Years of playing and I realised I knew shapes, not notes - built something to fix that
I’ve been playing guitar for years - lessons, theory, all that.
At some point I realised something slightly embarrassing: I could move around the fretboard pretty comfortably using shapes (CAGED, pentatonics, chord forms), but if you asked me to find, say, a B♭ on the spot… I’d have to stop and think.
Basically I knew the patterns, not the actual notes.
Curious if this is common or just a me problem?
I ended up building a small app for myself to drill this. It gives you a target note, plays it, and then listens through your phone mic while you try to find it on the guitar. You get scored on speed/accuracy, streak resets if you miss. You can limit it to certain strings/frets so it doesn’t get overwhelming.
Sessions are short (30 sec–10 min), more like a daily drill than a full “course”.
If anyone wants to try it, it’s free on iOS:
https://apps.apple.com/in/app/pitchstill-note-training/id6759975330
Would also love to know how others worked through this, if you did.