D-A-G-E to learn fretboard

[elisdad]

Howdy folks. I am pretty new to mandolin, but I have been applying some of the same concepts I learned playing ukulele to help me learn the mandolin fretboard. This might be common knowledge, but hopefully someone besides myself will find it useful...

If there is one acronym that his helping me learn the mandolin fretboard it is DAGE. Actually, this isn’t an acronym at all, it is simply the order of the strings in which you can find the next note on the mandolin fretboard. This not only helps you learn the notes on the fretboard, but puts you on the right path to learn chord inversions down the road. To show an example how remembering the DAGE pattern can help, lets find the D notes on the mandolin fretboard using DAGE.

You find the first D note by plucking the open D string. The next D note will be on the A string (5th fret), the next D note will be on the G string (7th fret), the next one will be on the E string at the 10th fret. Then you go back to the D string at the 12th and keep repeating the DAGE pattern.

String – Fret
D – Open
A – 5th
G – 7th (same note is always two frets higher than A string)
E – 10th
———–(the pattern just keeps repeating).
D – 12th
A – 17th
G – 19th etc……

This repeating pattern works for any note, just start on whatever string that the note falls on first and then continue the DAGE pattern. Take F for example, the first F on the fretboard is on the E string, so in that case, you start with E string , then go to the D string (because the D-A-G-E pattern keeps repeating), then to Astring , then to G string.

string – fret
E – 1st
D – 3rd
A – 8th
G – 10th

I have found this is very helpful for quickly finding the next instance of a note on the fretboard and I do hope it might help someone else.

Eric

[Phil Goodson]

Hi Eric, welcome to the Mandolincafe. Great place to share ideas and learn more than imaginable.

I, too, am a structure freak and love to use all kind of rules to remember things. My wife rolls her eyes when I tell her how I use square roots to remember my cell phone number!! And don't even get me started on the circle of fifths (which I refer to as the 'keys to the kingdom').

But..... when it comes to the fingerboard, I've found that it's just SO important to become intimately familiar with every note (at least up to the 12th fret) that I've concluded that memorizing the notes at all the dots (might take a few weeks) is the thing to do. In the heat of the battle, there's no time to 'figure out' where the next D note is located; you gotta KNOW.

I congratulate you on finding ways to remember all this stuff. The mando fingerboard is a magic place. You'll find SO MANY relationships between the various notes of the scales as you get used to chord patterns and arpeggios.
A MAGIC PLACE, and a great place to spend lots of time.

Best wishes. And Play On!!

[elisdad]

Thanks for the response Phil, I really am enjoying digging into the mandolin.

I absolutely agree with you on trying to figure out the next note while you are playing. That won't cut it. This method really worked for me on the uke to help truly learn the fretboard so I didn't have to think. I ended up thinking about movable chord shapes based on the string and just hit the note. I did lots of exercises where I would play all the inversions of Maj7, Min7, Dominant 7,half diminished 7, etc.. for 5 minutes at time. Once I was comfortable with that and it was automatic, I would do the same 5 minute per note drill using chord progressions. It really helped me think of it this way instead of just a memorization drill. I have played the uke for a while, but at this point, I see the fretboard in my head when someone asks what a specific note is. I hope to be able to say the same about the mandolin pretty soon.