The Guitar Fretboard Chart

a fresh approach

In order to fully understand the guitar fretboard chart, you need to grasp two things beforehand:

In the beginning...

When I first decided I wanted to learn to play guitar, I had no idea what I was getting into! I started taking lessons: classical, jazz, you name it. The years went by, but one thing remained constant: not one of my teachers -many of them top-notch, world renowned guitar players- was able to give me a method for memorizing notes on the fretboard, other than saying:

"Well, play every note, fret by fret,
string by string, saying their names, until you've memorized them."

No mention of trying to understand what the heck was going on!

I was still looking for the ultimate guitar learning method....

So then I went to the books...

Here's what I found out -every guitar method published (ok, most) has a guitar fretboard diagram that looks like this:

Fretboard Chart 1:
This shows fret by fret note correlation for each string:
The whole thing repeats, one octave up, after fret 12

Or you might find a guitar fretboard chart that looks like this (exact same thing, but with less information, since it says nothing of specific pitch "height"):

Fretboard Chart 2:
Same thing, replacing the staves for note names

This is not new. You can find many versions of this guitar fretboard chart on the web, even programs that will help you learn where each note is -again- by rote.

This information has been available since the early 1800s (click here for guitar history).

Talk about novelty and innovation!

There are a myriad variations, but the basic concept is the same. After all, if you can see all the notes on this "guitar fretboard map", that should be enough to understand it fully... right?

Well, not quite... Let's it this way: if you don't understand all the underlying relationships within that fretboard diagram, you're not likely to have learned much, if anything at all (at a practical level- what you really need) from it.

This results in very poor musicianship.

There is a guitar method that suggests exploring the guitar string by string, learning scale patterns on each string and improvising on them as a good starting point to get to know the guitar.

This is actually a great idea. But that still hasn't really explained the fretboard from within: it is as if we learned to play each string as an independent instrument. What we guitarists are badly in the need of is a way of looking at the guitar that will let us understand and grasp it visually, much like we do with the piano: guitar theory!

Let's get down to business...

A good way to start is to take only natural notes (no accidentals, i.e. sharps or flats) into account. We might visualize the fretboard like this:

Fretboard Chart 3:
Same thing, but only showing "white keys", for ease of visualization

Or like this, to take a look at the bass guitar fretboard:

Fretboard Chart 4:
Same for bass guitar

This last guitar fretboard chart, and bass guitar fretboard diagram are far easier to grasp, or digest in one "eyeful". And if we are super-smart, we might start spotting patterns...

Click here for a more complete explanation on the Bass Fretboard.

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GTiD TIP: Even if you don't play bass guitar, it's a really good idea to study the bass guitar fretboard chart. Since this is exactly the same as strings 3 to 6 on a guitar, and all patterns you can find there retain their symmetry perfectly on all string combinations, playing everything only on those four strings is a great starting point.

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Want to know more? Ask Alex!

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Guitar Fretboard Articles:

1. Guitar Fretboard in Depth: Back from Guitar Fretboard Chart to section overview

2.Guitar Notes: A view along the Fretboard, and other important points

3. Fretboard Diagram- string by string: still looking along the fretboard, at scales and modes this time

4. Guitar Tuning and the Fretboard: a view across the guitar fretboard

5. The Guitar Fretboard Chart explained afresh -also for Bass players

6. 24 Frets: The full diagram

Top of Guitar Fretborad Chart