Amateur newbie here.
What I do is take a roll of wall-plastering paper tape and cut off a piece to fit the neck. Then I mark where the actual frets are with pencil by placing it on the neck.
Next I mark the frets with black felt pen and a small tee square I made from scrap wood. I use the edge of a rectangular desk to align the paper with the tee-square.
Then I mark in the scales in numeric form. I like to use fret-8 as root most of the time, but you can make a bunch of templates for your favorite keys.
I then tape the desired template right onto the neck. Color coding of thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths, whatever, and root, dominant and subdominant frets is an option.
I get music arranged by others, and convert the diads, triads, etcetera to numerics and mark it on a tab sheet.
Then you can play without too many references to charts since the neck IS the chart. After awhile you remember where notes are without a template.
The thing about numerics is that you can switch keys just by moving the starting fret. Then all the moves are the same numbers, not different letters.
You can try different tunings and know instantly what groups of notes to play. Of course some tunings do not let you get certain triads so you fudge with diads.
I memorize the key of C scale and chord relationships, since they do not involve sharps and flats, then pretend I am playing in C at whatever fret.
Read vertically:
<font face="monospace" size="3"><pre>
C . D . E F . G . A . B C
1 . 2 . 3 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 1
triads:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 1 2 3 4
3 4 5 6 7 1 2
C Dm Em F G Am Bdim
sixths:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3 4 5 6 7 1 2
fifths:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
4 5 6 7 1 2 3
fourths:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 1 2 3 4
thirds:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6 7 1 2 3 4 5
</pre></font>
Hope someone can use this info!
<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Dave Marshall on 27 July 2006 at 12:22 PM.]</p></FONT>
