Is the third time the charm? Hope so. This is the third January where the monthly sightreading handout* is specifically for beginning sightreaders to realize their New Year's resolution. Like previous years, this lesson adds a couple of new notes to the "musical fretboard diagram" for positions I and VII, and provides a few easy pieces to practice reading them.

But this year beginners have an extra advantage: the web version of Beginning Fretboard Exercises† is now available. It's a very gentle introduction to sightreading on guitar, starting with some extremely simple 3-note pieces that you learn in both positions. You never have to un-learn first position memories when learning higher positions, because learning two positions at once builds memories that include position awareness. Your brain will automatically make separate memory spaces for separate positions, so the different ways of fingering the same note won't collide.

And it's fun. Each exercise has a hint or riddle in place of the title, so you play it first and then try to name-that-melody. The web version even lets you hover or click in the title area to see both the title and extra info about that piece, often with the lyrics that explain the hint/riddle and with links to wikipedia or youtube to learn more.

This is a good time to get with the program. Give it a try!

* https://jjolson.net/BGS/Jan2026.pdf
† https://jjolson.net/BFE/