Page 6 - Fretband Vol.1

Learn Your “Open notes” means
playing a string without
Open Notes holding down any of the
frets. We use these note
names to tune our guitar.

First things first, in order to tune and play our guitar it is important to know the name of each
string. First let’s set up our guitar with the fretBand labeled 12. Wrap the FretBand around the
12th fret of our guitar as shown in the diagram below. If you are using an acoustic guitar then it
will be best to apply your FretBand on the 10th fret to avoid the heel that connects the neck to the
body that may prevent a proper wrap with your FretBand.
Acoustic Guitar Electric Guitar

E E
B B
G G
D D
A A
E E

Now that we have our FretBand attached to our guitar let’s take a closer look. Hold you guitar
straight out in front of you with the fretboard facing you. The letters on your FretBand tells you
what note will be played if you were to pluck each string without pressing down any of the strings
with your fretting hand. These are referred to as your open notes. Keep your guitar held out in
front of you for one minute.

*FretBand Visualization Exercise
FretBands add a visual learning element that is proven to accelerate your understanding and progress of
this great instrument. Before the start of each daily practice you will hold your guitar facing towards you
for one minute. Look closely at the FretBand labels attached to the fretboard. Focus on what your looking
at. For example; if your learning a scale look at its shape, if its a chord learn what notes make up that
chord and study its shape. The point of this exercise is to add in a visual connection to the materials that

While holding the guitar in its proper positioning, the string closest to the ground is called the e
string. The next strings in ascending order are: the B string, the G string, the D string, the A string,
and the E string. It is important to remember that when a string is referred to as either high or low
it is in reference to their pitch; not their height. When a lesson tells you to do something on the
high e string it is actually referring to the small string closest to the ground.
While you are learning the letter names of the strings, you will also learn a different desig-
nation for them called string numbering. This classification system will be used a lot in the lessons
and is also very simple. The high e string is called the 1st string and each ascending string goes up
one number. The B string is the 2nd string, the G string is the 3rd string and so on. In lessons if
you are told to go to the 2nd string third fret you would know to place your finger on the third fret
of the B string. A common mistake with this numbering system is to assume that the 1st string
is the low E string. Just remember that the 1st string is closest to the floor and the 6th
string is all the way at the top.