Page 7 - Guitar Book

Now we understand what we mean when we say top and bottom and that
there are 6 strings each tuned to an individual note. Before we go any further,
it’s time for a very small bit of music theory. Notes are put into an order by
what we refer to as a Scale. I’m not going to bore you too much with this at
the moment but I do want you to take as read that the notes will go up in this
order from the note of E (The bottom note we have):

E F F# G Ab A Bb B C Db D Eb E
(# = Sharp notes b = Flat notes)

If we apply these notes now to the Bottom E string (The thickest one) we can
follow that pattern down the fretboard.

Lets give that a go. Firstly pluck the string without putting your fingers on the
fretboard. The note you get is E.

Now put your index finger on the same string in the gap between the nut and
the first fret and then pluck the string once more. The sound you now get is
the note of F

Now move down to the next gap between the 1st and 2nd fret and repeat the
process. The note you hear will be F# (F Sharp).

Now continue down the fretboard until you get to the twelve fret. The notes
you have played will be as the notes above.

Right, lets try a different string. Move to the A String (That’s the next one
down) and do the same thing. What you will notice is that the notes now
start from the A note in our scale. The scale of notes for this string will go as
follows:

A Bb B C Db D Eb E F F# G Ab A

Now try to work out how the rest of the strings will go in it’s scale using the
letters at the top of the fretboard diagram

If you get stuck the answers are on the next page but do try to suss it out
without peeking.

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