Learning Guitar Notes From the Fretboard
This short article will show you how you can make learning the guitar notes on the fretboard easy Although a guitar with 24 frets
may have 288 different note locations to consider there are really simple ways to to make it simpler to memorize all the notes on the fretboard.
learning guitar notes
First of all we can cut the number of positions that need to be remembered in half because the guitar fretboard repeats after the 12th fret
(the first 12 frets are an octave, the following 12 are the octave above it). The notes appear in the exact same order in the 12th to the 24th fret as
they do from the 1st towards the 12th. This means there are now only 144 note locations to remember.
In total there are 12 different notes in western music, these are: C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G, G#/, A, A#/Bb and B. As you can tell the #’s and b’s
(sharps and flats) lie between the notes C and D, D and E, F and G, G and A, A and B. Therefore we can now cut the number of notes we need to learn down to just
42 because we'll automatically see the sharps and flats appear between your other notes once we’ve memorized the positions of C, D, E, F, G and A.
Now find a picture of all the notes about the fretboard (you can find one out of the free e-book that you will get when you join the Guitar Theory Revolution newsletter)
and find the universal note pattern that every note follows. Between your 1st and 12th fret each note appears once on each of the six strings.
For the start of the pattern to become the notes appearing about the low and high E string then you’ll see the pattern repeat again and again for each note.
Learning this note pattern has become the quickest way to learn all the notes on the guitar fretboard, although there are others. For example if you know
the circle of fifths and fourths then you’ll easily be able to find all the notes since the strings on the guitar are tuned in fifths. The circle of
fourths and fifths will be covered in future articles and lessons.
As I mentioned earlier it is best to focus on the notes C, D, E, F, G, A and B first because that way you’ll automatically start seeing the sharps and
flats together. In addition you should always sing the notes that you are playing in order to improve your ability to recognize notes by ear.
Finally make sure you learn the locations from the notes without reference to other notes. Although it’s useful when you are the beginning it’s not good to keep doing
this as it will slow you down because you’ll continually be checking where other notes are before you find the one you really want. To memorize all
the notes within the proper way check out the exercises within the free e-book How To Learn All of the Notes On The Guitar Fretboard which you can download when
you sign up for the Guitar Theory Revolution newsletter.
learning guitar notes
