Discover The Fretboard
It's highly important that you begin to get familiar
with the names of the notes on the frets of a guitar.
Knowing them will serve you to a great degree in the future
when learning chord and scale systems.
Memorizing the name of the notes on the entire fretboard
may seem like a daunting task, because a standard guitar
has 21 or more frets. That's 126 or more frets with notes
to memorize... or is it? In reality it's not as bad as
that. We've made it as simple as possible.
Below is a 5 step tutorial that will help you become
familiar with the fretboard and it's notes. You don't
have to learn them all right away but it's a long term
goal that you should strive for, so working on learning
them on a regular basis is a good idea.
Contents
Realize that the 12th fret is the same note as the
open string. This is called an octave. An octave is
the same note at a higher or lower pitch. The 12th fret
is always the same note as the string played open.
The 12th fret is usually marked by two dot inlays.
The key learning the notes on the entire fretboard is
first memorizing the 12 notes and their appropriate order.
Here is a handy little chart that you may want to print
out. It has all the primary notes on the fretboard. The
sharps and flats are not shown here. Sharps and flats
are easy to identify, though. For example, to find an
F#/Gb just find the note between the F and G.
In the exercise that follows you are to look at the diagram
of the guitar fretboard and identify the note where the
red dot is by using the open strings as a guide and by
following the note order.
Here's an exercise to help you remember the notes on
the fretboard. All instances of the notes on the guitar
are tabbed out below. Practice playing through these a
little bit every day until you know them all.
