Lesson 4: Note Names

This lesson assumes you’ve got a guitar that’s in tune and have memorized your string names (lesson 1).

Learning your note names is a foundational piece of knowledge that will support future lessons on intervals, bar chords, scales, chord progressions and more.

We are going to focus on the note names on the Low E string and A string. Once we have the note names on those strings memorized we will learn octave patterns to identify note names on the other strings. Finally, we will apply what we learned about note names to “power chords” which we can use to play many songs!

Part 1: Note Names
Music notes are named A through G.
- All notes have a sharp except B (goes strait to C) and E (goes strait to F).
- Every note has a flat except C (goes strait to B) and F (goes strait to E).

Let’s start with the A string (Because A is a good place to start)
A string note names:

Again notice, that there is no sharp/flat between B/C and E/F

Take a few moments and try to commit that rule to memory:
Everything has a sharp/flat except for B/C and E/F.

Next, memorize the note names of the open string and the frets with dots
(Open A, 3rd fret - C, 5th fret - D, 7th fret - E, 9th fret - F#, 12th fret - A).

Spend 10 minutes or so on this for now. Play the notes and say the name:
A,C,D,E,F#, A

Once you’ve got these note names committed to memory, see if you can use that rule (everything has a #/b except B/C and E/F) to identify other note names. Identify and play the notes below:

- Where is C#?
- Where is Db?
- Where is F
- Where is A#

Good job (I hope :) - if not, spend more time here).

Let’s move on to the E string:

Once again. memorize the note names of the frets with dots
(Open E, 3rd fret - G, 5th fret - A, 7th fret - B, 9th fret - C#, 12th fret E).

Once you’ve got these note names committed to memory, see if you can use that rule (everything has a #/b except B/C and E/F) to identify other note names. Identify and play the notes below:

- Where is G#?
- Where is Ab?
- Where is Bb?
- Where is F?

I certainly hope this lesson went well! In the next lesson we will apply this knowledge to octaves patterns. See you there!

Happy practice!

Video lesson available to subscribers :)