Hello Reader,

Just last year I started to create my own arrangements on fingerstyle guitar.

The reason is…I’m a Pokemon fan.

And I wanted to play Pokemon town/city songs on guitar. Apparently it heals my inner child.

At first, it was just “Learning by doing” (and observing) — I went on to synthesize some songs I loved: Littleroot town and Pallet town.

New Bark town was kind of a pain in the ass because I didn’t have a good ear…yet!

So I decided to learn other songs in the meantime…

…and that’s when I got stuck:

I noticed I was constantly trying to guess the notes in two ways:

1. via trial and error and seeing what sounds good; or
2. by do-re-mi-ing the hell out of my guitar starting from the (few) notes I already know — mainly from the common bass notes and standard tuning

NOT really the fastest way to arrange songs!

I thought, “If I’m going to use this thing a lot anyway, then why the heck don’t I just learn them?”

Learning from Principles

I stumbled upon Nathan, who runs a website called “Beyond the Guitar”.

What I liked is his “just in time” and “principles-first” approach to teaching guitar.

Nathan says you don’t need to memorize endless chord shapes right away because:

1. You can learn them specifically when you need them; and
2. You can infer them anyway — based on the core principles (i.e. Triads)

Ain’t that similar to how we learn concepts?

I signed up for his free course right away and learned his 3 pillars of arranging:

1. Ear training
2. Fretboard knowledge
3. Music theory

Thus, I started the road to fretboard freedom.

The Road to Memorizing the Fretboard…and how you can also do it with Anki

Here’s the chart I was trying to memorize:

As an Anki learner, we all know that effective flashcards mean that you have integrated the information into your prior knowledge — it’s encoded, before it’s atomic, before it’s timeless.

And that’s the exact thing most Anki newbies miss when learning things like this (or anything new, for that matter):

Just as they would try to memorize every single fact from a textbook, they try to memorize everything note-by-note, fret-by-fret, string-by-string.

It’s either that, or they try to look for add-ons as soon as they see a hint of inefficiency.

And I can tell you for a fact that is the absolute BEST way to giving yourself:

• Dreaded review sessions
• An exhausting amount of cards
• Broken records in “getting the most amount of cards wrong”; and
• Reasons to give up and feel stupid

That’s because memorizing ANY skill-related information in isolation completely IGNORES the “encoding” part of learning.

The fact that you’re trying to arrange a song means that you have knowledge of at least the most frequently used notes at the 5th and 6th string.

You can build upon these to make remembering way, way, way easier instead of trying to make flashcards for the sake of just having everything.

So I hope I’ve gotten the crucial point across. That is…

We learn best when everything is logically connected, not when they’re isolated.

And so we divide the entire learning process into three parts:

1. Learning phase (Encode)
2. Formulating flashcards from your insights (Ankify)
3. Retrieval (Spaced Repetition & Practice)

1. Encode — Mostly seeing patterns and making connections

So I was talking about patterns.

Your ability to see underlying patterns normally would depend on prior knowledge, but in this case, you can simply see a few shallow relationships: (shown later)

• Pattern #1: Octaves — same notes, but higher
• Pattern #2: 5th fret is almost similar to standard tuning but starting from A
• Pattern #3: 7th fret is almost similar to standard tuning but starting from B

The more prior knowledge that you can logically relate to these new information, the more you increase the levels of processing, and the more you’ll be able to remember everything in a way that you can ACTUALLY USE in practice.

Pattern #1: Octaves — same notes, but higher.

If you’ve been playing guitar for some time, you already know that standard tuning is E-A-D-G-B-E.

At the 12th fret, it’s just the same notes, but higher.

And since the first and last string are basically octaves, then all frets you press on the 6th string will have the same note, but higher, on the 1st string.

Congrats, you just memorized a whole set of notes — but higher — with 5 seconds of effort.

Now let’s move on to another pattern, but higher.

Pattern #2: 5th fret is almost similar to standard tuning but starting from A

My takeaways:

• 5th fret of any string (except 3rd string) is the same as the open version of the next string. So, from standard tuning, and starting from A, all I need to remember is “ADGBE” — again, the last string is basically an octave, so I omitted it.
• Whenever I make an “A” power chord, I know that the bass note is the 5th fret of the largest string, so I instantly know that this starts with an A, and all I have to remember is standard tuning

But wait, there’s something different:

B is somehow out of place — heck, that’s why I told you that it’s almost similar.

Since B is 1 fret closer to the bar, let’s make the association that “B-Bar.”

Voila! (Standard tuning, but A) + (B-Bar) = notes of the 5th fret. We can use this as a mnemonic later.

Pattern #3: 7th fret is almost similar to standard tuning but starting from B

Again, a few relationships — except you’re just doing a “plus two” on the 5th fret:

• 7th fret of any string (except 3rd string) is the same as the 2nd fret of the next string.
• Whenever I make a chord for B after I play an A, the 7th fret of the 6th string is where I tend to put it.
• Applying the “string octave rule” earlier, and “cycling” the standard tuning (EADGB) but starting from “B”, we get BEADG. Again, first string same as sixth string. No need to memorize.

Wait, there’s something weird about this…

Now the G note is offset to right. At the 5th fret, B is shifted to the left.

Well, let’s make a silly association:

G = riGht

…I don’t know. You can always change stupid mnemonics later, anyway.

If it works, it works!

So, (Standard tuning, but B) + (G - ‘riGht’) = 7th fret.

Alternatively, you can encode through a boring mnemonic: 7 BEADs are Great Buys. (where: “great” is pronounced with an accent that sounds like “right”)

For other smaller details: Rely on inference, other mnemonics, common chord shapes

The tutorial mentioned that these are “high-traffic areas” that you really want to dig into.

This means you can simply infer other notes by knowing these “landmarks” — after all, they're just a few steps away.

Also you get those extra repetitions :)

You can also use mnemonics for some frets, if you feel like inferring the notes take you too much time.

It’s similar to what we did earlier:

The 10th fret has a “DGCFAD” set of notes — you can create a mnemonic for this one, like “10 Dudes Group Chat FAD diets” or somethin'.

Finally, you can also make associations through chord shapes that you already know.

It’s the way I memorized many notes before, and it’s crazy useful for memorizing the entire fretboard from the 6th through the 3rd string.

I use two “shapes”:

1. The “C-shape”; and
2. The “F-shape”

This looks like an “F-shape” relationship

This one, too, looks like an “F-shape”

This looks like a “C-shape” relationship

It’s not so hard isn’t it?

Well, that is if you know what the C and F chords look like.

Total beginners won’t be able to make sense of this because they’re still memorizing the basic chords.

But then again, anyone trying to memorize fretboards aren’t total guitar beginners.

By the way, are you seeing how we’re taking advantage of what we already know?

When you connect new information to long-term knowledge, it becomes stronger and less prone to forgetting.

Put simply, when you give meaning to new information, you remember it better.

Overall, if you want the 80-20 version, just remember all the patterns #1 to #3 above and infer the others based on their distance.

Now it’s time to create your flashcards.

2. Ankify - Formulating flashcards from your insights

The mental model I tell my students is to formulate prompts from your insights. This works as a forcing function:

1. It forces them to learn the material first, because raw material ≠ insights
2. And they think of it as “prompts” rather than “flashcards” — you are prompting something that already exists in your memory (which goes back to forcing them to learn it)

Let’s do just that. Because we have encoded the information into a few chunks of meaningful knowledge, then we can make only a few flashcards that prompt every pattern we learn above.

I repeat: You do NOT make flashcards for every note because you can infer them from other landmarks. Also, when you use something a lot in practice (like a common chord shape), you don’t need to create flashcards for that.

So here are your flashcard ideas:

• How is the 12th fret related to the open string? (Octave - same notes but higher)
• What is the standard tuning for the guitar? (EADGBE)
• What are the notes in the 5th fret? (ADGCEA — standard tuning, but starting from A, B close to bar)
• What are the notes in the 7th fret? (BEADG#B — standard tuning, but starting from B, G to the riGht)
• What are the notes in the 10th fret? (DGCFAD — 10 dudes group chat fad diets)

The reason it's so few is because we're creating prompts that are actually useful in real application.

Personally, it's more useful to have "What are the notes in the 7th fret" rather than "where is E in the 5th string?"

Your way of thinking may differ, but again that's the beauty of it. You can adapt to your own needs. :)

Back to flashcards — now you’re going to retrieve them.

3. Spaced Repetition & Practice

The final step is retrieval. And there are two ways to do that:

1. Since you’re using Anki, all you need to do is review all new cards the same day you made them, and retrieve them every time Anki schedules them
2. Practice the damn thing using prompts

You don’t need to overcomplicate this because:

1. If you’re memorizing the fretboard, it means you’re practicing guitar, anyway. As long as you get the reps in, you’re going to do fine.
2. Or if you’re not practicing the guitar and don’t plan to…then what are you using this useless knowledge for? Get outta here.

You just need enough retrieval practice so that you can quickly retrieve the information you need to practice the skills.

Technically speaking, your goal here is to gain enough fluency that you can quickly APPLY the “fretboard theory” into your “fretboard practice.” (until you don't need to actively remember the theory anymore)

…and don’t forget to apply the new knowledge

I’ve seen this firsthand in math where the instant reflex of tool-first thinkers is to “cloze overlapper” the hell out of the “steps” involved in every skill.

But look, you just can’t expect to get better at math if all you do is memorize solutions and formulas.

You don’t speak better Japanese by memorizing an endless amount of words — that natives don’t even use — and NOT speaking the damn language.

That’s NOT gonna work.

It’s not any different with the guitar.

If you’re indeed using Anki as a tool for scheduling your prompts, then your “practice” shouldn’t be functionally fixed into Anki.

Play the damn guitar, too, and enjoy every moment! 😁

To smarter studying,
Al Khan

P.S. Tomorrow, we're going to wrap up this series and I'll be sharing with you an implementation program that you can use to really get good at using Anki and finally integrate Anki into ALL of your studying. :)

If you're interested in that, you can click here to let me know!