Newbie Learning Fret Board Tip

[Fred Treece]

All the information on Harmonic Intervals is good, but knowing Melodic Intervals is equally important. Once you get your 1-3-5-7-9’s down, it becomes clearer that the intervals between each successive chord tone is either a minor or major 3rd. Things get a little “weedy” when determining 3 to 7 or 5 to 9, but the important thing to know is that every note has an intervallic relationship with every other note, no matter what the chord is.

Getting back to the OP, using the Melodic Interval concept for determining note names of the open (unchanged) strings on the E9 neck, maybe a chart like this gets you started-

Adjacent strings
10-9: b3rd
9-8: 2nd
8-7: 2nd
7-6: 2nd
6-5: b3rd
Re-entrants
5-2: 3rd
2-4: b2nd
4-1: 2nd
1-3: 2nd

The note names at every fret for ALL the chord groups in the charts from preceding posts might not be important for intervallic minded players, but again, the point of the OP is note names. So, as long as you know the 1-3-5-7 of an A7 chord is A-C#-E-G and on what strings they can be found, you’ll be good to go adding half-step intervals to each note name for every fret up the neck you go. Using the Melodic Interval method is just another way to accomplish the same thing.

I know, I know. This is where some folks start thinking, what a load of crap.
Maybe. But it’s all relative.