Free Video Guitar Lessons: Learning the names of the notes

In this free video guitar lesson, I will be teaching you an easy way to learn the names of the notes all over the fretboard. The notes are given Letter names like A, B, C etc, but some of the notes have a one semitone gap, (or one fret), and some have a two semitone gap. The notes that are one semitone apart are E and F, and B and C.

As I explain in the guitar lesson in the video above, the idea is to learn where all of these notes are, with the one semitone gap, and then you can tell that there are two notes on either side with a two semitone gap. Once you have learned where E and F are, you can tell that two frets above the F is a G, and two frets above that is an A. In the same way, you can tell that two frets below the E is a D, and then a C two frets below that. It takes practice learning where the notes are, but this is a good formula to follow.

Practice playing all the notes with no sharps or flats until you have all of the scale shapes mastered. This will give you the A minor scale, or one of the seven classical scales, which you can then transpose by moving the shape up, or down the guitar. In the next free video guitar lesson, I will be teaching you about changing scales in the middle of a solo, perhaps because of a change in the chords being used. I hope that this free video guitar lesson helped you to learn the names of the notes on the guitar. Remember that I also give guitar lessons from my home in Hobart, or via a free video call on Skype. You can contact me at rowancasey@bigpond.com.