What are the Guitar Notes?First off, acoustic guitar notes are the same as the notes on an electric guitar. These note names are used throughout music, they aren't only guitar notes. Note names are arranged in octaves. An octave is a range of frequency. One octave is followed by another. Each octave has the same note names, and order.There are 12 notes in an octave. The notes are spaced a half-tone,(or semi-tone) apart. There is more than one octave, and each octave uses the same note names. A note in one octave, sounds like a note with the same name in another octave, except that it's higher or lower sounding. That's because the frequency of a specific note(frequency is the rate of vibration of a sound) exactly doubles in the next octave above it. An example is A-440. "A" is the name of the note, and 440 is the frequency, which would be 440 sound vibrations per second. In the next octave it would be A-880, the next would be A-1760, etc. An octave contains seven natural notes which rise in pitch from "A" to"G", and five accidentals. The names of the natural notes in an octave are A,B,C,D,E,F,and G, in that order. An accidental is either called a sharp or a flat and they occur between the natural notes. Below is a comparison list, showing the two different names for each semi-tone: The symbol I used here for a flat is "b", and the symbol for a sharp is"#"". Not every natural note has an accidental between them. There are no sharps or flats between B and C, or E and F, because they are only a semi-tone apart. That brings us to the guitar notes names. These are all of the note names in an octave, and each note is a semi-tone from the next: or A - Bb - B - C - Db - D - Eb - E - F - Gb - G - Ab. Both ways of representing the accidentals are correct depending upon which key the music is written in. When the accidental is a sharp the note is the same as the note above it flatted, they are only named differently. An A# is equal to Bb, Db is equal to C# etc. Below are the names of all the guitar notes in an octave using both accidental symbols: A - (A#/Bb) - B - C - (C#/Db) - D - (D#/Eb) - E - F - (F#/Gb) - G - (G#/Ab) - A. Remember the note names, they will be useful as you grow in your musical abilities. You can see where each note is postioned on the guitar fretboard here. Other Beginner Lessons:
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