
Musicians know this as Middle C regardless which instrument is being played. The note c′ is an absolute pitch which has a frequency of 261.626 Hz, also written C4 in scientific pitch notation. Middle Cīy convention the term Middle C refers to c′.

The exact upper limit depends on how many frets your guitar has, but it will be around here. The next octave range after that starts c′′′… and so on, but once you’ve reached c′′′ you’re pretty much at the top of the guitar’s range. The octave range starting on middle C is written c′ d′ e′ f′ g′ a′ b′, and the octave range starting one octave above Middle C is written c′′ d′′ e′′ f′′ g′′ a′′ b′′. The next octave range is the one starting one octave below middle C, and that is written c d e f g a b. For the guitar we don’t need to worry about notes any lower than this, because the E within this range is the guitar’s lowest string played open. The notes in the octave range starting two octaves below Middle C are written C D E F G A B. A Helmholtz octave range always starts at C and ends at B. It shows musical pitches using slightly different symbols in each octave range. This notation may be a little unfamiliar-but it’s actually very straightforward.
#Fretboard notes pdf
The following diagram shows all the natural notes on a guitar with standard tuning, using Helmholtz pitch notation.įor printable PDF versions of the fretboard images in this blog post, see the last section below

This allows you to refer to absolute pitches, rather than relative note names, and learn where to play the same absolute note on different strings. The natural notesĪlthough not many guitar books do this, I’ve found it incredibly helpful to write the note names on the fretboard using a notation that distinguishes notes in different octave ranges.

In order to learn where the notes are, let’s start by writing out the note names on the fretboard. The strings, frets and inlays (dots or other markings) don’t map on to note names in an obvious way. Looking at a guitar fretboard can be a bit daunting because its layout doesn’t offer any obvious clues about where the notes are. Later posts will cover some rudimentary music theory and visualization tools to help you to understand how the notes are arranged. What follows is a basic introduction to the notes on the guitar fretboard, also known as the fingerboard. While you can get by playing chords and patterns on the guitar without knowing individual notes by name, at some point you probably want to learn the note names across the fretboard-perhaps in order to help remember what you’ve played, read and write music, and communicate with other musicians.
