Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do! (C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C)
At some point in our life, we all played that progression on a piano or a xylophone:
Congratulations! You already know the C Major scale!
A guitar is no different, you can still find the same notes on the fretboard but before going there let’s take a look at how the notes are organized:
you may not hear it (yet) but each of those 7 notes is separated either by a semi-tone (half-step) or a tone (whole-step).
Those distances never change – it’s always a whole-step but between B and C, and E and F where it’s only a half-step. Always.
12 half-steps (= 2 half-steps + 5 whole-steps) and you’re back to the same note – you’re up one octave.
If you ever wondered why, on a piano, there isn’t a black key between every of the white ones, it should suddenly make more sense: you won’t find a black key between E and F or between B and C.
The Fretboard
Your guitar journey really begins here. Hopefully, you survived 8 lines of music theory!
The most common tuning for a 6 strings guitar is: E – A – D – G – B – E
It means that if you play each open string from the top, which is called low E, you’ll respectively hear those notes (in pink in the chart below).
Similar to the circular diagram above, the notes on your fretboard are sequenced either by whole-steps or half-steps:
- if you play the low E string, and put your finger on the first fret – you’re one half-step further than E which is a F
- E string again, fret 3 will be 1 whole-step after F, or 1.5 step after E, it’s a G
- the 12th fret is 12 half-steps, you’re up an octave so it’s E – A – D – G – B – E again
- etc. (follow the circular diagram)
Exercise: play each note of the scale: start with the low E string to the high E string and go up again.
Do the same exercise up to the frame 5 and say the note out loud (heads up, you’ll end up knowing those by heart – don’t sweat it too much for now, it’ll come naturally)
Sharps and Flats
The notes that are not followed by a sharp (#) or a flat (b) sign are called “natural notes”.
Between the natural notes, you’ll find:
- sharp notes: one half-step higher e.g. on the low E string, fret 2 will be F#, fret 4 G# etc.
- flat notes: one half-step lower e.g. on the A string, fret 1 will be Bb, fret 4 Db etc.
Same on the fretboard:
Now, prepare to have your mind blown:
- F# and Gb are the same note, so are G# and Ab, A# and Bb etc.
- you’d think E# doesn’t exist because there’s only a half-step from E to F… wrong! E# is indeed F but in some cases we’ll have to call it E#… even E##, the same way Ebb is D
They sound the same, it’s literally the same note… so why would they have a different name and why does it matter??? The short answer is because of a naming convention imposed by the music theory itself and I promise it will perfectly make sense when we’ll talk about the intervals and you’ll understand why it’s ironically less confusing.
What did you learn?
Bravo! You know how the fretboard works! Now you know the notes, you’re ready for the next level and learn your very first chords already! (this is where your fingers will start to hurt but also where the fun begins)
Why is it important?
Notes are the foundation of the music theory, the smallest denominator.