before joining gw.

For me, gets so complicated so fast.
Can’t remember when I slide up to the edge.
Then when I’m finally learning triads the way Tomo suggests it’s just super easy to remember flat 3, flat 6, flat 7 for minor key. Right? I’m still learning scales to take with me down the triple diamond run, but I never know what I can remember when I am facing the chasm.

That’s why I think Tomo's lessons are all about fundamentals …actually just look at the book, good image of base of mountain is practice, top of mountain is performance. No need for me to use so many works! Haha, just see the book (also practice, also not-practice…all the work) :)

So yeah, I have this feeling like everything I work on collapses down to a simple, elegant invisible seed, that Tomo is giving me, and it only appears when I’m ready to see it. That feel to me like being on a hike, just easier to walk by focusing on each step, then everything falls out of that…don’t compare; be kind to yourself….
It’s like talking about a world emerging from any axiomatic system of rules. But Tomo is attempting to communicate the truth, and not-truth both with this.
But Not-truth like Bertrand Russell and Gödel, and those maestros explained.
So the only way to reach understanding is for the student to complete making a connection with maestros on the path a lot time before they arrived.
That’s what we’re all doing here now.
That’s what gw is. But you can’t see it until you look at the whole…

Also the babbling comes from repeatedly attempting to make a connection. Each new perspective helps us all so much.

Like the rainbow visualization I posted is all about this. Every person sees their own rainbow. But the rainbow is the ultimate massively distributed illusion. And the raindrops, sun, sky are all doing their own thing. No individual cares what the other is doing but we’re all interacting with each other in this world.
The rainbow is an illusion of the truth. But you need to be an observer to realize it…but you only understand it after understanding how it all works together, and really deeply understand how a raindrop and sun and observer and where they are in the atmosphere relative to the ground.

None of the ideas are mine but presented when I was watching leave it to beaver as a kid.

Gödel, Esher and Bach; Douglas Hoffsteader.

Also I know what I’m saying sounds like the woo…but it’s all based on philosophy of logic, proof by contradiction; proof by induction. game of life, glider, cellular automata. the concept of zero, and the not-zero.

This line of exploration is not mine, it’s everyone’s and I am leaving it behind on the path on behalf of the truth, with empathy and compassion. This is an act of hope to make a connection across the void between self and not-self, for positive generational change. No money, no fame; just the truth and not-truth.

Thank you for listening.
Felt like I’m going through a squeeze point for so long. Making the fleeting connections with all of you here is giving me new life! Actually since intro video I have been getting up early, walking everyday, wife smiling, children smiling (most of the time hahah) setting goal to start juijistu training in one year.
Using Tomo Fujita’s one-inch punch method.

So many words, but never enough.
I don’t understand how people learn with out talking about mental state because actually learning something is about changing your mental state. You become a new person when you learn something. I think that’s what Jerry Garcia means when he talks about “having fun”…

Idk…just going back to feeling good with my Strat.

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Tomo Fujita Mod

4 months ago

Thank you Bill for sharing those videos from my new book Guitar Wisdom. So happy to hear that! Do things slowly. Plesae take your time.

Tomo

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Tomo Fujita Mod

4 months ago

Thank you Kurt for sharing your July Challenge experience!

Good job! Keep practicing slowly so you will not need any paper! Your spirit will learn those notes slowly and deeply. This way you can move things around without visual shapes. Which gives you more freedom! Triads & One String / One Finger Approach!

Tomo

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bill ashmanskas

4 months ago

I have an update after working on these major-scale exercises for a couple of weeks. As Tomo predicted, after one or two days, I no longer needed the paper. But I think writing out the paper helped me to visualize the task and helped me to "own the learning" (a phrase I heard Tomo use in one of the FTR videos).

For one-string one-finger, I do this: CDEFGABC on string 2. Then CDEFGABC on string 5. Then ABCDEFGA (minor, all natural notes) on string 5. Then ABCDEFGA on string 3. Then EFGABCDE (Phrygian, all natural notes) on string 6, 1, and 4. With C-major on string 2 and 5, I also do CDEC, DEFD, EFGE, etc, as well as CE, DF, EG, FA, etc. It is fun to say the solfege names, but I find that saying the note names is currently more helpful to me for learning the fretboard.

Then I've been doing the C-major one-octave scales, with root on string 5, then 6, then 3, then 4. I guess part of "owning the learning" is for each student to figure out her own mnemonics. I remember that the pattern is always 2 notes, then 3 notes, then 3 notes, per string. Begin with 2nd finger except for string-3-root. It's easy to remember that C to D is a whole step, E to F is a half step, F to G is a whole step, A to B is a whole step, B to C is a half step. And it's easy to hear when it's wrong. String-4-root has the funny shift from string 3 to string 2. String 3 root starts on 1st finger. Both special cases are because string 3-to-2 is a major 3rd instead of a perfect 4th.

I still have to think to find each root. I remember string-5 root (fret 3) from reading open position. I remember string-3 root (fret 5) from reading 5th position. I remember string-6 root as up a 5th (fret 7) is B, so fret 8 is C. I remember string-4 root as up an octave (fret 12) is D, so fret 10 is C. I guess those mnemonics will eventually no longer be needed with practice.

So I continue that, up and down each scale, and now I'm slowly working on C-major triads, starting with only strings 3,2,1. I made myself another visual to help with that. One thing that strikes me about looking at this visual is that I think I can see where the CAGED system comes from, if you imagine playing a C-major chord using open C shape, then barred A shape, ..., up to D shape.

https://github.com/ashmanskas/misc/blob/main/triads.pdf

I think I will also try to work in playing Do Re Mi Do, Re Mi Fa Re, etc, with the vertical scales, but I haven't tried that yet.

I notice that one thing I can't just figure out from logic is which fingers to use. Where to find the notes, one can work out with logic, until eventually one remembers. But I think I need to find a way to remember the right finger choices.

Meanwhile, I watch Tomo's FTR series for inspiration, but I don't plan to go beyond C-major triads until I feel comfortable with them: all 3 inversions, all 4 sets of consecutive strings. For a while I was doing the "Sultans of Swing" pattern from one of the FTR videos with major and minor triads on strings 3,2,1, but I think I want to stick with the basics for a while until they start to feel easy to me.

-Bill

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Sunil

4 months ago

This is awesome Bill!

I love the detailed notes of what you did!
Then I can "replay" to figure out what you actually did. So cool!

I haven't read it all though yet (haha sorry man -- i need to, adding modes to the list after watching Tomo's "Unaccompanied Solo Guitar with P90 TONE! -
Isn't she lovely" on youtube), just enough to think you are doing what Tomo says to do in Ch.5, Triads!

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Sunil

4 months ago

Oh I couldn't read the pdf you posted on github.
"malformed binary"

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bill ashmanskas

4 months ago

I just sketched out for myself where every C, E, G note is, from open string through fret 13, with the C in red and E and G in black. That's all. I'll try not to depend too much on any visual, but I somehow had to turn the text from the video-editor titles into something I could look at to get started.

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Sunil

4 months ago

i still think thats awesome man.

i think that's the game at all levels, it seems to me. keep going.

for every go-around, i have to remember to listen. obvious, but profound.

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Tomo Fujita Mod

4 months ago

Thank you Bill for your update! Good job! Best not to hurry at all! Now you know C Major Scale really well!

Now please enjoy learning triad inversions with name of notes/intervals/Do Mi So... and all.
Yes! Do Re Mi Do... Do Mi Re Fa... as much as you need.

Keep it simple and learn more sounds with your hands! Learn correct fingerings for triads from GW lesson videos. Please check triad inversion lesson videos.

Once you feel comfortable with Major triad inversions then you can apply to minor triad inversions. I highly recomment not to write those shapes down on paper. You will understand this later.

Keep going!

Tomo

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Sammi Fujita Mod

4 months ago

Great update, Bill! Thank you so much for sharing. I think it's helpful to hear how someone arrives at a deeper understanding. You are "owning" it!

One important thing about the fingerings: follow the ones Tomo provides! From what I understand, there are options for fingerings, but Tomo deliberately chooses specific ones for his students because, based on his experience, these are the best for you to practice.

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bill ashmanskas

3 months ago

A month or two later, I still find it useful to do the C-major scale, vertically, with root on string 5, then 6, then 3, then 4, including the Do Re Mi Do up-and-back. What's fun about this is that finally I can tap out the little-kid melodies on the guitar that I used to do as a kid whenever I saw a piano keyboard. (Studying Tomo's Twinkle-Twinkle triad video carefully enough to reproduce it is something I look forward to trying later.)

I learned another handy fretboard trick: start from (for example) C on string 5. It's easy then to find C an octave up (on string 3), as if one were playing a power chord. Then one can find the next octave on string 1, which is up 3 frets instead of just 2 frets, because of the string 3-to-string-2 special case. And likewise from string 6 to 4 to 2. So I've been mixing that in, note by note.

I combined bits of Tomo's various 12-bar blues triad exercises and decided to do C-major blues with triads on strings 321, so that when I say the note names aloud, they are all natural notes. It is fun to learn a basic blues chord progression from the triad videos. I enjoy using the roman numerals, so that the knowledge translates to other keys. I want to continue to do major and minor blues with triads on strings 321, saying the notes from each triad aloud. I caught myself just remembering shapes and locations (for a given root and inversion), which persuaded me to go back and start saying the note names. [It's always tempting to go fast, relying on memory, so that it sounds more like music.]

But I think in the next few days, I'm finally going to move on to major and minor triads on strings 543. Then 654 will just be the same thing with the notes shifted by 5 frets. I'll save 432 for last.

I finally got an RC-1 looper pedal, so I hope that if I carve out some practice time, I can keep time well enough with the 12-bar minor blues with triads to make a usable "backing track" loop, then see if I can improvise on top of it with a minor pentatonic scale. Something to look forward to in the coming weeks. Don't expect too fast!

Even though the pace is limited by available practice time, it is nice to see that the territory beyond the first few frets is becoming less and less unfamiliar over time, and I think my ear is improving as well. Using a bit of theory to fit things together really reduces the number of things to memorize. Of course if you repeat anything enough times, you just remember it, but I like Tomo's approach of having a few simple theory inputs to organize the knowledge, instead of rote memorization.

So far with the triad videos, the main thing one can't just figure out from the basics is which fingers are recommended where -- it seems that one just has to memorize that, which happens automatically the first few times one plays each inversion.

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LaVoy Thomas Ragels

3 months ago

Looper pedal is so much fun. There must be a way to use it constructively as well. I do not know that way haha.
-LTR

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Tomo Fujita Mod

3 months ago

Thank you bill for sharing your learning experience. So happy to hear that. Both in horrizontal & vertical Major scale positions are very useful! You can practice “Do Re Mi Re Mi Fa…” and “Do Mi Re Fa…”

Once you learned basic Major Scale. You can apply to different scale sound. To Dorian with b3 b7….To Mixolydian with b7. Then you can apply with chord progression too. Top 3 strings triad inversions plus some notes! Good job!

Practice more triad inversions! These are really good for you. Go back to these lesson videos for fingering. I showed each triad with specific fingering. No need to memorize them. Practice and review them everyday for 2 weeks or more.

Tomo

Major Triads on 321 set strings.
https://tomovhxtv.vhx.tv/foundation-triads/videos/ftr-02-triads-on-strings-3-2-1-and-learning-the-fretboard

Major Triads on 432 set strings.
https://tomovhxtv.vhx.tv/foundation-triads/videos/ftr-04-major-triads-on-strings-4-3-2

Major Triads on 543 set strings.
https://tomovhxtv.vhx.tv/foundation-triads/videos/ftr-01-triads-on-strings-5-4-3-and-learning-the-fretboard

Major Triads on 654 set strings
https://tomovhxtv.vhx.tv/foundation-triads/videos/ftr-06-major-triads-on-strings-6-5-4

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