In this lesson you will learn the 12 notes in music known as the chromatic scale. Millions of songs have been composed with the chromatic scale. Many different instrument use the chromatic scale as the basis for making music. This means that once you know chromatic scale, you will have the knowledge to learn how to play other instruments. The main difference will be how the notes are played and where the notes are located on the instrument.

The musical alphabet consists of the first seven letters of the alphabet A B C D E F G. These seven notes are also called natural notes because they do not contain any sharps (#) or flats (b). Here are all the natural notes on the fifth string A.

Take note of how the musical alphabet repeats back to A after G has been reached. A better representation may be a circle which loops over and over.

Sharps # and flats b

In music when a natural note is raised to the very next note above, a sharp symbol # is placed after the natural note name. When a note is lowered to the very next note below, a flat symbol b is placed after the note name.

In the key of C, if you move up from a natural note, use a sharp and if you move down from a natural note use a flat.

All natural notes are a whole step apart except E to F AND B to C. These are the location of the two natural half steps.

The very next note up from B is not B# and the very next note up from E is not E#. Notice that B up the the very next note is C and E up the to very next note is F.

Theoretically there is such thing as a B# and a E# but that is only in a few keys. This will become apparent when learning about Key signatures so until then please remember that all natural notes are a whole step apart except E to F AND B to C.

Here are some examples of notes with sharps and flats.

The very next note above D is D#.

The very next note below B is Bb and the very next note above A is A#. The notes have different names but sound the same. The main difference is how the notes are used in music notation. This will be discussed in greater detail when I talk about the keys in music.

Practice memorizing all the notes on the fretbaord. The more you practice the faster you will be at recalling the notes. Then once you have every note memorized, then you will be free to just play and not think about where the notes are located.

Here are all the notes names for each separate string.

For an in depth look at the notes in music check out Music notes

Fretboard layout