Most guitarists begin playing by ear. They listen to their favorite songs and strum along, figuring out the chords as they go. This is a great way to learn different styles of playing and the basics of the instrument. However, if you’d like to take your skillset further, it’s time to learn your guitar notes.
Learning guitar notes is not difficult. It just takes some good old-fashioned memorization and practice. Doing so gives you access to more repertoire and increasingly more challenging pieces.
The Strings
If you haven’t already, it’s time to memorize the note names of your guitar strings. Traditional six-string guitar tuning from the lowest string to the highest is E, A, D, G, B, E. Notice that the bottom and top strings have the same note name. Also, the strings are four letter names apart, except G to B, which is three letter names. This means the G and B strings are closer in pitch to each other.
Spend some time playing each fret on each string, just one note at a time. Listen to how the sound changes. Does each fret represent a large or small change in pitch? Is the pitch going up or down? At what point does the fret duplicate the pitch of the next open string? Answering these questions will help you understand guitar notes better.
The Frets
In Western music, the smallest space between two notes is called a half step. Think of the low brass part in the main theme from the movie “Jaws.” That’s probably the most famous half step in all of music. On your guitar, each fret is a half step higher than the previous fret. If you play your open E string you get an E. If you play the first fret on the E string, you get an F, which is one half step higher than E.
We use the sharp sign # to indicate half steps between some notes, such as G to G#. The notes E and F have no sharp between them and neither do the notes B and C. Here are the pitches of the first six frets for the G string as an example:
- G#
- A
- A#
- B
- C
- C#
The next fret is D, the same D as the open D string. Draw a fret chart for yourself on a piece of paper and list every fret for every string. This is a good way to visualize the notes on your guitar.
The Music
Now it’s time to play some guitar music that will encourage you to read the notes you are learning. Start with easy guitar tabs that have both the tabs and the printed notes. Any genre is fine as long as the songs aren’t too complicated yet. Try such gems as “Free Fallin'” by Tom Petty, “The Imperial March, ” by John Williams, or “Ring of Fire” as sung by Johnny Cash.
Learning guitar notes needs to be a part of your daily practice until they are internalized and you no longer have to think about them. Doing so will open new doors to you and improve your guitar abilities.
