Featured Article By Guest Blogger Ian Fraser:

“Learning the Guitar Fretboard Notes“

Knowing the guitar fretboard notes is the most important foundational thing you can learn as a beginner guitar player. Chords and scales are both of course made up of many notes so knowing your way around the fret board will allow you to understand where different chords are located, how to start different scales and more.

In this article I’ll be covering what exactly a half and whole step is and how to measure them on the guitar neck, how half and whole steps tie into spacing between musical notes and lastly how to use this information to find the different notes on the guitar neck. After reading this article and watching the video at the end of the post you’ll be able to find different notes on any string of the guitar and begin memorizing what notes are where.

Steps Between Notes

The concept of half and whole steps between notes originates on the piano, but since we’re playing the guitar we need to understand what denotes a half step and what denotes a full step on the guitar neck. Thankfully this is very easy. The guitar neck is divided up into many half steps. Each fret is actually one half step, so two frets equals on whole step.

With this new concept of whole and half steps we can understand the spacing between all 7 musical notes in terms of frets. Most notes have one whole step between them although there are two exceptions. Between the B and C notes there is only a half step as well as between the E and F notes. Below is an explanation of the spacing in terms of steps and frets between each note.

A to B : Full Step or Two Frets
B to C : Half step or One Fret
C to D : Full Step or Two Frets
D to E : Full Step or Two Frets
E to F : Half Step or One Fret
F to G : Full Step or Two Frets

Now that we know the spacing between each note on the guitar neck we can begin to locate the different notes at different positions one each string.

Starting from Open Strings.

The easiest way to start when you’re a beginner is to first learn all 6 string names. I’m going to assume you know those already, a quick refresher starting at the top: E, A, D, G, B and E. Since we know when we pluck each string it plays the corresponding note of it’s name we can use the spacing and step information listed above to find different notes.

Let’s look at a quick example: Starting with the D string what note comes after D? That’s right it’s an E and there is one full step from D (the open string) to an E or two frets. So the 2nd fret of the D string is an E. What note comes next? It’s an F, and from the information above we know that E to F is one of the exceptions where there is only one half step. So if the 2nd fret is an E the one half step up (only one fret remember) is an F. Finally if we look at what comes next it’s a G, we move up one full step, or two frets, to the 5th fret on the D string and that note is a G.

Starting from the open string and working your way up is the easiest method to being with. Once you feel comfortable about each note up to the 5th fret on each string (the 4th fret on the G string) you can start picking out notes other places on the guitar neck.

Below is a short video that explains the concept of steps, spacing between notes and the notes on the top three strings. Take some time to watch it and then grab your own guitar and give this exercise a try.

Want to learn some more great beginner information like this? Why not try some guitar lessons dvd programs? You get access to the same great beginner guitar information a private teacher would share with the benefit of watching and learning from home on your own time.