Acoustic Guitar Notes

Jive-Zombie

Jive-Zombie

Jive-Zombie

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30 Jan 2005
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I just started learning Acoustic Guitar about 6 days ago so be nice.

I've been struggling a tiny bit figuring out what the names of the notes on the dots are on the 2nd string.

My Guess - 2nd String ( B ) - D E F# G# B

I think D and E maybe wrong. D most definatly. When doing the two moves i ran out of neck so i had to guess.

Also am i correct in saying all the notes on 4th 3rd and 2nd are.

4th ( D ) - D# E F F# G G# A A# B C C# D

3rd ( G ) - G# A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G

2nd ( B ) - C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B

I just want to make sure I haven't got it wrong and am just wasting time.

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.
 
There are 12 notes in the 'musical language' (at least the language us 'westerners' use), these are:

A, A#/Bb, B, C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F ,F#/Gb, G, G#/Ab, A

The notes in bold are referred to as natural notes.

Notice:

1) Each 'in between' note such as the note which lies between A and B has two different spellings: A# and Bb, don't be confused by thinking that A# is a different PITCH to Bb, it is not, they both sound exactly the same, it is the key you are playing in which dictates which of the 2 spellings you use, referring to a note as having both # (sharp) and b (flat) is to call it an ENHARMONIC NOTE.

2) There is no # or b between B and C, E and F, this is due to the division of the frequency range which some clever chaps worked out as being best split into 12, ascending 1 note from B to C is exactly the same distance as going between any 2 of the other adjacent notes of the 12 such as A# to B, F# to G, Bb to C and so on.

Each of the 12 notes represents ONE FRET on your guitar's neck on a single string, left to right, right to left, etc. If there are only 12 notes in our musical language then it should make sense to you that once you reach your 12th fret from an open string (such as E for example) you have ascended up the 12 notes available to us and thus landed again on an E note. Each string on the guitar's neck works exactly the same, from ANY POINT, so for example if you play the 3rd fret on (either..) of your E strings (the note is a G) and you ascend 12 frets (to the 15th fret) this note is also a G note. The practice of ascending (or descending) 12 notes is known as moving up/down one OCTAVE (the complete distance between 2 notes of the same name). Once you've got your head around this relatively simple idea you should hopefully begin to see that the guitar neck is not as daunting as it first seemed and you actually have HALF (if your guitar has 24 frets, unlikely if its an acoustic but you get the idea) as many notes to 'learn' as you may have initially thought.

Edit:

If you wish to understand how notes are arranged on the guitar's neck in further detail it'd be a good idea to learn how to play OCTAVES on various pairs of strings on the neck, due to normal fretting hand range and distance (interval) between each string these shapes often skip one string (E and D, A and G, D and B, G and E). If you get these shapes down you'll be able to sidestep if you like from a certain note you already know the name of on the neck to the same note on a different string one octave higher/lower, once again making the guitar's neck a much less daunting thing to navigate.
 
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I think i know what you mean. Going from E then just reversing it round until i hit E again which is what i've done. I just wanted confirmation that i've got the notes correctly.

I think i will be learning the octaves next or some chords. Plus the do re me fa so etc etc..
 
Tax Evader said:
His voice isn't great (he needs more cigars & bourbon :D ) but he's impressive on that old geetar thang!
Must try to catch him live.
Click to expand...

His own band don't play that often but you can catch him playing ACDC with us :)
Funnily enough he can play Hendrix and SRV behind his head but playing Angus's blues breaks gets at him a bit.
 
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