In this lesson, we will learn how to determine where each note resides on the guitar neck. In Lesson 1, I asked you to memorize the order of the six strings on the guitar and also to memorize 13 notes. As you will recall, the six strings in order are,

Low E (or thickest string)
A string
D string
G string
B string
High E (or thinnest string)

And the 13 notes you were supposed to memorize were,

A
A sharp
B
C
C sharp
D
D sharp
E
F
F sharp
G
G sharp
A

If you understand that the open A string A0 is an A note, then we can walk up this string in half steps and identify each note easily.

A0 = A
A1 = A sharp
A2 = B
A3 = C
A4 = C sharp
A5 = D
A6 = D sharp
A7 = E
A8 = F
A9 = F sharp
A10= G
A11= G sharp
A12 = A

Since we are back to the A note on the 12th fret, the pattern just repeats on down the string with,

A13= A sharp
A14= B
A15= C
A16= C sharp
A17= D
A18= D sharp
A19= E
A20= F
A21= F sharp
A22= G
A23= G sharp
A24= A

And so on. Now, you might not have a neck that contains 24 frets, so this pattern might terminate earlier on your guitar neck, but theoretically, we could repeat this pattern over and over again. Realizing that we get an E note when playing the low E string open, we can use our pattern above to identify all the notes on this string also.

E0 = E
E1 = F
E2 = F sharp
E3 = G
E4 = G sharp
E5 = A
E6 = A sharp
E7 = B
E8 = C
E9 = C sharp
E10= D
E11= D sharp
E12= E

As before, we note that once we reach E again on the 12th fret that the pattern just repeats. So, if you know the string name and realize that that is the note you get when playing the string open, you simply start at that notes position in the pattern of 13 notes you memorized. From there, you simply use the pattern to identify the half steps as you walk up the neck. Let's try it again with the G string.

G0 = G
G1 = G sharp
G2 = A
G3 = A sharp
G4 = B
G5 = C
G6 = C sharp
G7 = D
G8 = D sharp
G9 = E
G10= F
G11= F sharp
G12= G

And of course at this point the pattern just repeats itself as you continue up the string.

For homework, I would like you to attempt to identify all the notes on the D string and all the notes on the B string, since we did not cover the notes on those two strings in this lesson. It is sufficient to identify the notes up to the 12th fret on each of these strings, provided you realize that the pattern repeats again after you reach the 12th fret.


Corey J. Bray