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More on Notes

Below is a graphic showing a few notes (represented by the blue ovals) rising from bass to treble. Their names are based on the first seven letters of the alphabet: A B C D E F G and they're named from low to high. The green panel encloses one octave of notes, in this case from A to A.


Notice that there are some gaps between the named notes, there are some 'in between' notes. They're named differently, using the symbols 'sharp' and 'flat'.

 

(Because of browser incompatibility, I'll just use the hash sign (#) and a lowercase B (b) for those symbols throughout the site.)

# means higher by one semitone, b means lower by one semitone. So a C# is the same note as a Db. It's the note that is "higher than C" and "lower than D". The reason for this duality is of no concern at this stage, it's just a pain in the neck. They're called either one or the other, not both. For example, the note between A and B is either called A# or Bb. The rule about how to choose which are which is not important at this stage.

You'll also notice in two instances that there is no in-between note. B goes straight to C and E goes straight to F. So here is a graphic now showing all the note names starting and ending at A.

Here's another way of looking at notes. In this image, the lowest note is C (it can be any note) and 12 steps later, we're back to C. Notice that both C's are lined up in the same way, illustrating the fact they they are the same note, but one octave apart, which is represented in this analogy by the vertical distance between them. The vertical distance between each step is a "semitone", or (don't let this confuse you) a "half-step". Look at this spiral staircase continuing up and down through three octaves to get the full picture of how notes work. An acoustic guitar has about 4 1/2 octaves of usable notes, an electric, a little more.

These 12 notes (+ their octaves), taken together, are called the Chromatic Scale.

Those blank steps are the ones that can have two different names, either "sharp" of the name below, or "flat" of the name above. So the step between F and G is either F# or Gb, but whatever it's called, it is in fact the same note. (Later on, as you get more into theory, you'll learn why this is, but for the time being there's no real need to worry about it.)

 

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This is how notes are laid out on the fretboard →