Learn to play the notes on the guitar and know the various guitar string names. Find easy to follow guitar notes chart for beginners that will help master the guitar fretboard. Learn how to play the notes on the guitar with this easy-to-follow diagram that will help you know the various guitar string names. You can find more guitar lessons here.
Beginner Guitar Lessons: Understanding the Fretboard
When learning to play any musical instrument, the first thing that you need to do is to learn how to play the notes. On a guitar, the music notes are played on the guitar’s fret-board.
Guitar fretboard is the thin, long strip (usually made of wood) over which the strings run. The fretboard is also known as the Guitar fingerboard.
To play the guitar, you have to press the strings down against the fretboard. Pressing the string changes the vibrating length and changes the pitch.
Mastering the fretboard is essential to get a good grasp on Guitar Music Theory. All notes, scales, chords and progressions are learned on the fretboard.
- Have better sight-reading skills
- learn scales & chords better (and help improve improvisation)
- help you play chords and harmonize better
As with anything new, it may seem a bit difficult initially to learn the notes, but there are always ways to make things easier. Right below you will find a nice guitar notes chart that basically is a diagram showing the notes on the guitar fret-board.
You should aim to master these notes; with some consistent efforts and practice, its just a matter of time and even you can conquer the guitar’s fret board.
Electric, Acoustic, Bass Guitar Notes
The strings are laid down in a similar manner on the Electric, Acoustic, and Bass Guitar (although the bass has fewer strings). But once you understand the manner in which the notes are arranged on the frets, you can play the notes on an electric guitar, acoustic guitar or bass guitar.
Basically, the electric guitar notes, acoustic guitar notes and bass guitar notes are named in a similar manner.
Video: How to Play the Various Notes on Guitar
Here’s a simple but effective video showing how to play the various notes on guitar. If you have taken music lessons before or can play another musical instrument, then you would probably already be aware of how to read the notes from a sheet music.
Here’s how to read and play the guitar notes, for beginners.
Names of Musical Notes
In traditional music theory, the notes are named as:
- A, B, C, D, E, F, and G (Main notes).
- In addition, you also have the sharps and flats, and they fall between these main notes.
For example C#, G#, Bb, Eb, and so on.
But then finding the notes on a guitar requires a slightly different approach. It’s not exactly the same as reading notes on sheet music.
Breaking Down the Neck: Notes on the Guitar Neck
To be able to find the notes on a guitar, it helps to know more about the neck of the guitar; you need to break it up to see where all the notes lie.
On a guitar, you can play the same notes in different ways, so just putting the neck alongside a musical notation sheet is not going to work.
Here’s how the notes can be mapped to the frets on the neck (guitar notes on neck):
The step by step explanation in this video shows you what notes go where on the guitar. Also, learn how to count the beats.
Guitar Music Notes
Beginner Guitar Lesson: Here’s how to learn the Guitar Music Notes
To find your way around the fretboard of the guitar is very important. It will help you in guitar improvisation, sight reading, and in understanding chords and more. Here. we’ll explore various ways to learn the notes on the guitar fretboard.
Guitar lesson 1
Learn the basic notes, the notes of a C major scale (the white keys on the piano) on every string. Let’s test this on the first string on your guitar. The first note is an E. You will find F on the first fret. G on fret three. A on fret five. B on fret seven. C on fret eight, D on fret ten and the next E on fret twelve.
The sixth string on the guitar is an E too. It’s just two octaves lower but you will find the same note names on this string on the same frets two octaves lower.
On the second string you will find the notes on the following frets:
fret 0-B, 1-C, 3-D, 5-E, 6-F, 8-G, 10-A, 12-B
On the third guitar string you’ll find the following notes:
0-G, 2-A, 4-B, 5-C, 7-D, 9-E,10-F, 12-G
I guess you can figure out the names of the notes on the next strings by yourself but here they are in case you will double check. The fourth string:
0-D, 2-E, 3-F, 5-G, 7-A, 9-B, 10-C, 12-D
The notes on the fifth string or the A-string:
0-A, 2-B, 3-C, 5-D, 7-E, 8-F, 10-G, 12-A
I would suggest that you concentrate on one string at a time and learn the names as you play the notes on your guitar maybe by saying the note names aloud as you play.
Guitar lesson 2
Learn a specific note on all strings. This is a great way to learn the notes and quite amusing too. Let’s use the note G. You’ll find it on the third fret on string six. Where can you find the note G on string five? Right, on fret 10.
The G notes on the strings from the sixth string to the first are on the following frets:
3 10 5 0 8 3
You can make an exercise of this by playing the G notes from string six down to the first string and back again. Try this with other notes too. For example E.
If you devote a couple of minutes a day on this exercise you will soon be able to play the sequence of strings fast, spotting the notes without effort.
Guitar lesson 3
Learn the names of the notes on a fret. We can start with the open strings starting from the sixth string to the first. The names will be:
E A D G B E
Now, play the notes on the third fret in the same order. At the same time try to say the names of the notes aloud. I will help you this time only by writing the note names down:
G C F Bb D G
Try this exercise on different frets and say the names of the notes aloud.
Guitar lesson 4
Learn the notes in a chord. Play any chord and name the notes aloud from string six to string one. This guitar exercise will also help you to understand how the chords are built.
Guitar lesson 5
In this guitar lesson you will use your ability to create random notes on the guitar. As you play notes on your guitar at random you also say the note names aloud.
Play in an even pace, just fast enough to make this exercise a challenge for your mind so your mind will concentrate on the task and not wander off.
All of these small guitar lessons can be used together with a companion. One playing the notes on the guitar and the other saying the note names.
How much should you practice?
As a beginner, 2-5 minutes a day with one of these exercises will help you improve your skills in finding the notes. In this guitar lesson we will focus on the fretboard and not the actual guitar sheet music.
Learning to read guitar sheet music will be much easier when you master the notes on the guitar. I have divided this article in five lessons that you can alternate between until you master the guitar fretboard.
Its always a good habit to warm up your fingers and hands before playing the guitar, or for that matter, any musical instrument. It keeps you fingers in good shape, and reduces the risk of injury to muscles and ligaments.
As mentioned earlier, it’s best to take one step at a time. Just choose one of the guitar lessons (few exercises) and work a couple of minutes a day on mastering the exercise. Over time, you can do more exercises together. Also, spend more time on the exercises you’re having difficulty playing.
Top Guitar Books & Learning Courses
- Top Guitar Books – Instructions & Techniques
- Best guitar learning software and courses
- Best acoustic guitars for beginners
- Best electric guitars for beginners
That’s all for beginners on how to read and play the guitar notes.
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