Guide
Guitar fretboard notes: a map of the first 12 frets
Standard tuning is E2 A2 D3 G3 B3 E4, low string to high. Everything else on the neck follows from that: one fret is one semitone, twelve frets is an octave, and the note names repeat. You do not have to memorise 72 positions — you have to memorise a handful of landmarks and three shapes that get you from one to the next.
The landmarks worth memorising
- The dots. Frets 3, 5, 7, 9 carry a single inlay and fret 12 carries a double. They are the only thing on the neck you can find without counting, so every other position is best learned as an offset from one of them.
- Fret 12 is the octave. Whatever a string is open, it is again at the double dot. That halves the neck: learn the first 12 frets and you have learned all of them.
- Two pairs have no black key between them. E to F and B to C are one fret apart, not two. Nearly every mistake in naming a note on the neck traces back to counting a sharp between those pairs that does not exist.
- The low E and the high E are the same names. The two outer strings are two octaves apart, so anything you learn on one is free on the other.
Three shapes that find any note
Two strings over, two frets up
From any note on the E or A string, the same note an octave higher sits two strings toward the thin side and two frets up. That is the shape behind every movable barre-chord root, which is why the two thickest strings are the ones players learn to name first.
Two strings over, three frets up
The same idea from the D or G string needs one extra fret. The reason is the one irregularity in standard tuning: the gap between the G and B strings is a major third where every other gap is a fourth. Knowing which version of the shape applies is really just knowing where that third is.
Five frets across
A note on one string is the same note on the next thinner string five frets lower — four frets between the G and B strings, for that same reason. This is also why the guitar tunes to itself at the fifth fret and to the fourth fret on that one pair.
The whole neck as a table
| Open string | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E4 | F | F♯ | G | G♯ | A | A♯ | B | C | C♯ | D | D♯ | E |
| B3 | C | C♯ | D | D♯ | E | F | F♯ | G | G♯ | A | A♯ | B |
| G3 | G♯ | A | A♯ | B | C | C♯ | D | D♯ | E | F | F♯ | G |
| D3 | D♯ | E | F | F♯ | G | G♯ | A | A♯ | B | C | C♯ | D |
| A2 | A♯ | B | C | C♯ | D | D♯ | E | F | F♯ | G | G♯ | A |
| E2 | F | F♯ | G | G♯ | A | A♯ | B | C | C♯ | D | D♯ | E |
Learn it while you are playing it
Naming notes off a chart is one skill; knowing what you just played is a different one. The trainer listens through your microphone, lights the notes it hears on this same fretboard, and names the chord they add up to — so the map fills itself in from the playing you were going to do anyway.
Open the fretboard in the trainer
Runs in the browser. Nothing to install.