Find every C and G on the guitar neck
Seven Cs across the neck, then eight Gs, one a beat, from the low strings to the 15th fret: the same note in three octaves and as many as eight places. Guitars repeat notes on several strings, so the same pitch can be played in more than one place, and finding a note anywhere on the neck is what lets you play a melody or a chord where your hand already is. Try it with the fretboard trainer after.
Opens in the player looped and counted in, with drums playing along, and speeds up 5 % every 2 loops to 100 bpm. No account or microphone needed.
- Goal tempo
- 100 bpm
- Starts at
- 60 bpm
- Length
- 4 bars, looped
- Tuning
- E standard
- Time
- 4/4
- Level
- Intermediate
- Plays with
- Drums
How to play it
Look a beat ahead: find the next C or G while this one rings. The octave shapes get you there fastest.
The Cs, from the lowest: the 3rd fret of the A string and the 8th fret of the low E (the same C), then the C an octave higher at the 10th fret of the D string, the 5th of the G and the 1st of the B, then the high C at the 13th fret of the B string and the 8th of the high E. That's seven places for three Cs. After a beat's rest come the Gs: low E 3rd fret, A 10th, D 5th, the open G string, G 12th, B 8th, high E 3rd and high E 15th.
Play one a beat and let each ring for its whole beat. The challenge is finding the next one before the beat arrives, so look ahead while this one sounds. The octave shapes are the fastest way across.
Then pick a note of your own and find it everywhere, or let the fretboard trainer pick one for you.
Mistakes to watch for
- Playing them as a memorised list without hearing which are the same pitch and which an octave apart.
- Rushing to the next note and cutting this one short.
- Forgetting the open G string: open strings count.
A speed plan
The player starts at 60 % of the goal and plays each tempo twice before stepping up:
- 60
- 65
- 70
- 75
- 80
- 85
- 90
- 95
- 100
That's 16 loops and about 3 minutes before you're playing at 100 bpm. If it stops being clean on the way, stop the ramp there and loop that tempo until it is. With a microphone or an audio interface you can record while you play instead: Demiurg checks every loop and steps up only after two clean ones in a row, and back down after a poor one.
Questions
How fast should I play Find every C and G?
The goal is 100 bpm in quarter notes, which is 1.7 notes a second. Start wherever every note is clean: the player begins at 60 bpm. Signed in, you can set a goal of your own, slower or faster, on the Exercises page.
Why does the guitar have the same note in so many places?
Each string overlaps the next by all but five frets, so most notes can be played on two, three or even four strings. It's what lets you play a melody or a chord in the place on the neck that suits the music around it.
Which notes should I do next?
All of them, a note a day: D, A, E and F, then the sharps and flats. The fretboard trainer's 'find the note' mode does exactly this, string by string.
More fundamentals exercises
All 22 fundamentals exercises · Fretboard notes trainer · Scales on the neck · All 107 exercises