Learn Every Note On Your Fretboard In Minutes

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Forget memorizing the entire fretboard at once. We start where it counts most: the sixth string, the low E. You’ll learn a practical map that turns guesswork into certainty by pairing the chromatic scale with the guitar’s visual cues. We break down the “BE” shortcut so half steps make sense, show how to lock F, G, A, B, C, D to odd-numbered frets, and explain why that single sequence instantly improves your chords, scales, and riff targeting.

We walk through a clean framework: open E, then 1, 3, 5 for F, G, A; add 7 for B; place C at 8 and D at 10 around the ninth-dot trap; and finish at the 12th-fret octave to mirror everything you’ve learned. With that core in place, sharps and flats stop being speed bumps. Need G sharp? Move one up from G. Need E flat? Move one up from D or one down from E. Enharmonics become a tool, not a tangle.

The best part is how quickly this sticks. Use quick-fire prompts without even holding a guitar: what note is at 5, where’s C, what lives at 10, what’s A sharp near? You’ll build recall that survives stage lights and practice fatigue. Once the sixth string feels automatic, you’ll be ready to map the fifth string with the same method, shifting only where those half steps land.

If this helped you see the fretboard in a new way, follow the show, share it with a guitarist who’s stuck on note names, and leave a review telling us which drill clicked for you most. Your feedback guides future lessons and keeps these shortcuts coming.

Links:

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https://academy.guitarzoom.com/

• Steve’s Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/stinemus...
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• Songs Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/GuitarSo... .

Episode Transcript

Steve (00:00):
All right, so in this video, what I want to do is just
show you a shortcut to learningthe notes on each string of
your guitar.
We're going to start with thesixth string, which arguably
would be probably the mostimportant one because you build
your scales and your bar chordsand all that sort of thing off
of there.
And so there's a couple thingsI want to say about that.
Number one is don't be in a bighurry to get to all of the

(00:21):
strings until you've really,really learned, you know,
absorbed the topic or theconcept on the sixth string to
where you can do it back tofront.
There's nothing to think about.
You just play it and you knowwhere the notes are.
And it doesn't take long,especially with what I'm going
to talk about here.
When you get there, then youcould move to the fifth string
and do the same thing on thefifth string in its own way.

(00:43):
And then what I like to tellpeople is the best thing you
could do at that point is startcross-referencing the notes on
the sixth string to the fifthstring.
Not just learning the fourthstring and the third string and
so on, but get again, get reallycomfortable with where things
are.
Not that you have to find them,but you know where they are.
So in order to learn the noteson the guitar, the first thing
you have to understand, realquick, is what we call the

(01:06):
chromatic scale.
Now, the chromatic scale issimply all the notes available
to us in music.
And I'm going to give you a bitof a shortcut to that too.
There's really only 12 notes inmusic.
Okay.
You might see a piano with 88keys.
There's not 88 different notes.
There's only 12 notes.
And so the shortcut is thinkabout it this way, almost like a
circle.
Think about A, B, C, D, E, F,G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.

(01:31):
When we go around over and overand over, we're going up or
down what we call an octave.
So if you found A on the pianoand you went to the next A,
you're going up an octave, andthen it's the same notes.
If you went down on the pianoand found the next A, you're
going down an octave.
So A, B, C, D, E, F, G, there'sno H or Q or something like

(01:51):
that.
It's just A, B, C, D, E, F, andG.
Now, those would be the whitekeys on the piano.
Now, the black keys on thepiano would be what we call the
accidentals, the sharps or theflats.
Now let's just talk in terms ofsharps to begin with so we can
understand what this is.
So if you thought about it, ifevery white key, uh what we'll
call a prime note, A, B, C, D,E, F, and G, if every one of

(02:14):
those notes got a black key, anA sharp, C sharp, D sharp, so on
like that, we'd wind up with 14notes because we have seven A,
B, C, D, E, F, G, right?
And if all of them got sharps,we'd wind up with 14 notes.
Well, we don't have 14, we onlyhave 12.
And the reason is if you thinkabout what a piano looks like,

(02:34):
you've probably noticed thatthere's a couple of spots on the
piano where there's no blackkey in between the white keys.
Okay?
So the shortcut here is thatthose notes that that don't get
sharps are B and E, which spellsthe word B.
Okay?
So all you really have to thinkabout is you have the notes A,

(02:55):
A sharp, B, C, C sharp, D, Dsharp, E, F, F sharp, G, G
sharp, and then it starts allover on A again.
Shortcut, A through G,everybody gets sharps except for
B and E, which spells the wordB.
So now if we go to the guitarand we want to learn where those
notes are, we're going to usethe dots on the guitar or the

(03:16):
odd numbered frets.
Some people don't have dots,some people don't have a dot at
the first fret.
It's okay.
We're going to be using the oddnumbered frets.
And if you do have dots, itcertainly helps from a visual
perspective.
But it's not necessary.
So if we took the six string,for instance, and I plucked the
sixth string, the note I'mhearing is E.
If I'm tuned in a standard way,in a regular old way, this note

(03:37):
would be E.
Okay.
So the first thing I have todo, of course, is memorize that
the sixth string is E when Ipluck it.
Now let's keep going.
So if I go to the first fret,which is an odd number, some of
you would have uh dots, some ofyou would not.
That's an F.
Okay.
So E, F, 0, 1.
Now what we want to do is wewant to start working with the
odd numbers or the dots on thefretboard.

(04:00):
So we've got 1, 3, 5.
Let's just start with 1, 3, and5.
So this note is F.
And it is.
This note would be F sharp, butwe don't care about that right
now.
This is G.
This would be G sharp, but wedon't care about that right now.
This is A.
So we have F G A.
F G A.
135 F G A.

(04:20):
And what you want to do is youwant to tell yourself 1, 3, 5,
and F G A.
You want to make therelationship between the fret
number and the name of the notethat exists there.
One is F, three is G, five isA.
You might have somebody quizyou on it.
Now, that doesn't seem like alot of information, but if you
think about it, we're almosthalfway through the entire
fretboard.
So even if you just learnedone, three, five, FGA today and

(04:44):
then learn the rest tomorrow andthe next day or whatever, it
would take you no time at all tolearn this.
So F is one, G is three, fiveis A.
That's what it is.
F G A, one, three, five.
Okay.
Learn it back back and forth.
One, three, five, F G A, makethat relationship.
Now, once you absolutely knowthat F is on one and G is on

(05:07):
three and five is A here, thenin between those you would know
F, F sharp.
G, G sharp.
So if you know where G is andsomebody wants G sharp, you just
move up one.
If you know where F is, youabsolutely know where F is.
And you want F sharp, you justmove up one.
Now, what are flats?
Well, flats are oppositesharps.

(05:28):
So if you have F sharp, it'sthe same as G flat.
F sharp and G flat are the samenote.
They just have two differentnames.
We call it an N harmonic, whichreally means it's just the same
note with two different names,F sharp and G flat.
So as guitar players, asmusicians, sometimes people will

(05:51):
call it F sharp, sometimespeople will call it G flat.
For us, we know what it is.
We know where it is.
We can work with that.
So F G A.
That's why you start with theprime notes and then the
secondary notes, sharps orflats, we can find by proxy
because we know where the primenotes are.
So F G A 135.
Start with that.

(06:12):
Now let's say you get reallygood with that and we want to
add on one more.
So we add on the next oddnumber, F G A B.
So this dot, seventh fret oddnumber is B.
F G A B, 1357, F G A B.
And again, have somebody maybein your family quiz you on that.
You know, they might say, youmight just tell them, ask me

(06:32):
these questions.
Where's F, where's G, where'sA, where's B?
And then you're just gonna sayone, seven, five, three, one,
five, three, seven, whatever, asthey ask you that.
And then you can tell them, askme what is at one, three, five,
and seven.
And again, they can go in anyorder they want, and you're
gonna think about that.
So you don't need your guitarto do that.

(06:53):
You need your you to thinkabout that.
You need to visualize that andmake that connection in your
head.
So F G A B, F G A B, 1, 3, 5,7.
Piece of cake.
Now we move on to the next one.
So the next dot, the X odd, thenext odd number is 9.
Now we do have a problem herebecause B is at 7.
We know B doesn't get a sharp,so C is at 8 and D is at 10.

(07:19):
So C and D surround this oddnumber.
It's not on the odd number, itsurrounds the odd number.
So F G A B C and D.
F G A B C and D.
1, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 10.
Obviously the dots were not puton the guitar for the six
string for everything to beperfect.
We have five other strings wehave to deal with here, right?

(07:42):
So one, three, five, seven,eight, and ten.
We're accommodating by thinkingabout where are the prime
numbers.
And that's pretty easy.
1, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 10.
1, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 10, right?
9 would technically be C sharp,but let's learn 8 and 10 around
it.
C and D.
1, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 10.
F G A B, C and D.

(08:03):
And then when you get to the12th fret with the two dots, it
just starts all over.
You started on E, now you're onE.
So one is the same as 13.
3 is the same as 15, and thedots are going to line up.
This is A, so is this.
This is B, so is this.
That's what's happening on therest of the guitar.
So it's just an octave of thefirst part of the guitar.
So my suggestion to you isdon't worry about the fifth

(08:28):
string.
What I like to tell people isif you sort of know something,
the problem is you sort of don'tknow something.
So the best thing that you cando is burn these thoughts, burn
this fret uh the sixth stringinto your brain.
F, G, A, B, C, D, know wherethose things are so you can find
them very quickly.
One, three, five, seven, eight,and ten.
So if somebody asks for A, youknow where it is.

(08:48):
If they want C, you know whereit is.
If they want F, you know whereit is.
If they want C sharp, you knowwhere it is.
If they want D sharp or E flat,again, you can get used to the
sharp and flat terminologybecause sharps and flats are
they're the same, right?
So F sharp, G flat.
You can fight it wherever youwant to go.
So start there.
And then when you go to thefifth string, you're gonna do

(09:09):
the exact same thing, but it'sgonna look a little different.
Because the fifth string, ofcourse, is starting with A.
So where the half steps are,you know, the B, the C, the E, F
stuff, it's gonna change alittle bit.
But let's not worry about thatright now.
Let's just start with the sixthstring and work from there,
okay?
Now, I don't have an end screenfor this or an end call to

(09:31):
action, uh, Lulu, because I'mactually making this for a
student.
So um you're gonna have to justadd something onto this thing.