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Comment by polarbearballs | Hacker News Reader

I don't think it's realistic to draw conclusions between your skill at this game and the skill at finding a real note on a real guitar. I've been playing guitar for 35 years now and note finding is almost subconscious and relies on muscle memory. This is an inverted image from what you'd see anyway. I think all you can determine from this is that some people are good at a video game versions of the memory game.

If you practice this thinking it's going to translate to guitar, your wasting time that would be better spent playing guitar.

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Having played this game hundreds (if not thousands) of times, I can assure you that it does make a difference. It's like saying "memorizing a map won't help you navigate the streets because the map looks nothing like the streets".

I recommend you give it a shot and see if it helps you. There's also a couple settings to "invert" the fretboard to your preferences if that's what you prefer.

Lastly, it's really fun to actually play the game with a real guitar. If you click/tap the note on top, it requests mic permissions and you're all set to now play with a real fretboard.

P.S. If you go down the real guitar route, try the Arcade Mode on find the Notes. It's the most fun thing I've ever built...a space invaders style game on the fretboard. But driven with a real guitar.

It's not actually an inverted image, though. It is exactly what you'd see if you tilt your head forwards.

However, my mental model of the strings is the fattest string on top, not on bottom.

you can try the "Front View Fretboard" setting. That'll help you map the fretboard better to how you visualize it

My mental model is a vertical fretboard for some reason. the horizontal layout makes me want to tilt my head..

> This is an inverted image from what you'd see anyway.

Not for me (lap steel). But then I don't play that in standard tuning; it's one of the few guitar tunings that is not useful at all.

FWIW, there's a bunch of tunings available on gitori if you're interested

I was just looking for information about that. I might look later on; I am at that point with my playing where I need to start to add theory to what I have learned in technique by ear. Thanks for your reply :-)

of course, anytime. Also, I have a dedicated theory course along the same lines as well (interactive lessons + games to learn + SRS to memorize). https://www.gitori.com/themes/music-theory

I've only played partially for about a few years and I can find most of the notes with my eyes closed. Then you have people like Steve Vai who are the in the guitar equivalence of magnus carlsen playing blindfold chess with 20+ people at once. Some people just like to yap to write something cool and get a few upvotes I guess.

The legend goes that Steve Vai showed up with a beat up guitar at Joe Satriani's place to get lessons from him . Satriani told him to come back after a week with all the notes memorized or he won't accept him as a student. Steve did as he was told and the rest is history.

So yeah, some of us are Steve Vais and others like me take months to learn it. To each their own.

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