1. The Music Alphabet

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It might be hard to believe, but virtually all the music you hear is built from just 12 different notes.

We will call these 12 notes the music alphabet.

The music alphabet is one of the foundations of music theory. Scales, chords, intervals, melodies, and the notes on your guitar fretboard all come from these same 12 notes. Once you understand how they are organized, a lot of the theory we’ll cover later becomes much easier.

Fortunately, there isn’t much to memorize.

The Seven Natural Notes

Music uses seven letter names:

A – B – C – D – E – F – G

These are called the natural notes.

After G, the sequence simply begins again at A. You can keep moving through these same seven letters no matter how high or low the notes become.

But that gives us only seven notes, and we said there were twelve. So where do the other five come from?

Sharps and Flats

The remaining notes fall between certain natural notes. We name them using sharps and flats.

A sharp (#) means a note is one step higher.

For example:

C# = C sharp

A flat (b) means a note is one step lower.

For example:

Bb = B flat

Here’s where things get interesting: the same pitch can often have two different names.

The note between C and D, for example, can be called:

C# — because it is one step above C

or

Db — because it is one step below D

Different name, same sounding note.

Which name we use depends on the musical situation. We’ll get into the reasons for that later. For now, the important thing is simply to recognize that C# and Db refer to the same pitch.

All 12 Notes

Put the natural notes together with the sharps and flats and we get the complete musical alphabet:

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

Then the pattern starts over again at A.

There’s one detail worth noticing right away:

There is no note between B and C, and no note between E and F.
(there actually is but thats for later

That little fact is going to become very important when we start applying the musical alphabet to the guitar.

Seeing It on a Keyboard

One of the easiest ways to see the 12-note musical alphabet is on a piano keyboard—and you definitely don’t need to know how to play piano to use it as a visual reference.

The white keys show the natural notes:

A, B, C, D, E, F, G

The black keys show the sharps and flats that fall between them.

Looking at the keyboard also makes it easy to see those two places where there is no black key: between B and C, and between E and F.

Let’s take a look.

Now you might have noticed something strange here;

There is no # or b note in between B and C or between E and F.

This is just the way our musical language has evolved.

So, remember there is no B# or Cb or E# or Fb.

And that’s the musical alphabet!

Try These Practical Exercises:

Grab your guitar and take a look at the musical alphabet in action!

Exercise 1

  1. Start on the note A at the 5th fret on the low E string
  2. Move up 1 fret to the 6th fret. You’re now on the next note in the

musical alphabet (A# or Bb)

  1. Go up 1 fret to the 7th fret. You’re now on the next note: B
  2. Keep going saying each note name as you go until you reach A

again up at the 17th fret.

  1. You just played all 12 notes in the music alphabet along the E
    string
  2. Exercise