POST 1/5 - IntroductionMade a guitar learning system that’s very visual and not based on memorizing licks or traditional scale shapes.I’ll be posting a 4-part explanation below since it doesn’t fit the 2K character limit.Will be including more example diagram fragments along the way to illustrate the concepts visually.If you’re curious about alternate ways people internalize the fretboard, read on. If not, feel free to ignore.
POST 2 / 5 - TL;DR + PremiseTL;DRMany modern guitar fretboard diagrams prioritize aesthetics over clearly conveying theoretical concepts in a uniform and consistent way across all keys.By treating the fretboard as a 24×6 note matrix, using C Major / A Minor as parent keys, and separating Letter-based from Interval-based forms, the relationships between notes, scales, and chords become immediately visible.In no way am I attempting to introduce new theory. Rather, I’m clarifying existing relationships using a consistent visual framework.To explore this approach, I developed a complete, color-coded set of diagrams covering all Major and Minor keys (including theoretical keys) across both 12- and 24-fret ranges, with the goal of making complex theory visually intuitive.Hello everyone,I’ve been playing guitar for 15 years and studying music theory for nearly that entire time. Outside of four short-term teachers and about a dozen in-person lessons spread across seven years, most of my learning came from YouTube (especially Pebber Brown, R.I.P.), seeing Buckethead live 12 times, and relentless self-directed practice/study.I’ve always had a deep curiosity about how theory actually maps onto the guitar, not just how it’s traditionally taught; this heightened my desire to push past fragmented pedagogy toward something cleaner and more complete.
POST 3 / 5 - Origin of the IdeaWhat I’m really here to talk about is how these diagrams came to exist.They were born from a single question:“How can the piano keyboard be meaningfully related to the guitar fretboard?”That question hit me in 2013 after my high school Intro to Music teacher played a piano passage and asked me to reproduce it verbatim on guitar. Even after three years of playing, I couldn’t. Being mostly self-taught has limits, and this exposed one of them.Fast-forward to 2017. During downtime at work, I started experimenting on graph paper. I drew a 24x6 rectangle (24 frets, 6 strings) and filled in only the notes of C Major / A Minor. Something was still missing.I made another rectangle and added Roman numerals for scale degrees. Then I realized minor alters them. That required another rectangle, then another.Still not complete.What about the spaces between C and D? C? D? Both? Neither? If C is the tonic, what is C in context? The questions themselves pointed to the answer, but only if each string were treated as its own piano keyboard stacked vertically.The underlying idea isn’t new; what is unique is the visual form it took on the guitar in the specific way I implemented it.
POST 4 / 5 - Breaking from Traditional Fretboard LogicOnce I saw the fretboard this way, C Major / A Minor suddenly looked unfamiliar in a good way.I began questioning everything:Why do theoretical diagrams still show literal strings?Why rely on traditional fret markers that even advanced musicians disagree on?I realized those markers could be repositioned for clarity.The 2nd, 4th, 6th, 9th, and 11th frets made far more sense visually. Why? Because traditional positions lead directly to a contradiction.In E standard, the 3rd fret of the low E is G, the 5th is A, the 7th is B, and the 9th is C/D. On a piano, that’s three white keys and one black key marked as if they were equivalent. No pianist would accept that.Once repositioned, a visual pathway emerged.Black and white “keys” on the low E string became obvious. Even more striking: looking only at the “black keys” from frets 1–4 across all six strings revealed the naturally occurring first position of the Major Pentatonic (second of Minor Pentatonic).The pattern exists even when note names are removed, and that matters.
POST 5 / 5 - The System & Why It WorksThat realization unlocked something important.Patterns can be practiced without knowing the key center if the goal is fingering and spatial familiarity. This applies to every scale shape that occurs naturally within a note matrix. Simplifying the visual system reduces theoretical overload.Over the next eight years, I developed 120 color-coded diagrams covering both 12- and 24-fret ranges.- 60 Letter-based- 60 Interval-based- All Major and Minor keys- Including theoretical keys like C Major / A Minor and C Major / A MinorThe letter forms provide familiarity with a new “skin.”The interval forms give exact coordinates using a clean modifier system.This works because the fretboard itself is a hierarchy of matrices. All notes form the parent matrix. Each key is a matrix within it. Each scale, chord, or shape is another matrix inside that.Before we play anything, this structure is mathematically sound. We apply musical meaning to it.These diagrams are what the earlier posts set up. They remove unnecessary pedagogical and ideological clutter and present the fretboard as a single coherent system for anyone willing to explore the fretboard visually.
My bad anons, flubbed the formatting of the 1st post. TL;DR ends right before "Hello everyone", hopefully that's obvious but wanted to clarify.
don't understand any of it but desu I didn't read, I just play along to shit I like on Songsterr, it's pretty cool you should try it. with the time you've wasted making this shit you could have learnt and memorized a couple of classic songs I reckon
EDIT for Post 3 / 5I didn't realize sharps and flats don't post properly here.This particular line should read:What about the spaces between C and D? C Sharp? D Flat? Both? Neither? If C is the tonic, what is C Sharp in context? The questions themselves pointed to the answer, but only if each string were treated as its own piano keyboard stacked vertically.EDIT for Post 4 / 5This Line should read:In E standard, the 3rd fret of the low E is G, the 5th is A, the 7th is B, and the 9th is C Sharp/D Flat. On a piano, that’s three white keys and one black key marked as if they were equivalent. No pianist would accept that.EDIT for Post 5 / 5- Including theoretical keys like C Sharp Major / A Sharp Minor and C Flat Major / A Flat MinorAgain, apologies anons. Everything was all there in MS Word. Haven't posted here in a while.
This seems like a great way to lay out the fretboard and explain it. I've played for about as long as you have and I feel like I already see this mapping on my fretboard from mapping out single-string major/minor scales to where they naturally occur in the fretboard matrix. In other words, if I'm playing a major scale I'm not thinking in a purely memorized pattern specific to the major scale so much as I'm thinking 'one here, two here, three here and make it a major, etc.'...am I missing something or do I just already have my head wrapped around what's where on the fretboard?
>>128854015Not really, you're on the right track. What you're describing is basically the same mental mapping. The main difference is just having it laid out visually in all positions and keys, rather than figuring it out each time on your own. If anything, this would streamline your process.
Can post more examples if people want.
>>128853935I don't think memorising some random songs would be the same as properly learning how to play.
