Learn the seven natural notes, the five accidentals between them, and how this twelve note alphabet repeats across the fretboard.
Listen to this lesson
Synthesized voice, not a studio recording
Ready to read aloud · 1/17
What you will learn
- The seven natural notes A B C D E F G and where the half steps fall.
- How sharps and flats fill in the remaining five tones.
- Why the alphabet repeats every twelve frets, and what an octave really is.
- Reference notes on each string that help you read the fretboard faster.
The concept
Western music uses twelve different pitches before everything starts over an octave higher. Seven of them have plain letter names (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) and form the natural alphabet you sing without realising it. The other five are wedged between certain natural notes and are written with a sharp or a flat.
There are two places where two natural notes sit right next to each other without anything between them: E to F and B to C. Everywhere else, two natural notes are separated by one extra step. That extra step is a sharp of the lower note, or equivalently a flat of the higher one. C sharp and D flat are the same pitch, just two different names for the same key on a piano or the same fret on a guitar.
The distance between any two adjacent pitches in this system is a half step. Twelve half steps make an octave: the same letter name, but vibrating twice as fast. This is why patterns on the guitar repeat every twelve frets, and why a chord shape played at the third fret sounds like the same shape played at the fifteenth, only an octave higher.
On the guitar
Standard tuning gives you E A D G B E from the lowest to the highest string. Each open string is a fixed point in the alphabet. Pressing a string at fret n raises the pitch by n half steps. So the sixth string at the third fret is G (E up three half steps: F, F sharp, G).
The twelfth fret marks one full octave from the open string. The fifth fret on most strings sounds the same pitch as the next open string, which is why guitarists traditionally tune by matching the fifth fret to the open string above it.
Exercises
- 01
Say each note out loud as you fret it on the sixth string from fret zero up to twelve, then back down. Use only natural notes first, then add sharps.
- 02
Find every C on the fretboard within the first twelve frets. There are six of them. Mark them mentally.
- 03
Pick any string and play a slow chromatic line, naming the notes in tempo with a metronome at 50 BPM.
- 04
Without looking at a chart, locate G on the fifth, fourth, third, and second strings.
Common mistakes
- Treating B sharp or C flat as bugs. They exist in certain keys to keep one letter per scale step.
- Forgetting that the second string (B) breaks the five fret pattern: the third string is tuned a major third above the fourth, not a fourth like the rest.
- Memorising shapes without ever naming the notes you are playing.
Listen, play, create
- Listen: play an open low E, then the same E at fret twelve. Notice how the pitch is the same letter but feels brighter.
- Play: improvise a slow melody using only the seven natural notes on the second string.
- Create: write down the notes of any nursery rhyme and play them on a single string.
Use these tools
Further reading
Twelve pitches, two half steps without sharps, six strings to map. Once you can name any fret without hesitation, every other topic on this page becomes easier.