Show HN: I created a game to memorize the fretboard
“Uhh…Where’s the C# here?”
“Where’s the flat-3rd of this root on the 4th string?”
“Sure would be nice to know the closest min7 triad shape to play over here..”
I tried memorizing the fretboard the obvious way but it extreeemly boring for me. Being a developer, I decided to turn it into a game. I'd love for you guys to try it out and let me know what you think: It's at [www.fretboardfly.com](https://www.fretboardfly.com)
I've only built the first module right now which is for note memorization but there's been enough interest that I'm planning on building more modules. Please let me know if you like it, what you'd change about it and what other modules you'd like to see in future.
The stack is Vue 3/Nuxt 3/Firebase/Firestore/Tailwind deployed on Vercel. Happy to field questions on the tech side of things as well
Comments
The Tenuto app has some similar exercises (also available here: https://www.musictheory.net/exercises) you might take inspiration from, or others might find useful:
- fretboard interval identification. shows two dots on the fretboard, you are supposed to indicate the interval between them. this is useful for bridging the gap between audio interval recognition and actually playing by ear. since you already have the functionality for selecting notes - which the Tenuto app does not - a useful extension would be to have it where the app presents a note and an interval, and you select the note that is that interval distance from that note on the fretboard.
- fretboard chord indentification. shows multiple dots on the fretboard, you are supposed to indicate what chord it is. the tenuto app doesnt have the functionality for you to indicate what the inversion is. you could also do a similar extension where the fretboard has some notes selected and a chord display, and you select the rest of the notes needed to complete the chord.
I did something similar to the 'practice mode' some years ago, just for myself, did not publish it. I used the The Synthesis ToolKit (STK) C++ library for the guitar sounds.
In the end, I didn't use it all that much, but I still believe in the idea. Maybe it's just hard to find the best expression/execution.
One idea that comes to mind is to highlight or find the different voicings/aliases and octaves for a given note, since most notes on guitar have at least 3-4 or four equivalents.
Another idea would be to color code the notes on the fretboard. Again, it's been tried before, but maybe there's a reasonably good way to make it stick into visual memory.
I tried setting up the filter, Frets 0-3 and string 1/2/3, but either I am doing something wrong or it doesnt respect the filter, the next note would still go outside the filter range.
Have bookmarked it.
Musically speaking, I never really understood the point of knowing the notes on the fretboard. Scales, intervals and chords are waaaaay more useful to know. But I‘m self taught, so what do I know?
like that game "Memory" or Simon says.
Also this is training you visually. wouldn't it be better to train you by feel?
(and before I give my feedback, I should say, I spent a year or two working on a solo indie Zelda/Diablo mishmash focused on teaching guitar fretboards and music theory back in 2006-2009. A video of that incomplete game is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6O32PFGZCE . It relied on players playing intervals and chords to cast spells, for both fighting and puzzle solving, in an ARPG real-time context. I had to pause development due to life, but I'm desperately hoping to find a way to finish and ship it.)
Anyway, I think that your game is... well, really, really hard. More specifically, it feels like it gives a lot of negative feedback right from the get go.
If it were me, I would probably add substantially more scaffolding early on - pull from a smaller section of the fretboard at first for the player to master and get more positive feedback, then expand from there in much more incremental steps. I also feel like the timer feels pretty harsh and negative at the beginning. I've played guitar for many years but have, myself, not really memorized all the higher notes on all the higher strings, so I'm actually receptive for what this tool is doing. But running out of time and then losing a life while I'm trying to count off notes feels frustrating, like it's actively interrupting me doing the learning activity I'm there to do.
Hope that helps! As I say, I like the general idea and would love to see a more fleshed out version.
My one suggestion there, then, is to perhaps make the guitar/bass toggle more prominent to grab the attention of four-string aficionados.
But the idea looks great!
I think what other people are saying about graded difficulty is also true. I have a degree in classical guitar performance. So I did fine. But I've had the fret board memorized for years. Unless there were settings I missed that could restrict the play area, I don't think most would be able to use this very effectively as a learning tool.
I'd recommend adding a step to the practice mode where whatever highlighted region of the fretboard you're practicing has all of the notes visible, and then over time the notes are taken away as you build up your memorization.
Also, the unnatural trapezoid shape of the board throws me off a bit too.
BTW, I don't believe the reversed vertical orientation makes it any better for me. Looks like I just use my spatial orientation and tactile facilities, not visual.
> The stack is Vue 3/Nuxt 3/Firebase/Firestore/Tailwind deployed on Vercel.
Legit disappointed that you missed the opportunity to write this in C#
The way the game is presented is as a kind of flash card app: Guess and check. That can work - spaced repetition has been demonstrated to work for symbolic knowledge.
However...the way in which we learn this kind of skill - which is also a muscle memory skill - is not in consciously making a guess "I think it's E here" as we play, it's in "monkey see, monkey do" - associating motion with an idea, and generalizing on that. We know how to "walk to the left" without guessing. That's why musicians play so many scales and arpeggios.
So when the game presents a randomized grabbag of question-answer knowledge demonstration, there's no preparatory step that would contextualize it in a relationship to a motion like "travel through all positions of E". You just grind through punishment until you figure it out. That's always been a problem with educational software because it's often difficult to successfully isolate a concept into a motion - if presented with lots of information we'll pick up on the most obvious cues and ignore the other parts that we might need to rely upon for a full memory.
Find a way of presenting an isolated pattern followed by the current knowledge demonstration, and the software will probably be 10x as effective.
I grew up playing piano, so the keyboard is my reference. Years later, learning the fretboard has been less about learning which string/fret combination sounds a given note, but instead, given a certain chord:
1. where is the root of that chord, and with that as my anchor...
2. where is the 3rd, 5th, and 7th of that chord? Only once I can easily find those three intervals...
3. where is the 9th, 11th, and 13th. Finally, the sharps/flats of all of the above.
When it comes to organizing all of this across the fretboard, I've found the heptatonic approach to the fretboard to make the most sense and the most economical. YMMV.