Building a Solid Foundation

Knowing the notes on each guitar string is a foundational skill that all beginner guitar players should know. Since all chords and scales are made up of notes, understanding your way around the guitar neck is like the first building block you must learn. Learning how to play acoustic guitar will be so much simpler, along with how to play bass guitar, if you like that instrument as well. It really doesn’t matter.

In this post you’re going to learn how to find notes on each string. First we’ll talk about the spacing between notes, how to find the notes on the neck and then I’ll give you an example that ties it all together. If you want to learn how to play blues guitar, and how to play electric guitar - these tips will serve you well. In fact, they form the basis for learning how to play the guitar for you and your listeners.

Steps – Whole and Half

Thankfully there are only so many notes we have to be concerned with. For this exercise we’re only worried about those notes A through G not sharps or flats. The term step is used to describe the spacing between one note and the next. Steps can be a half or whole step and the space between different notes can vary.

On the guitar neck one half step is the equivalent of one fret. So a full step would be two frets. Knowing how frets relate to steps and then knowing how many steps are between each note makes it very easy to find notes on the guitar neck and not just memorize them.

Between most notes there is usually one whole step, or two frets. There are two exceptions, between the B and C notes there is one half step and between the E and F notes there is one half step. This means we only move up one fret to go from a B note to a C note or an E note to an F note.

Below is the explanation of the spacing between each of the 7 musical notes A through G in terms of steps and frets.

• 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

Alright so all this is fine and dandy but how do we take this concept and move it to the actual guitar neck? Thankfully we can start with the name of each string, E, A, D, G, B and E. Each string denotes the note that is played when you strike it open, that is with no frets pressed down. So Let’s look at a simple example using the Low E string.

What comes after E? It’s F, this is one of the exceptions where only a half step exists. So moving up on fret or a half step gives us an F note on the 1st fret of the low E string..

After F comes G, that’s one full step so we move up two frets to the 3rd and that’s the G note.

One more, after the G we go back to the start for the A note and there is one full step here as well. So we slide up two more frets to the 5th fret where we play the A note.

You can use these same rules and system to start with any open string and move up the neck to determine what notes are where. It can seem tough at first but you’ll start to see the patterns and will slowly memorize certain note locations.

Take a few minutes to watch this training video below where the same concept is explained and an example given for the top 3 strings. After watching the video grab your guitar and give this exercise a try. It takes a little time to memorize the notes on each string but remember practice makes perfect!

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