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Fretboard Mapping

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Boris Martinez
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80 views16 pages

Fretboard Mapping

Uploaded by

Boris Martinez
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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All the notes there are

In western music, we have only 12 notes. This is good news because that’s all we have at pur disposal.
If you take a look at the piano, which is a linear instrument, you can see that we have 12 keys (white and black) and
these are repeated throughout multiple octaves.
Having only 12 notes makes out job easier when it comes to think about music.
In eastern music, there are all kinds of pitches in between, defining much finer musical intervals.

Let’s talk about this. The coloured notes are the ones you can find on the piano using only the white keys.
There are 7 of them. Strangely, there are in between notes but not everywhere.
For instance, between E and F there isn’t any. Same goes between B and back to the sequence again, C. You can see
this on the piano as well and it is more visual in my opinion:
Between all the rest we can find a note. The confusing thing is that we can call these notes differently.
For example, between C and D there is the C# (C sharp) note but we can refer to the exact same note as Db (D flat).
How we call them, it depends on the movement we get to that note.
If we ascend from C, in other words if we go up from C to the next note, we call it C#. If we descend, in other words we
go down a semitone, we call it Db.
This rule applies for oll the in between notes.

But the weird thing is that we can apply this rule to the E, F, B and C notes as well. So, if we go from F to E, we can call
it Fb, which is the same as the E note. Vica versa, the E note can be called as E# as well.
Fortunately we don’t use this convention very often :)

Now, let’s figure out how we can find these notes on the guitar!
Notes on the fretboard
Unlike the piano, the guitar is not only a horizontal instrument, but a vertical one as well at the same time.

Let me give you an example:


You can get the same note with the same pitch on multiple places on the fretboard. Let’s try this out.

Please fret the first fret on the B string. This is a C note. Now fret the G string on the 5th fret. Now the D string on the
10th fret. Then the A string on the 15th fret and finally the low E string on the 20th fret. We get the same C note with
the same pitch!

But no worries! We will make things nice and easy.


The first thing that will simplify our lives is the fretboard repetition.
From the 12th fret on all strings, all the map is just duplicated. You can think of the 12th fret as open strings again, just
an octave higher. The double dots on the fretboard represent the octave.
The 2 E strings
The second thing that makes our job easier is the 2 E strings. Since these represent the same note, just two octaves
higher, that means that all the notes on these strings are the same:

Again, as you can see on this fretboard diagram, between E and F, B and C there is no in between note. They are just
a semitone (one fret) away from each other. Try to fret the same position on the low E and high E strings and you’ll
realize 2 things: first how wide 2 octaves are AND you’ll quickly hear if your strings are out of tune!

Another important fact to mention is that these coloured notes are all part of the C major scale: C D E F G A B. It just
starts from the E note, instead of C.
Since between these 2 outer strings there are 2 octave difference in pitch, that means that we can find the first octave
on the other strings somewhere. Let’s find out where!
Octaves on low E & D strings
When we are in the hunt of find octaves, we need to memorise 2 easy shapes.
Here comes the first one:

Fret any note on the low E string. Then go down 2 strins and up 2 frets. In the example above I fret the F note on the
low E string 2nd fret. Then I go up 2 strings to reach the D string and up two frets towards my right hand.

Let me clarify why I say to go down 2 strings. If you take a look at the image above you can see that based on the
diagram it is actually up and not down. Once you take your instrument, you will realize that the high E string will be the
closest to the floor actually, and you need to go down to reach the D string.

Based on this rule we can find all the octaves of the notes on the low E string:
Now that we know the notes on the 2 E strings and we also know where to find the first octave and what rule we need
to use to do that, let’s combine the two fretboard diagrams:

Using this method, we already covered the half of the strings!

Octaves on the A & G strings


We can use the same rule to find the octave of the notes based on the A string:

Fret any note on the A string. Then go down 2 strins and up 2 frets. In the example above I fret the B note on the A
string 2nd fret. Then I go up 2 strings to reach the G string and up two frets towards my right hand to get the octave.
Octaves on low D & B strings
Unfortunatly we can use this octave pattern only on the low E and D, and the A and G strings. From there, we have to
modify it slightly. Our new pattern looks like this:

As you can see, we now have to go up 3 frets instead of 2, and we go down two strings, like we did with the first pat-
tern? What is the reason for that? Why is it not totally symmetrical?
Standard tuning of the guitar
The guitar strings are tuned to have 5 semitones, in other words a perfecr fourth between them. This is true for all
string pairs, except one.
Between the G and B strings there is only 4 semitones (major third) difference.

What is the reason for that?


It’s simultaneously musically convenient and physically comfortable, a conclusion players came to a few hundred years
ago. The aim was to create a tuning that would ease the transition between fingering simple chords and playing com-
mon scales, minimizing fret-hand movement.
In my opinion this is absolutely not true, it would be much easier if is was entirely symmetrical. There are many players
who tuned all the strings to have perfect forth between them. Check out Tom Quayle or Alex Hutchings for example, if
you don’t know them already. Fantastic players!
So let’s use our new pattern to get all the octaves on the D and B strings. Here is the pattern again:

Once we map out all the notes and their octaves, we get the following:

Octaves on low G & E strings


We use the new pattern to get all the notes on these strings.
The 2 octave patterns
To summarize all the above, there are 2 octave patterns:
Use this on the Low E and D, and A and G strings.

The second pattern can be used on the D and B and G and E string sets.
All the notes on the fretboard
Once we put all the maps together, we get all the notes on the fretboard.

Remember: after the 12th fret all the notes repeat on all the strings.

What are the fretboard inlays for?


Fretboard inlays are not there for decoration, although there are nice creative designs for many manufacturers, see
PRS guitars for example.

Primary Function of inlays


Inlays are located at the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 17th, 19th, 21st and 24th frets. The main purpose if these inlays
is to help to navigate on the fretboard. If you learn the notes on the low E string and identify which notes are there
where you find these inlays, it makes navigation a whole lot easier.
For example, if you want to play a progression in the key of A, then you go to the second marker (5th fret) and play a
barre chord there.
The markers map out the fretboard positions as well. It help when you learn scales. Say, you want to play a G minor
pentatonic scale and you know that the first inlay indicates the G note. So, you start the minor pentatonic scale from
there. If you wanted to play a B Minor pentatonic, you go to the 7th fret.

The double dot at the 12th fret indicates the octave of the open string.

Seconday function of the inlays


If we take a closer look, then we can see that the inlays represent the notes of the C major scale, except the 9th fret,
because it is an C#. On some of the banjos it is located on the 8th fret instead of the 9th.

Harmonics
Another cool feature of the inlays is the harmonics. If you slightly touch the strings at the inlays, you get a nice har-
monic sound. Some of them are louder, some softer. For example at the 3rd fret in is quite difficult to hear without
distortion, whereas at the 12th fret it is quite loud.
Octave patterns for
power chords
The pattern to find an octave of a particular chord can help us to form power chords. We need to modify it slightly:

We still go up two frets, but then we go down only one string to get the basic power chord.
If we then put back the octave of our chosen note, we get an even thicker sound:
How to use octaves in
your playing
Check out the following videos to get an idea how you can be creative with octaves.

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