Learn The Guitar Fretboard

When you start to learn the notes on the guitar fretboard your playing will take a giant setup forward.  You are moving beyond simple scales in a one to three fret area and starting to learn what makes up the guitar fretboard diagram. This is a big step. Now you begin to learn bar chords, guitar scales in different locations, guitar riffs, leads and melodies. All of these things require that first move into learning the notes on the guitar.

Do not scoff at this or simply take the easy road and just learn some box scales and never know why you are playing certain melodies. This will hamper you guitar learning and could frustrate you in the end causing you to give up playing. This I speak of from first hand knowledge. I went down the easy road and learned a few box scales and figured that would do me just fine. Only to find out later in my guitar playing life I was stuck and could not go any further in song writing, playing and just being an all around player. Take the time and learn the notes on the fretboard or have a good idea of them at the very least.

So what are the notes on the fret board? Well they are just like any other musical instrument. They work on the (A,B,C,D,E,F then back to A) alphabet or what I like to call the musical alphabet. The next thing we have to understand is that each string is its own set of notes. What do I mean by this mean by this? Well the low E starts at the open note then moves to F, G then after G the scale starts all over again and moves to A and then back up until you get to A. That was pretty simple. This formula is the same on each string. So the A string would could up as A, B, C … and so on. So that is the basic theory that makes up the notes.

Guitar Fretborad Theory

Now we move onto the fretboard theory. We know that each fret is a note so if we start at the third fret on the low E string this is the G note. To get to the next note in the musical alphabet you would take what is called a full step and go to the fifth fret to get the A note. So let me sort of recap this the third fret is the G note if you count up 2 frets to the 5^th fret you will get the A note the counting up of 2 frets is called a full step. If you only count up one fret for ex (from 3 to 4) this would be called a half step. Every note is a full step away from each other with only two exceptions. These exceptions are the B to the C and the E to the F. The steps between these notes are half steps so you would only count 1 fret up or back depending what way you are going on the neck. On all other notes that have a full set between then the notes on the half would be a sharp or a flat depending on the key you are playing in. the notes A and B the half step between then would either be called an A sharp or a B flat. Both are the same notes just depends on the key you are in as to what label you will give it.

Now we move on to the last little bit of guitar fetboard notes. As I said above to get your notes you simply count up the frets. You just keep counting up until you get to the 12^th fret. Once you reach the 12^th fret that is sort of like a second guitar neck. You start all over meaning if you are on the E string once you get to the 12 fret it is an E and you start as if your were at the top of the neck.

I hope you take the time to learn this basic fretboard theory it is important. Enjoy.

The Guitar Fretboard Diagram: