The Alphabet on Guitar

Knowing the alphabet (aka CHROMATIC SCALE) forward and backward is crucial for learning the notes on the guitar. It’s also essential to be able to start this scale on any note.

The strings on a guitar are individual chromatic scales, But they all start at different places on the scale.  

Each string is tuned to a particular note (Low E, A, D, G, B, and High E), which is our starting note on that string.   Every fret up the neck is the following note in the scale.

Usually, the 12th fret of a guitar is marked with a “double dot” or some other marker to signify one octave (one full time through the scale) from the open string note. On this page, we’ll see how the chromatic scale works on each string.

Once we reach the 12th fret or “double dot,” the alphabet just starts over again until you run out of frets!

Check out this excellent exercise for memorizing the notes over the fretboard!

In the next lesson, we’ll talk about how we HEAR notes.