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Electric Guitar Manual

Guitar Notes and Start Playing

KNOW All the Guitar Notes Distributed by the Fingerboard in a Single Chart, and How to Start Practicing in a Simple Way.

Notes Guitar in the Fretboard

  • The notes of the sixth string and the first string are the same, but two octaves apart.
  • Starting at the 12th fret, the notes are repeated again as if we were playing the open strings, but with an octave difference.
  • The notes that appear in yellow are sharps (#) and flats (b). If we look at the note of the first string on the second fret, between F and G, we have the F sharp (F#) or the G Flat (Gb), since this note can be named in one way or another.

Guitar Notes

Guitar Fretboard Notes

Guitar Notes (Left Handed)

Guitar Notes (Left Handed)

How to LEARN All THE NOTES on the Guitar

A scale is made up of seven notes that are repeated again, but one octave above, or one octave below.

Therefore, after the G note (bottom right), an A note would come again, but an octave above. And before the A note (bottom left), we would have a G note, but an octave below.

musical notes in different octaves

The scales are made up of seven notes, and after the seventh they are repeated again, which is why it is called octave…, the same note with an octave difference.

The notes are also named by numbers (degrees), the 1 being the first note of the scale (the tonic note), and the note that gives the name to the scale and the key.

Major Scale Degrees
major scale degree names

How to Placing Your Fingers on the Guitar Strings

We must place our fingers just behind the fret that we want to play (image below left), or between fret and fret (image below center).

How To Pluck Guitar Strings for Beginners

How to Start Playing Guitar

First of all, we will mount some fine gauge strings on the guitar, so as not to overstrain the fingers. Some light caliber 09 – 42 will be enough for electric guitar, and some 11 – 52 for acoustic guitar. Although it may hurt a little at first until we develop calluses on the tips of our fingers.

Practice With the C Major Scale

We will practice the C Major Scale, playing the scale from top to bottom and from bottom to top. With this exercise the fingers will begin to exercise, the fingertips will stiffen, and we will learn a fragment of the C Major scale on the fretboard. We will assign a finger to each fret, plucking the notes on the left (fret 5) with the index finger, and those on the right (fret 8) with the little finger.

basic scale of C major for beginner

Learn the C Major Pentatonic Scale

Now we will practice the C Major Pentatonic Scale. We will start by playing the C note on the 5th or 6th string, and we will follow the scale up and down. We will leave the notes that are on the left for the index finger, and the rest for the third or fourth finger. This scale only has five notes, and to begin with it will be easier for us to perform.

pentatonic-basic-Scale-beginner

The song “Let it be” by The Beatles is a song that is in the key of C Major. Put the song in your equipment of music, and you can now improvise on it with this scale, finishing the times on the green notes (1st Tonic), yellow (3rd Median) or blue (5th Dominant). George Harrison precisely bases his guitar solo on the structure above.

Once our fingers have exercised a bit practicing this scale, we can start practicing OPEN CHORDS. These chords would be the most basic and main, apart from being the easiest chords to place.

Chord Dictionary

COMPLETE GLOSSARY OF CHORDS with Three Different Positions for each Chord, and with the Notes of which they are Made Up.