Neutron2K's Guide to the Fretboard

Now I'm assuming that as your interested in learning Music theory and how to apply it to the guitar, that you do actually already know how to play to some degree, in which case you will be familiar with the fretboard and its properties such as the standard tunings, what frets are and where to at least find the octave for any given note on the same string. If for some reason you are not, then I advise you take a trip to http://www.zentao.com and read their tutorials on how to play guitar as this is not really a tutorial, just a little background information about the fretboard.

The fretboard as you are probably well aware is made up of a number of frets. Just how many depends on the type of guitar you are playing, but most will electric guitars will reach around 21 frets. I've heard it said that the guitar is one of the harder instruments to play in comparison with something like the piano. Metaphorically speaking this is true. With a piano, the Chromatic scale is laid out from start to finish and is very easier to follow. First key of a piano the note of C and it works upwards from there, and covers a vast number of octaves. However guitarists do not share this luxury.

Octaves

On the guitar, players have access to a limited number of octaves, where as a pianist has them all laid out at their fingers as they can use both hands. On the guitar, a guitarist has access to just over 2 octaves immediately available to them under one hand. Additionally the guitar only covers around 4 octaves in total. This means a guitarist has much more work todo.What's an Octave? An octave is two identical notes which have a different pitch. This is a simple concept to understand.

Try this. First play an open low E string. Listen to the note as it rings. Then play the note on the 12th fret on the same string. You should realize they are identical notes but one has a higher pitch. Octaves are also duplicated on the guitar. You can work up the neck to reach an octave, or you can go across the neck to reach the same octave. Working up the neck on a single string, starting from an open position, the octave is ALWAYS on the 12th fret. Octaves are always 12 notes away in the chromatic scale.

So if you were to fret an F# on the 6th string (2nd fret), the octave would be located at fret 14 on the same string. These two links provide a visual image of what i mean when i say 'up the neck' and 'Across the neck'. On the first diagram, the first octave is an open string, and the 2nd octave is located at the 12th fret (the double dot). In the second diagram, the squares represent the ROOT note of a C MAJOR SCALE, but the starting point of a different octave.

Single String Sequence

Across the Strings

Tunings

Hopefully you know the standard string tunings for a guitar but this section is for use who do not.As you are (hopefully) already aware, most guitars have 6 strings. If you haven't realized this then leave now and learn to count. :The standard, universally adopted string tunings is as follows (from bottom to top) E B G D A E.

One simple way to remember this is to come up with a phrase. When I was around 14 i heard a phrase that seemed to stick:

[E]rnie
[B]all
[G]oes
[D]own
[A]n
[E]levator

I tried teaching this little phrase to one of my new students a few months back and she had no idea who Ernie Ball is. Don't look at me! i don't bloody know! All I know is he makes the slinky guitar strings! Anyway's I came up with the alternative and replaced the Ernie Ball Part with 'Eating Biscuits'. This seemed to sit well. *Incidentally Ernie Ball is a manufacturing company who is recognized by musicians as an icon credited with being an electric guitar industry pioneer.

I was right - They do make guitar strings, I should know i use them! There are lots of ways you can drop tune a guitar and it doesn't have to be just one string. Nickelback have used some severely dropped tunings in songs such as 'Too Bad' and 'Woke up this morning'. In these songs the whole guitar is tuned down to D, and the low E string (now the low D string) is also dropped again to C.Now there are a lot of other possible tunings. A Lot of groups, esp those in the Rock/Metal genre that use a tuning called drop D tuning. This is where the bass E string is de tuned by a whole step to the note of D.

Groups Such as Nickelback, Rage Against the Machine and Puddle of Mudd all use Drop D tuning in a lot of their work. There are lots of other tunings as well which are refereed to as 'Open Tunings' Open tuning is when the guitar is tuned to a non specific set of custom notes. The standard tunings and the drop tunings all follow a tuning pattern which each string its tuned to. With open tuning, there are no rules. Tune to what u like! Obviously there are exceptions to this from a harmony point of view. For eg. if u tuned the D string to A# and just played the A and D strings together the results would be disastrous. Open tunings are also used excessively with Slide guitarists.

Note Locations

This is quite possibly the most boring part of practicing theory, but unfortunately its pretty essential. Knowing the layout of the fretboard notes is quite imperative if you want to be able to apply things like scale theory properly. Its a long task to memo rise them all and there's various ways you can go about. Personally i don't know the entire fretboard off the top of me head, but i can work it all out in me head and i also know a number of key note locations.

I've seen it written as a practice routing to draw up a load of blank fretboard diagrams(See the downloads section) and to write out all the whole notes over and over again. Eventually it will sink in.

I followed something like this, but i also took the time to form my own ideas about where notes lie in order to help me work out what note i'm playing in the minimal amount of time possible. Here are some of my findings.

The 5th fret on any string is the exact same note as the string below it when played open. The only exception to this is the G string where by the 4th fret is the same note as an open 2nd string, i.e. B (The B String is a bitch and changes everything!)
The 7th fret on any given string is the same note as the string above it when played open. Again, B String causes problems. 8th fret on B string = Open G String
Any note played on the 6th or 5th strings, has a note an octave higher on the string 2 below and and two frets higher. e.g. The octave note for an A played on the bass E string (5th fret) is found at fret 7 on the 4th string.
The same rule above applies to the D and the G Strings, but instead of being 2 frets up, its 3. e.g. 5th fret on G string has an octave at 8th fret on the B String
Every note has an adjacent note which will always be the same anywhere (in standard tuning that is). Again the B String changes things and the matching note is one step higher.

To Visualize this points, Examine the Following Diagram. The Fretboard laid out

I think that just about covers everything. I hope this tutorial made sense. As I said there's not much I can say about the fretboard that isn't obvious. Just learn it well.