Guitar Notes For Beginners

So you learned a few chords and it was fun for a while, but now you want more. It's time to learn how to read guitar notes.

Reading guitar notes is no rocket science, but it's not easy either, especially if you're a beginner. You'll just have to give yourself some time for learning. Remember, practice makes perfect. In this hub we'll go through some basics on how to read guitar notes.

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In order to learn guitar notes we have to figure out how all those dots, numbers and markings on the staff translate to the fretboard.

We will start by learning the names of the notes of the open guitar strings.
The notes, from low to high, on the open strings are E A D G B E.

If you hold the guitar in playing position, E is the top string, and the thickest of the six strings. The second string and the second thickest string is A. The third string is D, the fourth is G, the fifth is B, and the sixth string, which is also the thinnest string, is E again, this time one octave higher that the first E. Just take a look at the image to your top left.

Pressing a string against the fret will determine the vibrating length of a string. This will cause the string to sound the appropriate note. Frets determine the pitch a string will produce The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined as a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. This means that each fret will produce a half-step higher pitch than the last.

The guitar scale is chromatic, which basically means that each consecutive fret is defined as a half-step interval. The notes in between the whole steps are referred to as either sharps(#) or flats(b). To sharp(#) a note move one fret higher. To flat (b) a note move one fret lower.

Here is a complete table of the names of the notes on the guitar fretboard. Numbers on the top are the fret numbers:

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