Accent on Music - Articles

Getting Started Learning Notes on the Fretboard
Installment #1: "Important Guideposts on the Guitar Neck"

By Mark Hanson
May 31, 2009

Students ask me how to learn the names of the notes all over the guitar neck.

The system I have devised uses certain frets (5th, 7th, 10th, 12th) as guideposts, from which I suggest my students extrapolate to find other notes. Here is how to get started using my system for standard tuning:

1.	I know the open strings: E A D G B E (bass to treble)
2.	I know the 12th-fret notes because they are the octaves of the open strings: E A D G B E
3.	I know the fifth-fret notes because they are the same note as the adjacent higher-pitched string (the time-honored “Fifth-Fret” tuning technique):
		Sixth string, 5th fret = A (same as open fifth string)
		Fifth string, 5th fret = D
		Fourth string, 5th fret = G
		Third string, 4th fret = B *
		Second string, 5th fret = E
	*	The one exception is the 4th fret of the third string.
4.	I know the 7th-fret notes because they are an octave higher than the adjacent lower-pitched string:
		Fifth string, 7th fret = E (one octave above open Sixth string)
		Fourth string, 7th fret = A
		Third string, 7th fret = D
		Second string, 8th fret = G *
		First string, 7th fret = B’
		(Sixth string, 7th fret is also B, like the first string)
	*	The one exception is the 8th fret of the second string.
5.	I know the 10th-fret notes because I can count backwards in the alphabet (at least up to G!). The 10th-fret notes are all “white” notes (no sharps or flats), one letter in the alphabet before the name of that open string:
		Sixth string, 10th fret = D (the open string is E; D is the letter prior to it in the alphabet)
		Fifth string, 10th fret = G
		Fourth string, 10th fret = C
		Third string, 10th fret = F
		Second string, 10th fret = A
		First string, 10th fret = D

That’s enough for the first installment. In subsequent installments I will explain how to learn the other notes on the guitar neck.

Mark Hanson

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