Guitar notes are the foundation of music for guitarists. Just like letters form words in language, guitar notes are the building blocks of chords, melodies, and everything else you play on the instrument. Understanding these Basic Guitar Notes is crucial for reading music, learning new songs, and communicating with fellow musicians.
In this guide, we’ll break down the essentials of guitar notes in a clear and easy-to-understand way. We’ll cover:
- The difference between guitar notes and chords
- The musical alphabet and how it applies to guitar
- Sharps and flats explained simply
- Practical tips to learn and remember guitar notes
Don’t worry, we’ll keep the music theory light and focused on what you actually need to know to start playing and understanding your guitar better.
Before we dive in, remember that learning guitar is a journey, and understanding basic guitar notes is a significant step forward. To help you even further, we have a Free Video & PDF Guide – “Find Any Note Without Memorizing the Fretboard” available for you to download. This bonus guide will complement this article and provide you with practical tools to master guitar notes.
Contents
Understanding Guitar String Notes in Standard Tuning
To start our journey into guitar notes, we need to first understand the open strings of your guitar. These are the notes you hear when you pluck a string without pressing down on any frets. In standard tuning, which is the most common tuning for guitars, the six strings are tuned to specific notes.
From the thickest string (lowest pitch) to the thinnest string (highest pitch), the guitar string notes in standard tuning are: E, A, D, G, B, E. This tuning is consistent across all types of guitars, whether you play an acoustic, electric, or classical guitar. No matter if you have a Fender, a Gibson, or any other brand, these notes remain the same for standard tuning.
To help you remember these string names, you can use a mnemonic device, a memory aid that uses a phrase or sentence where the first letter of each word represents something you need to remember. Some popular mnemonics for guitar string notes are:
- Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie
- Eat All Day Get Big Easy
- Elephants And Donkeys Grow Big Ears
Choose the mnemonic that resonates with you the most or even create your own! The key is to have a memorable phrase that will help you quickly recall the order of the guitar string notes.
Remember that the strings are ordered from thickest to thinnest, which corresponds to the lowest pitch (low E string) to the highest pitch (high E string). While there are other guitar tunings like open tunings or drop tunings, for now, we will focus on standard tuning as it’s the most fundamental.
Six Strings, Six Names Explained
Let’s break down each string individually:
- Low E String: The thickest string, producing the lowest sound, is tuned to E. We call it the “low E string” to distinguish it from the other E string.
- A String: The next string, moving from thickest to thinnest, is tuned to A. Hence, it’s called the “A string.”
- D String: The third string is tuned to D, and we refer to it as the “D string.”
- G String: Following the D string is the G string, tuned to the note G.
- B String: The fifth string is tuned to B, making it the “B string.”
- High E String: The thinnest string, producing the highest sound, is tuned to E. This “high E string” is an octave higher than the low E string, meaning it’s the same note but at a higher pitch.
Guitar String Names Diagram
Mnemonic Devices: Your Secret Weapon to Remembering String Notes
As we mentioned earlier, mnemonic devices are excellent tools for memorizing the guitar string notes. The best way to remember them is to find or create a mnemonic that is easy for you to recall. The most effective mnemonics are often silly, memorable, and relevant to you.
Feel free to experiment and create your own mnemonic device. The act of creating it can further solidify the string notes in your memory.
Important Note: The string notes in standard tuning are universal for guitar, regardless of the style of music you play – be it rock, blues, folk, country, or anything else.
Once you’re comfortable with the string names, you can start exploring how to find other notes on the fretboard, which we’ll cover in more detail later. And for an even deeper dive, don’t forget to grab our Free Video & PDF Guide: “Find Any Note Without Memorizing the Fretboard” for more advanced techniques.
Guitar Notes vs. Guitar Chords: What’s the Difference?
To understand guitar notes fully, it’s helpful to differentiate them from guitar chords. Think of music as a language:
- A note is like a single letter in the alphabet. It’s the most basic unit of musical sound.
- A chord is like a word, made up of multiple letters (notes) combined together to create a richer sound.
Chords are created by playing a combination of guitar notes simultaneously. They form the harmonic foundation of most music.
Sound Comparison: Guitar Notes vs. Chords
Just as a single letter sounds different from a word, individual guitar notes sound different from chords.
Guitar Notes: Single Pitches
Guitar notes are individual pitches played one at a time. When you pluck a single guitar string, you are playing a single note. Melodies are typically constructed from a sequence of individual notes.
Guitar tablature, often called “guitar tabs,” is a common way to visually represent guitar music. Tabs show you which frets and strings to play to produce specific notes.
Here’s an example of tablature showing a sequence of single guitar notes:
e|-----------------|
B|-----------------|
G|-----------------|
D|-----------------|
A|-3-5-3-0---------|
E|-------3-2-0-----|In this tab example, you play one note at a time, creating a melodic line. If you’re new to tabs, check out resources on how to read guitar tabs to understand them fully.
Here’s a visual representation of all the guitar notes on the fretboard:
Guitar Notes on a Fretboard
Image courtesy of Guitar Notes for Beginners HQ
Chords: Harmony in Sound
Chords, on the other hand, are created when you play multiple notes together at the same time. When you strum a chord, you are sounding several notes simultaneously, creating a richer, more complex sound than a single note. There are many types of chords, from basic major and minor chords to more complex chords like seventh chords or power chords.
For example, the D chord is a very common and fundamental chord for guitarists.
To play a D chord, you typically press down multiple strings at different frets and then strum all the strings together. The combined sound of these notes creates the D chord.
Chords have a fuller, more harmonic sound compared to individual guitar notes. Learning basic guitar chords is often the first step for beginners wanting to play songs.
Should You Learn Guitar Chords or Notes First? A Beginner’s Dilemma
When starting guitar, it’s natural to wonder whether to learn chords or notes first. There’s no single “right” answer, and it often depends on your personal goals and learning style.
However, for most beginners, learning basic guitar chords first is often recommended.
Why Chords First?
- Play Songs Quickly: Chords are the foundation of countless songs. Learning just a few basic chords allows you to play along to simple songs very early in your guitar journey, which is incredibly motivating.
- Develop Essential Skills: Learning chords helps you develop crucial guitar skills like:
- Fretting Hand Strength: Pressing down multiple strings strengthens your fingers.
- Strumming and Rhythm: Playing chords involves strumming patterns and developing a sense of rhythm.
- Chord Transitions: Moving smoothly between chords is a fundamental skill for playing songs.
- Immediate Musical Gratification: Being able to play recognizable songs quickly provides a sense of accomplishment and encourages you to continue learning.
When to Focus on Notes?
Understanding guitar notes is definitely important in the long run, and it becomes more relevant as you progress and want to:
- Learn Melodies and Solos: Playing melodies and guitar solos requires knowledge of individual notes on the fretboard.
- Understand Music Theory: Guitar notes are essential for understanding music theory concepts like scales, keys, and intervals.
- Communicate Musically: Knowing notes allows you to communicate with other musicians using musical terminology.
- Read Music Notation: If you want to learn to read standard music notation, understanding guitar notes is essential.
Recommendation for Beginners:
Start by learning a handful of essential open chords. This will allow you to play songs and develop fundamental guitar skills. As you become more comfortable with chords, gradually start learning about guitar notes and their position on the fretboard.
Don’t feel pressured to memorize every note on the fretboard immediately. Focus on learning the notes on the open strings and gradually expand your knowledge as you progress. Our Free Video & PDF Guide – “Find Any Note Without Memorizing the Fretboard” can be a great resource to help you with this process when you’re ready to delve deeper into fretboard notes.
Guitar Notes in Relation to the Fretboard: Navigating the Neck
To truly understand guitar notes, we need to explore how they are arranged on the fretboard. The fretboard is the neck of the guitar with metal frets running across it. Each fret represents a change in pitch.
While you don’t need to memorize every single note location immediately, understanding the basic principles of how notes are organized on the fretboard will significantly enhance your musical understanding.
Guitar Notes and the Musical Alphabet: The 12 Building Blocks
Guitars, like most Western musical instruments, use the musical alphabet. This alphabet consists of only 12 notes, which repeat in different octaves (pitch ranges). This is much simpler than the English alphabet with 26 letters!
The musical alphabet is:
A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#
Alternatively, you can also represent some of these notes using “flats” (b) instead of “sharps” (#):
A, Bb, B, C, Db, D, Eb, E, F, Gb, G, Ab
Sharps (#) and Flats (b): The Same Notes, Different Names
Sharps (#) and flats (b) are symbols used in music notation to represent notes that are in between the “natural” notes (A, B, C, D, E, F, G). A sharp raises a note by a half step (the smallest interval in Western music), and a flat lowers a note by a half step.
Crucially, sharps and flats represent the same pitches. For example, A# and Bb are the same note – just named differently depending on the musical context.
Think of it like synonyms in language. “A sharp” and “B flat” are two different ways of naming the same musical pitch, just like “couch” and “sofa” are different words for the same piece of furniture.
Here are some examples of sharp and flat equivalents:
- C# is the same note as Db
- D# is the same note as Eb
- F# is the same note as Gb
- G# is the same note as Ab
In most contexts, you’ll encounter the musical alphabet written with sharps (#) more frequently than with flats (b), especially when learning scales and chords in major keys.
Natural Notes: Where Sharps and Flats Don’t Exist
Looking at the musical alphabet again:
A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#
Notice that there are no sharps or flats between B and C, and between E and F.
- There is no note between B and C.
- There is no note between E and F.
This means that:
- B# (B sharp) is essentially the same note as C. We don’t typically refer to it as B#.
- Cb (C flat) is essentially the same note as B. We don’t typically refer to it as Cb.
- E# (E sharp) is essentially the same note as F. We don’t typically refer to it as E#.
- Fb (F flat) is essentially the same note as E. We don’t typically refer to it as Fb.
These are important exceptions to remember in the musical alphabet.
Fretboard Mapping: Notes and Frets
Each fret on your guitar represents a half step in the musical alphabet. As you move up the fretboard towards the guitar body, the pitch of the notes gets higher.
Think of the open string as fret “0”. Moving to the first fret raises the pitch by a half step, moving to the second fret raises it another half step, and so on.
If you start on an open string (fret 0) and move up fret by fret, you are essentially moving through the musical alphabet in half steps.
Let’s take the low E string as an example:
- Open E string: E
- 1st fret: F (a half step up from E, no sharp or flat in between)
- 2nd fret: F# (a half step up from F)
- 3rd fret: G (a half step up from F#)
- 4th fret: G# (a half step up from G)
- 5th fret: A (a half step up from G#)
- 6th fret: A# (a half step up from A)
- 7th fret: B (a half step up from A#)
- 8th fret: C (a half step up from B, no sharp or flat in between)
- 9th fret: C# (a half step up from C)
- 10th fret: D (a half step up from C#)
- 11th fret: D# (a half step up from D)
- 12th fret: E (a half step up from D#)
When you reach the 12th fret, you’ve played a full octave. An octave is the interval between two notes with the same name, where the higher note has double the frequency of the lower note. In our example, the E at the 12th fret is one octave higher than the open E string.
The pattern of notes then repeats in the next octave above the 12th fret.
You can also descend the fretboard, moving from higher pitches to lower pitches. When descending, it’s often more common to think in terms of flats (b) rather than sharps (#).
For example, descending from the E at the 12th fret:
- 12th fret: E
- 11th fret: Eb (a half step down from E)
- 10th fret: D (a half step down from Eb)
- 9th fret: Db (a half step down from D)
- 8th fret: C (a half step down from Db)
- 7th fret: B (a half step down from C)
- 6th fret: Bb (a half step down from B)
- 5th fret: A (a half step down from Bb)
- 4th fret: Ab (a half step down from A)
- 3rd fret: G (a half step down from Ab)
- 2nd fret: Gb (a half step down from G)
- 1st fret: F (a half step down from Gb)
- Open string: E (a half step down from F)
The reason descending can feel slightly more challenging is that we are less accustomed to reciting the musical alphabet in reverse. Practice going both forwards and backwards through the musical alphabet (A-G) to improve your fretboard navigation.
To solidify your understanding, try saying the note names out loud as you play them on the fretboard. For instance, when you play the 5th fret of the low E string, say “A” aloud.
Fret Markers: Your Fretboard Landmarks
Navigating the fretboard, especially in the higher frets, can initially feel disorienting. That’s where fret markers come in handy.
Fret markers are the dots or inlays you see on the fretboard, usually on the top and side of the neck. They act as visual landmarks to help you quickly locate specific frets.
On most guitars, fret markers are typically placed at the:
- 3rd fret
- 5th fret
- 7th fret
- 9th fret
- 12th fret (often a double dot)
The 12th fret marker is particularly important as it marks the octave.
If you ever lose your place on the fretboard, use the fret markers to orient yourself and find the notes you’re looking for. They are invaluable tools for visual navigation.
Naturals vs. Sharps and Flats: Defining the “Natural” Notes
Within the musical alphabet, certain notes are called naturals. These are the notes that do not have sharps (#) or flats (b) in their basic names.
The natural notes are:
A, B, C, D, E, F, and G
They are called “natural” because they are the foundation upon which sharps and flats are built.
When navigating the fretboard and identifying natural notes, remember these interval patterns:
- Whole Steps: There are two frets (a whole step) between these natural note pairs:
- A and B
- C and D
- D and E
- F and G
- G and A
- Half Steps: There is one fret (a half step) between these natural note pairs:
- B and C
- E and F
These whole step and half step intervals are fundamental to understanding the structure of scales and chords.
Finding Natural Notes on the Fretboard: An Exercise
Let’s do a simple exercise to practice finding natural notes on the low E string (thickest string).
We know the open low E string is the natural note E. To find the next natural note above E on this string, we need to remember the intervals.
- Between E and F, there is a half step (one fret).
- Therefore, F is the next natural note above E, and it’s located at the 1st fret of the low E string.
Continuing up the low E string:
- From F to G, there is a whole step (two frets).
- So, G is located at the 3rd fret of the low E string (two frets above F).
Continue applying the whole step and half step rules to find the rest of the natural notes (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and so on) along the low E string.
Once you’re comfortable finding naturals on the low E string, repeat the exercise on the A string, D string, G string, and B string.
You’ll notice that the positions of the natural notes change depending on the string you are using. This is because each string starts on a different open note.
Sharps and Flats: Filling in the Gaps
Now that we’ve covered natural notes, let’s revisit sharps and flats. Think of sharps and flats as the notes that “fill in the gaps” between the natural notes that are a whole step apart.
Remember the whole step between A and B? The note in between A and B (one fret above A, or one fret below B) is either A# (A sharp) or Bb (B flat) – they are the same pitch.
Sharps and flats allow us to have a chromatic scale, which includes all 12 notes of the musical alphabet in sequence.
Guitar Notes Exercise on the E String: Solidifying Your Knowledge
To further solidify your understanding of natural notes, sharps, and flats, let’s do a quick mental exercise focusing on the relationships between specific guitar notes on the E string.
Guitar Notes E and F: Half Step Relationship
- There is no sharp or flat between E and F. They are natural notes separated by a half step.
- Moving from E to F on the guitar is a movement of just one fret (e.g., from the open E string to the 1st fret).
Guitar Notes F and G: Whole Step Relationship
- There is a whole step between the natural notes F and G.
- Moving from F to G on the guitar is a movement of two frets (e.g., from the 1st fret on the E string to the 3rd fret).
By mentally walking through these note relationships and practicing finding them on your guitar, you’ll strengthen your understanding of basic guitar notes and how they are organized on the fretboard.
Taking Consistent Steps to Guitar Mastery
Understanding basic guitar notes is a fundamental step in your guitar journey. Consistent practice and exploration are key to making progress and enjoying your musical growth.
To help you take the next steps in your guitar playing, consider exploring resources like our Free Guitar Reboot Workshop. This workshop can provide you with valuable insights and strategies to learn guitar more effectively and overcome common challenges.
Remember, learning guitar is a process, and understanding basic guitar notes is a crucial milestone. Keep practicing, keep exploring, and enjoy the journey of musical discovery!
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