Robgonzo's Fretboard Flash Cards
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I've been wanting to learn the fretboard for a while now so recently I created some flash cards and they have really helped me a lot. Thanks to Zathras and Ukeland and some technical help from Patsy Monteleone, I'm now able to share them with everyone.
The cards are in the form of two .pdf files. One of the .pdf files is the front of the cards and the other is the back. On the front of the flash cards there is an image of the fret board up to the 12th fret. A dot is used to indicate a specific string and fret. The reverse side will show the name of the note and its position on the treble staff. There are two cards for each accidental note, one for the sharp and one for the flat. To make the cards easy to carry around I made them about the size of a business card. Yes, I could have used a business card template and used pre-perforated business card paper but plain card stock paper is cheaper and cutting out didn't seem that big of a deal. Please tell me if you spot any mistakes so I can correct them as soon as possible.
To use the cards: first, on card stock (available at any office supply store) print one side; then, reload the printouts into the printer and print the other side. Cut them out and you're all done.
A note on printing, all printers drag paper through differently. If you've never paid particular attention to how your printer works you might want to run some tests first until you can successfully create a two sided printout. The top edge of the paper should be the same on both sides. Also, some printers print in reverse order. That is, last page first and first page last. If your printer does this you'll have to restack the first run of printouts so it is in reverse order. It is really easy to figure out which is the last page on these .pdfs because the last page only has two images.
If you don't want to mess with all that aligning and/or buying cardstock you can still use the flash cards in basic mode. Print the front sides (the sides with the fret boards pictured and manually write the name of the note on the back side of the paper. Write the note on the back side of the spot in black ink so that you can't see through the card and cheat yourself.
The basic use of the cards is to try and name the note indicated on the fret board side. Turn the card over to see if you're right. You can arrange and sort the deck in anyway you desire. For instance, you might want to work section at a time so you could start with only the cards between the nut and the 3rd fret and then move on from there adding a few frets at a time and working your way to the 12th fret. Similarly you might want to work string at a time or you might only want to work on the naturals and not worry about the sharps and flats. It's all up to you.
Secondly, to help in sight reading, turn the deck over so the answer side is on top, slide a card from the bottom of the deck out so you can just see the note on the staff. Try to name the note pictured. You could do the opposite as well, pull the card so just the name shows and try to picture where on the staff it will fall. This is the main reason there are separate cards for sharps and flats.
Any of these exercises is greatly aided by having uke in hand so you can play and hear the note which will help in ear training.
One last thing, I wanted to share these flash cards and make them free. I didn't want to ever see them end up as part of a commercial product. To that end these pages are licensed under a Creative Commons share a like license. If you want to modify the cards in anyway such as creating a set for D-tuning or Baritone by all means do so but please share with the rest of us. I have MSFT Word documents that I originally created these in. If you want them for your own use just email me at I'll be happy send them to you.
Flashcard Fronts PDF
Flashcard Backs PDF
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.