Learn Every Note on Guitar with Chromatic Scales

Learn every note on guitar with single-string chromatic scales. In this lesson you can learn every note on the guitar quite easily as long as you know the musical alphabet. This is a very important lesson that students often overlook. Be sure to say the note names out loud to ensure you absorb the notes rather than just play the fingering. Reading the music is not completely necessary (but still useful). Instead, memorize the musical alphabet and look at your hands. Later on you can incorporate more reading skills.

Students using my Method Book Volume 2 will see these exercises on the page before learning the 3rd and 5th position reading. Here’s the YouTube link if you want to watch it there.

Learning Every Note on the Guitar with Single Strings

• When you play every fret on the guitar up a single-string you are playing a chromatic scale (every note in the musical alphabet).
• By knowing the musical alphabet you can know every note on the guitar

The Musical Alphabet

• There are 12 notes in the traditional musical alphabet
• Some notes have two different names but share the same pitch (sound), these are called enharmonic notes (indicted below with slash marks).
• All the vertically aligned notes below are the same pitch (sound).

Don’t overthink it

• Students usually start by learning the notes: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C
• After that they learn that there are 12 notes (pitches) in the musical alphabet
• If you use sharps: C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B, C
• If you use flats: C, Db, D, Eb, E, F, Gb, G, Ab, A, Bb, B, C
• Enharmonic notes share the same pitch (sound) but have different names