The Musical Alphabet

In music, we have a unique alphabet that contains just 12 notes.  This musical alphabet is used for ALL INSTRUMENTS, including guitar, piano, saxophone, and voice. 

This alphabet is known as the CHROMATIC SCALE (Every Note scale). Memorizing this scale forward AND backward is the first step to understanding theory, you can’t learn a new language without learning the alphabet!

The 12 Note Chromatic Scale is made up of:

• 7 “Natural” notes labeled A through G, though traditionally we start on C. (The White Keys)
• 5 “Accidental” notes labeled as Sharps( # )  and Flats (♭). (The Black Keys)

One interesting aspect of the musical alphabet is that it loops around continuously. Once you’ve reached the end of the alphabet, it starts over again. The scale repeats in different registers, meaning higher or lower versions of the same notes. Because of this, we can begin this scale/alphabet on ANY NOTE! One time through these 12 notes is called an Octave.

Each guitar string is laid out with this alphabet/scale, though each string starts on a different note depending on how the string is tuned.  Check out the graphic below to see how the musical alphabet is laid on a single guitar string, then head over to The Alphabet on Guitar to see how this works on all six strings!