Tag Archives: notes on the fretboard

Lesson 8: The BEAD-GCF Pattern

Remember you can zoom in and out on the images in this post by pressing Ctrl + and -. This lesson builds upon Lesson 6: The Five Fret Pattern.

Five Fret Pattern 1st String

The Five Fret Pattern occurs because of the particular way in which the guitar strings are tuned 5 frets apart. The great thing about this is that it makes the guitar reflect fundamental patterns in western music. This is why I think it’s so important for guitar players to learn music theory for the guitar in a way that is specific to the instrument and not just a rehashing of piano lessons.

If you take any starting note and you keep moving up 5 frets along an imaginary infinitely long guitar string, you will eventually cycle through all the different notes (a real guitar string isn’t long enough but the same thing happens when you move vertically across the strings).

Guitar Fretboard Diagram

For example, start with the B note on the lowest string, move 5 frets to the right and you’ll find an E (or follow the Five Fret Pattern and move up to the next string). When you move along another 5 frets (or the next string using the Five Fret Pattern) you’ll reach the A note. If you continue following this pattern you’ll encounter all the notes in the following order:

B – E – A – D – G – C – F – A# / Bb – D# / Eb – G# / Ab – C# / Db – F# / Gb and then the pattern starts at the beginning again: B – E – A – D – G – C – F etc. It’s a circular pattern.

To help you remember this pattern more easily you can simplify it to:

B – E – A – D – G – C – F – Bb – Eb – Ab – Db – Gb

Pronounce the first four notes as the word BEAD and remember the next three with the mnemonic Get Carter For me (after the movie Get Carter). Finally repeat the first five note names but as flats Bb – Eb – Ab – Db – Gb.

Now look at the notes on the fretboard again and see how this pattern appears across the strings. Find the B on the lowest string, then the E on the next string, the A etc and remember that this pattern follow the Five Fret Pattern so it shifts over to the right for the two highest strings.

Pick another note on the lowest string, for example the A at the 5th fret. The next notes are D – G – C, then remember to follow the Five Fret Pattern by moving a fret to the right to find F and Bb.

This pattern is another tool to help you learn all of the notes on the guitar fretboard, but it will also help you learn the Circle of 4ths and 5ths, a fundamental tool for understanding music theory. The Circle of 4ths and 5ths will be covered in the next lesson.

Lesson 2: How To Memorise The Notes On The Guitar Fretboard

Download the accompanying e-book for this lesson here.

I admit that when I first started playing guitar I was intimidated by the amount of notes on the guitar fretboard. I thought I would never be able to remember them all. After all, a guitar with 24 frets will have 144 different note locations to remember. Luckily I found out that there are really simple ways to to memorize all the notes on a guitar fretboard within a couple of days… if you know the right way to go about it.

First of all we can cut the number of positions that need to be remembered in half because the guitar fretboard repeats after the 12th fret (the first 12 frets are an octave, the next 12 are the octave above it). The notes appear in the exact same order from the 12th to the 24th fret as they do from the 1st to the 12th. This means there are now only 72 note locations to remember.

In total there are 12 different notes in western music, these are: C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G, G#/, A, A#/Bb and B. As you can see the #’s and b’s (sharps and flats) lie between the notes C and D, D and E, F and G, G and A, A and B. So we can now cut the number of notes we need to learn down to just 42 because we will automatically see the sharps and flats appear between the other notes once we’ve memorized the positions of C, D, E, F, G and A.

Now find an image of all the notes on the fretboard (you can find one in the free e-book that you get when you join the Guitar Theory Revolution newsletter) and find the universal note pattern that every note follows. Between the 1st and 12th fret each note appears once on each of the six strings. If you take the start of the pattern to be the notes appearing on the low and high E string then you’ll see the pattern repeat over and over for each note.

Learning this note pattern is probably the quickest way to learn all the notes on the guitar fretboard, although there are others. For example if you know the circle of fifths and fourths then you’ll easily be able to find all the notes because the strings on the guitar are tuned in fifths. The circle of fourths and fifths will be covered in future articles and lessons.

As I mentioned earlier it is best to focus on the notes C, D, E, F, G, A and B first because that way you’ll automatically start seeing the sharps and flats between them. In addition you should always sing the notes that you are playing in order to improve your ability to recognize notes by ear.

Finally make sure you learn the locations of the notes without reference to other notes. Although it’s helpful in the beginning it’s not good to keep doing this as it will slow you down because you’ll always be checking where other notes are before you can find the one you really want.

To memorize all the notes in the proper way check out the exercises and diagrams in the free e-book How To Learn All The Notes On The Guitar Fretboard which you can download when you sign up for the Guitar Theory Revolution newsletter.

5 reasons why you should learn all the notes on the guitar

Many people put off learning all the notes on the guitar fretboard because it can seem like an overwhelming amount to memorize. This article will show you why you need to learn all the notes on a guitar. You’ll also be told about the universal note pattern that every single note shares that makes learning all the notes incredibly easy.

1. You’ll understand which notes make up a chord in a particular chord

When you can see all the note names across the fretboard you’ll instantly see which notes feature in the chords you are using. This is one of the best ways to get started with music theory for guitar because you’ll quickly memorize the notes in the standard chords that you use all the time.

2. You’ll be able to play chords all over the neck

Most people are stuck with playing the same old chords in the same old open positions. I’m talking about the the chords C, D, E, F, G and A. Some people progress a little beyond that and are able to play bar-chords. But did you know that any chord has 5 easy to play variations you can play in stead of the the standard open positions? You’ll see these chord variations appear all over the neck once you’ve memorized all the notes.

3. You’ll get better at soloing and improvising

When you know all the notes on the guitar you’ll instantly become better at soloing and improvising . You won’t ever be afraid of hitting a bum note again because you won’t be blindly flailing around on the fretboard. Don’t be one of those people that kids themselves that they can play only by ear. Don’t get me wrong, playing by ear is the essence of music but most people haven’t done any ear training and can only hear bad notes when it’s too late, after they’ve played them.

This also helps you avoid getting trapped in the dreaded ‘scale boxes’ because you see scales as a collection of notes rather than patterns.

4. Better communication with other musicians

I’ve found it much easier to communicate with other musicians while jamming and improvising now that I know all the note names on the guitar. I can tell people which notes are in my riffs and chords making it a lot less confusing than naming string and fret numbers.

5. More confidence while performing

I’ve noticed that since I’ve learned all the note positions that I’m a lot more confident while performing in front of people. I still make the occasional mistake but now I know the names of those mistakes and can investigate why it didn’t sound right (or why it sounded good, some mistakes can be positive after all) by analyzing how it fits into the overall piece of music. Doing this kind of theoretical analysis is much easier now that I know all the note names.

The Universal Note Pattern

The big trick (that not many people know about) that will make learning all the notes easy is knowing the universal note pattern. It’s a pattern that all notes share and is easy to see when you look at an image of the notes on the fretboard. It shows how within any 12 fret range a single note appears 6 times and only once on each string.

If you want to see an image of the pattern be sure to sign up for the Guitar Theory Revolution newsletter so you can download the free e-book: How To Learn All The Notes On The Guitar Fretboard.