Notes on the fretboard
Twelve notes that repeat every twelve frets. With two rules and two strings learned by heart, you can find any note in a few seconds.
The twelve notes
Western music uses twelve notes, named with the first seven letters of the alphabet: C, C♯, D, D♯, E, F, F♯, G, G♯, A, A♯, B, and then C again, an octave higher.
Two rules are all you need to find your way:
- from one note to the next, there’s a half step, which is one fret;
- there’s no sharp between E and F, or between B and C: those notes sit right next to each other, one fret apart.
A note with a sharp (♯) can also be written with a flat (♭): C♯ and D♭ are the same note, on the same fret. Which name you use depends on the key.
The natural notes
The seven notes with no sharp or flat, C D E F G A B, make up the C major scale. Here they are across the whole neck, with the Cs in orange as landmarks. Click a note to hear it.
High E at the top, just like in tab.Neck seen from the front, headstock at the top: low E on the left, just like a chord diagram.
All the notes
And here are all twelve. Between two natural notes, the fret in the middle is the sharp—except between E and F, and between B and C.
High E at the top, just like in tab.Neck seen from the front, headstock at the top: low E on the left, just like a chord diagram.
Memorize the low E and A strings
No need to learn the whole neck at once. Start with the two lowest strings: that’s where the root of barre chords sits—E-shape barre chords on the 6th string, A-shape barre chords on the 5th.
| Fret | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low E string | E | F | G | A | B | C | D | E | |
| A string | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | A |
Learn the notes on the marked frets first (3, 5, 7, 12), then fill in the rest. A handy trick: the open string name tells you where the alphabet starts on that string—just count up the letters, remembering that E–F and B–C are only one fret apart.
Two landmarks for everything else
The 12th fret gives you the same note as the open string, an octave higher. Past it, everything starts over: the 13th fret is like the 1st, the 15th like the 3rd…
The octave shape: from a note on the 6th or 5th string, go up two strings and two frets and you land on the same note, an octave higher. The A at the 5th fret on the low E string shows up again at the 7th fret of the D string. From the 4th or 3rd string, it’s two strings and three frets, because of how the B string is tuned.
Exercise
Pick a note, say C. Set a one-minute timer and find it on every string, from low to high, saying its name out loud. Do it again the next day with another note.