How To Write Licks Quickly And Easily - String Fret Notation

Sometimes the inspiration for a new idea in a guitar lick,

or a solo idea, or a great guitar riff comes to us when we least expect it. And at these times, it's possible that the most difficult thing to do is get this great guitar music idea recorded or written down. We don't want to take a chance that the priceless idea would be forgotten and never used in one of our songs. The topic for this article is a sure fire way to capture those important lead guitar solo and riff ideas quickly and easily when we don't have a recorder, when we're not at our computers, and when we don't want to write something out in standard notation or in tablature.

This method is a very simple way to get guitar music down on paper quickly, so you can get on with your life and not have to worry about losing a valuable guitar music idea. Clearly, there are other, better ways out there to preserve your lick idea. You could record the idea on your home personal computer. There is a lot of software available to record sounds to your computer, even in a multi-track way, and capture that idea. But you're not always at your computer, and it's not always booted up and ready to record. And sometimes you only need to write down a few bars of an idea and putting it into a sound file might not be appropriate or the best way to capture it. You could also record your music idea with a voice recorder if you have one. I use the voice recorder a lot and find it works pretty good for capturing ideas. It's small and portable, and usually the fidelity is good enough that it's all I need until I have a chance to use something else. But sometimes that's not around, or the batteries are dead. Even tablature can be a pain, if you don't have a pre-printed blank sheet around, it's near impossible to get the six lines drawn perpendicular when you write it out, it works but it's not the best. But if you learn the method below you never have to worry about not having your favorite recording device, or dead batteries, or no computer, etc. Let's get on with it and talk about the method itself...

The method you'll learn how to use is called string-fret notation. It's a quite simple way to write out the lead lines you play on the guitar. Kind of quick and dirty, buy priceless if it means remembering and using that special riff idea that indeed came to you when you least expected. It's easier to show you than explain it with words, here goes.

Sample riff using string fret notation:

3:7 / 2:5 1:5 1:7 1:7 1:5 1:8 1:7

the same riff written in standard tablature:

-----5-7-7-5-8-7-----------------
---5-----------------------------
-7-------------------------------
---------------------------------
---------------------------------
---------------------------------

As you can see by comparing the 2 notation styles, the first number is the string, and the second number is the fret. A colon separates the two numbers and the strings and frets. Each note in the lick is separated by one or more spaces to make it clear.

And you use all your standard music notation symbols for hammer on, pull off, slide, vibrato, etc. They all work and are easily understandable when used with the string fret notation. Now, it's true string fret notation has no markings for tempo. If the tempo is critical to your piece, you can always include note markings for whole note, quarter note, eight note, etc right underneath to give you an indication of the timing. As you can see, this is a much quicker way to get a lick down on paper quickly without using tablature. If you give it a try, you will get used to it quickly. I hope you find this a useful and enjoyable tool you can really use.