How Notes Move on a Guitar

When starting out on a guitar, it can be really difficult to understand what notes are and how they can be played. It may sound foreign when your instructors and friends say “play a G note then move to a C,” but it is actually a fairly simple concept to grasp with the right explanation.

First, a note is a specific sound or tone in music. In western music, there are seven main notes and five extra notes (called accidentals for the advanced). This makes a total of only twelve notes that can be played on a guitar, but anyone that has picked up a guitar can see that there seems to be many more than twelve notes that can be played. This is because we can play the same note in different places on a guitar’s neck. For instance, a “C” note can be played up high on the neck or down low, and a few places in between, but in reality it is still a “C.” It is important to remember this when you get into music; no matter how complex something seems, just remember that it is always the same 12 notes that make up the music. So know that you understand this, let’s look at how these notes appear and move on a guitar neck.

Notes in music move in alphabetical order (A-B-C-D-E-F-G) but unlike the alphabet which goes from A-Z, when we get to the letter G in our musical alphabet, we just start back over at the letter A. Each note is two frets (the space between the metal bars) from the note before it except for two cases: When we are on the note “B” and move up to the note “C” we only move up one fret. It is the same with the note “E.” When we are on “E” and want to move up to the note “F” we only have to move one fret up. “But what about the frets in between the two notes?” you may be asking yourself. Well, as I mentioned earlier, there are 8 main notes (A-B-C-D-E-F-G), but there are also 5 extra notes (A#-C#-D#-F#-G#). These weird “#” symbols are what we call a “Sharp” in music. So let’s look at this on a guitar. The second-thickest string on a guitar is the A string, so let’s begin there:

So if we play the second thickest string without holding anything down, then we are playing the note “A.” As we move up the guitar neck, the notes move through the alphabet, and every note has a “Sharp” (#) except between B-C and E-F.

This pattern remains the same regardless of what string or note we decide to start on. Here’s a full listing of note names on a guitar neck:So take your time, read over this article a few times and make sure you really understand this concept. This is the foundation on which all music is based, so you must get this before you can effectively move forward in your music education. Just remember that there are only twelve notes in music, and your Guitar Lessons should be far less intimidating!