Notes on Guitar

Class Objective- Understanding Guitar Fretboard.

Title : 12 notes and 12 fret diagrams .

Objective : Understanding the guitar fretboard briefly.

Concept A : 12 musical notes .

I. There are 12 musical notes.

II. These 12 notes have some fixed sound frequency .
III. They are universally accepted.
IV. The tone may differ from instruments to instruments but the frequency
of sound remains the same.

Some important terms :

Tone - when we move one full step ahead for example from A to B is
called tone . In other words we say the whole step .
Semi Tone - when we move one half step ahead i.e from A to A# is
called a Semi-tone. In other words we say half step .
Sharp - when the note is played a half step forward is called sharp. It is
denoted by ‘ # ’ .
Flat - when a note is played a half step backward it is called flat. It is
denoted by ‘ ♭ ’.

Understanding the 12 notes :

I. As mentioned below are the 12 musical notes having different sound

frequencies each denoted by an alphabet.
II. There exist no B# and E#.

A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A

Click here : click here to understand briefly

Concept B : 12 fret diagram

I. The above given is the 12 fret diagram for a guitar .

II. It indicates the name of notes across the fretboard on each string and every
fret.
III. The same note repeats after 12th fret, same as the tuning of that particular
string but it is one octave higher.

Concept C : Notes in music

I. In classical we have : Komal means flat- ‘♭’.

II. In western music we replace the vowels with ‘ i ’ .
III. We use the alphabets from the above progression to denote these Indian /
western classical notations.
IV. The first note ‘Sa’ or ‘Do’ are denoted by the alphabet we chose as a scale.
Ex - for C scale we have Sa/Do- C .

Komal Komal Komal Koma

Sa Re Ga Ma Ma Pa Dha l Ni Sa
Re Ga Dha
Ni

Do Di Re Ri Mi Fa Fi So Si La Li Ti Do
Practice A : MCQs

1. How many musical notes are there?

A. 12
B. 7
C. 8

2. Which note is at 2nd string 5 th fret?

A. E
B. F
C. G

3. What is a group of eight notes called?

A. octave
B. major/minor scale
C. 8/8

4. Which fret on the 3rd string is note A ?

A. 2nd
B. 3rd
C. 1st
5 . After how many frets the same note repeats on a string?

A. 8
B. 12
C. 7

Answers to practice A : (1-A , 2-A , 3-A , 4-A , 5-B)

SELF-ASSESSMENT :

Good I was able to understand the theory and was able to

count all the notes on all the strings across the
fretboard.

Fair I was able to understand the names of strings .

Bad I was not able to locate notes correctly.