Lesson 9 / 30 6 min
Notes and the musical alphabet
The 12 notes, sharps and flats, half steps and whole steps.
Music uses only a handful of note names, repeated over and over at higher and lower pitches. Learn this little system and the whole fretboard starts to make sense.
The seven natural notes
The musical alphabet has only seven letters: A B C D E F G. After G, it starts again at A.
In many countries (including Brazil) the same notes are called Lá Si Dó Ré Mi Fá Sol — C is Dó, D is Ré, and so on.
Sharps and flats
Between most natural notes there is an extra note. We name it from its neighbors:
- ♯ (sharp) = one half step higher. C♯ is just above C.
- ♭ (flat) = one half step lower. D♭ is just below D.
C♯ and D♭ are the same sound with two names (we call them enharmonic). Which name we use depends on the key, as we'll see later.
The 12 notes
Put it all together and you get 12 different notes — the chromatic scale:
C – C♯/D♭ – D – D♯/E♭ – E – F – F♯/G♭ – G – G♯/A♭ – A – A♯/B♭ – B, and then C again.
The piano keyboard shows this beautifully: white keys are the natural notes, black keys are the sharps/flats.
Half steps and whole steps
- A half step (semitone) is the distance between two neighboring notes — one fret on the guitar.
- A whole step (tone) is two half steps — two frets.
The two exceptions
There is no black key between E and F, nor between B and C. These pairs are only a half step apart. Remember: E–F and B–C are "neighbors".
On the guitar
Every fret is one half step. On a single string you can walk through all 12 notes:
Notice that B to C (frets 2→3) and E to F (frets 7→8) are next to each other, with no note in between.
Octaves
When you reach the same letter again (A to A above), you've gone up an octave. The two notes sound like "the same note, higher". An octave is 12 half steps — 12 frets.
In the next lesson, we'll use this knowledge to find any note on the neck.