Understanding the Fretboard

One of the most common problems with beginner guitarists is that they cannot find their way around the guitar fretboard. You would also be surprised with the number of guitarists out there who had been playing for years and still hesitate when asked to find any notes on any strings. (Identify a note to a corresponding fret in a split second). If you are one of them and you are reading this, this is the perfect opportunity to learn the fretboard now.

First of all, let’s identify the notes of the 6 open strings on the guitar. The notes of a guitar in standard tuning are as follows: E B G D A E ( From 1st string [thinnest] to 6th string [thickest] ).

Notes of Open Strings

Understanding the fretboard

In music, notes are labeled alphabetically. There are a total of 12 different notes in music

Notes in Music

learn guitar fretboard

On the guitar, each fret represents a specific note. The distance of one fret is a semi-tone and a distance of 2 frets is a whole tone. Let’s take the 6th string as an illustration. Starting on an open string E, the 1st fret (semi tone higher) would be an F note and the 2nd fret (whole tone higher) would be an F# note and etc. From the12th fret onwards, the fretboard repeats itself at a higher octave.

Notes of the 6th String

guitar fretboard

Notice that there are # and b symbols beside some alphabets. These are called sharps and flats respectively. A sharped note basically raises the note by a semitone whereas a flat note lowers the note by a semitone. The A# note has the same pitch as the Bb note and there is really no difference in the 2 notes except for naming purposes in scales/keys.

Important Note: The notes (B and C) & (E and F) are always a semi-tone apart.

Now, let’s take a look at the diagram of the entire fretboard.

Layout of Fretboard

Guitar Lessons guitar fretboard

Do you find the entire fretboard daunting? GuitarPlayerWorld.com has specially crafted a warm up exercise based on the notes of the fretboard. Spend just about 3 minutes a day on this exercise and you’ll soon understand and learn guitar fretboard like a pro. This will come in a later lesson on Guitar Warm Up Exercises. Stay tuned.

Now, you might wonder why understanding the fretboard is important? Well, knowing the notes over the entire fretboard is a step towards mastering the guitar! By knowing the fretboard at the tip of your hands, you can understand chords, scales, make sense of guitar tablatures (One critical mistake beginners make is to be blindly playing tabs without understanding what they are playing…. Yeah I am guilty of this when I just started playing the guitar). By understanding the fretboard, you will be able to translate notes you are thinking about into actual playing at an instant. You would also be able to better improvise and also reduce the chances of making a mistake by playing wrong notes.

Check out this video from Dennis St. Germain on some easy tricks and tips to learn the notes on your guitar.