You can always find someone to argue with about whether or not it’s important for a guitar player to learn the notes on a guitar fretboard. Personally, I used to think it wasn’t that important. Sure, I needed to know some of the notes across the guitar fretboard, but all of them? Nah…I played for years without worrying too much about that.
But my inability to quickly name the notes haunted me. How is it possible for a person to play guitar for years without knowing all of the notes on the guitar fretboard? It’s actually quite possible, honestly. But it’s a question of degree. You can get by knowing just a handful of important notes, as it turns out.
In fact, you could argue that you don’t need to know any of the notes by name so long as you know chord shapes. That’s actually true. But the question is, how far can one go as a guitar player without taking the time to learn the notes on a guitar.
I’m thinking of old country guitar players, delta blues guitarists, folk guitarists, and so on. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that a lot of very successful and/or respected guitarists really didn’t have the ability to instantly name any note on the fretboard.
They didn’t need to, so maybe you don’t need to either. That could be true. But I’d argue that if you really want to accomplish great things on the instrument, you will be better off knowing the fretboard as thoroughly as possible.
There are many different techniques that people have devised to help you learn the notes on a guitar. I’ve used some of them. I’ve tried this and that. And I still don’t know the notes instantly. But at least I can finally work out the notes at any fret on any string quickly now that I recognize a simple pattern.
I eventually discovered a technique for doing this that, once I finally saw it, was so obvious that I’m almost embarrassed to say I didn’t know it–and use it–all these years. But I’ll share it here so that you might get the benefit of it sooner in your guitar-playing journey than I did.
When you first look at the guitar neck…in fact, maybe for years of looking at the guitar neck, it looks pretty intimidating. There are so many frets and six strings. How can you possibly learn what note lies at each fret for each string?
Well, it turns out that the guitar is full of relationships, and you can use these relationships to understand the instrument and to learn the notes on a guitar. From these relationships you can form patterns.
There’s one pattern in particular that I finally recognized (after years of playing) that has helped me be able to identify the note at any fret on any string relatively quickly. And with practice (and finally some intention to learn) I’ve begun to memorize notes and can recognize them instantly. I’m not all the way there even yet, but I’m getting better.
The pattern is so simple, I don’t know why I didn’t see it years ago. I can only chalk it up to laziness and bad observational skills. It does require you to know (or be able to work out) the notes on the Low E string and the A string (and we’re talking about a six-string guitar in standard tuning now). But once you can do that, this pattern unlocks the rest for you.
Start with the low E string. Take any note on that string. The guitar fretboard is full of that same note in different positions, and we can use this pattern to nearly instantly find two more notes of the same name as our start note.
Here’s the pattern:
And that’s it! Brilliantly simple. Let’s try a specific example to drive it home.
And just like that you’ve identified three of the A notes on your guitar. And since you know that the high E string is the same as the low E sting (as far as note names goes), you already know where four A notes are.
That pattern is cool enough starting on the low E string. With it you can identify tons of notes on the guitar neck already. But it gets better, because the exact same pattern works when you start anywhere on the A string too.
Let’s try it starting on the C note that you find at the third fret of the A string.
So, what if you want to know what note sits at a specific fret on any string? No problem, because the pattern works starting on any string and moving in either direction. Just remember that if you’re moving the direction we’ve been going so far (low notes to higher notes), if your next note is on the B string or the high E string, you have to move up three frets instead of two.
Conversely, if you’re moving the other direction (high notes to low), then if the note you’re starting on sits on the high E or the B string, you need to move down three frets. If that starting note sits on any other string, move down two frets.
Say you want to know what note sits at the ninth fret of the B string. You can work your way backwards to the E string (whose notes you hopefully are starting to memorize already) to figure the note out.
You now find yourself at the fourth fret of the low E string which you hopefully have memorized is the note G sharp (or A flat). So, the note you started with at the ninth fret of the B string is G sharp (A flat).
Try another one.
The note at the 13th fret of the A string you have hopefully memorized as A# (B flat).
By now you’ve noticed that one key to using this pattern is that you have to know the notes on the Low E and the A strings. At first you might have to work them out, but eventually you will come to know them by heart.
Once you have those notes memorized, you can use this pattern to identify any note at any fret on the guitar. And I’ve found this to be a fast way to learn the notes on a guitar!
It took me far too long to recognize this simple pattern. Hopefully now you can skip years of confusion and fumbling around and use this pattern to start mastering the guitar!
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Thankyou so much Gary! It means world to us for explaining it so well. Sending you tons of love!
I'm glad it helped Hardik! I hope you're making great progress with your playing.