The way musicians communicate with one another is through notes and rhythm. If you learn guitar note names, then you will have a way to describe what you are playing to other musicians (for jam sessions, band practices, etc.). You also will have a way to remember what you play by jotting down the notes you used. Learning some basic guitar notes for beginners is pretty easy, as you will find here. And once you learn how to play guitar notes, you should move on to learn guitar tablature and/or standard music notation to have a complete way to notate and communicate the music you play.
Learning Guitar Note Names
This chart shows the guitar note names found on the guitar and their positions on the guitar neck. Unlike a piano, most stringed instruments will have the exact same note available in multiple places on the instrument. For example, in standard music notation, the “G” note found on the 3rd open string is the exact same (as seen in standard musical notation) as the note played at the 5th fret on the D string, the 10th fret on the A string, and the the 15th fret on the low E string.
The musical alphabet consists of seven notes: A B C D E F G, which keep repeating: ABCDEFG – ABCDEFG, etc. No matter which note you start on, you continue in the same order, as you go up in pitch.
For example, starting on B the notes would be: BCDEFGA – BCDEFGA, etc. If you descend, you reverse the order and go backwards from whichever note you started on.
Only the notes B & C and E & F are on consecutive frets.
All others have one fret in between them.
Note that after the 12th fret the pattern is repeated, with the 13th fret having the same note name as the 1st but being an octave higher.
How to Play Guitar Notes
In music notation you will see guitar fingerings use numbers to indicate what fingers to use when playing the notes.
A graphic to show how left-hand fingerings are marked for reading guitar notes.
Remember to try and use the one-finger-per-fret rule when playing guitar notes. This will make playing the notes easier and help you develop great basic guitar technique. One-finger-per-fret means that wherever you place your hand on the guitar fingerboard, each finger will cover the notes sequentially up and down the fingerboard. As in the example above, you can see that the first finger would play all the notes found on the first fret for all the strings; the second takes all the notes on the second fret; etc. If the first finger was on the third fret, then then the second would play all the notes on the fourth fret, the third finger all the notes on the fifth fret, etc.
Learn Guitar Notes on the Low E String
Here is a great diagram that shows how to play guitar notes on the low E string. It includes how to play the note fingerings too.
This note chart shows how to play all the guitar notes on the low E string.
Learn Guitar Notes on the A String
This diagram shows notes and fingerings on the A string.
The chart above shows how to play all the guitar notes on the A string.
Learn Guitar Notes on the D String
This diagram shows how to play the basic guitar notes on the D string. It includes how to play the note fingerings too.
Here you see how to play guitar notes found on the D string.
Learn Guitar Notes on the G String
This is how to play guitar notes with the correct fingerings on the G string.
This note chart shows how to play all the guitar notes on the G string.
Learn Guitar Notes on the B String
Here you learn notes on the B string with proper fingerings.
This note chart displays more notes on the B string.
Learn Guitar Notes on the High-E String
This shows how to play guitar notes on the High-E string, complete with note fingerings.
This chart helps you learn guitar notes on the High-E string.
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