Learning the string names on your guitar is an absolute must; there’s no two ways about it. Understanding tones and semitones allows you to figure out what any note on your guitar is. This video hopefully will help clarify these things for you.
Download the Empty Fretboard PDF
The string names on your guitar are E-A-D-G-B-E.
Some fun acronyms you can use to remember this are:
Eddie Ate Dynamite Good Bye Eddie
Eat All Day Get Big Easy
Eat A Dog, Get Big Ears
Personally I just remember the letter names as is, there aren’t really that many of them.
As I said in the video, download the empty fretboard diagram above, and fill it out completely. Practice doing this once per day until you know it. I’m sure it won’t take you more than a few days before you start getting the hang of it!
As you become more familiar with the fretboard, start looking for patterns. For example, circle all the times ‘A’ appears, and see if you can see the pattern. Starting on the sixth string, you simply go up two strings and two frets, and you’ll see the octave. That pattern holds true all across the fretboard, except on the B string. What other patterns can you find?
Comments or questions are welcome – just leave one below!
I LIKE THE EDDIE ATE DYNAMITE GOOD BY EDDIE;BETTER THAN WHAT I CAME UP WITH,I GOING TO HAVE TO USE THAT ONE. ABOUT THE FRET BOARD I AM NOT SURE WHAT NOTES GO WHERE.I NEED A CHEAT SHEET OR SOMETHING, THANKS, DON
EAD – GBE=
eeead – geebee
Jonathan has a cheat sheet available.
today is the 1st time I picked up a guitar. I need some easy basic lessons to start with
This is the place, especially the theory. Jonathan does an outstanding job of visually showing you the relationships.
You DO need those concepts, whether you think you do or not.
You CAN sail a ship without a compass, but you won’t get far!
Thanks Dr T – that’s a great analogy!
I like this simple stuff to learn from the beginning thanks
Thanks J.
You share your knowledge at the basic level, it is very needed by those of us that need ALL things discussed. Your a GEM!!
Thanks guys! Yeah, understanding things at the basic level is so important and crucial to going further..
Eddie ate dynamite? Yeah, and then he blew the doors off with blues!!!
Thank you for your fretboard John, it will be really useful.
Thanks for the Tones & Semitones practice sheet. Its easier to
remember & retain when you write it down.
donation on the way dude … you seem to enjoy helping others and i would like to see you continue doing so . so come on people help me out and lets keep the j man doing his thing by helping us out !!!! keep it up brother..!!!!!!!!!!!
I have finally one guit since only 4 days!!! Now I can practice all of this stuff, it’s great 🙂
hi Johnatan my nmae is kirk your videl are very help full i know my strings name and my major hords and my e-a barr chords i just cant seam to put it all together and do licks and riffs and stuff i just hasnt clicked yet lolo maybe you can help me put it togeher thanks your friend kirk
Hey Kirk, I hear you… stay tuned though, I think you’ll find it does start coming together more.
Thank you Johnathan , awsome to have a guitar , and enjoy learning , truely a helper in these further along steps ..rifs fun to play on the whole neck, other than penatonic .I am haveing fun learning.Thank you for the help.
Hi John! Since 2 months, I practice often with my guit so now I know how to tune it by ear. I’m happy 😀
Hi, Jonathan thanks for everything you do for all of us.
Here is how I remember
Every
Able
Dude
Gets
Better
Everyday
My teacher taught me that, it is a positive thought and it stuck!
there you go thats my .02$
2c
Hi Johathan:
Thank you soooo much for the empty fret board chart. It is so much better than the one I made up on Excel. I have printed out 10 copies and plan on filling one in every day until I learn at least the first five frets. Then, if I still don’t know them, I’ll just print out more.
Thanks again,
Donna
Hi John,
I appreciate your sincerity in helping us with your novel ideas. I will take print-outs of the charts and start practising jotting down the names of the keys on the Fret-Board and get back to you after doing it successfully.
Regards
Madhusudhan
India
I remember string names from 6th to 1st with the following sentence. Every Average Dude Gets Better Eventually”. Which I hoe is true in my case. I am barely average and wast to be great! That’s why I look forward to you tips, they really help a lot. Thanks
God lesson, I guess I started out with a really good instructor as he made me memorize Eddie ate dinamite, good bye eddid the first lesson. It was four years pluss ago, and I do not know how many times it got me our of trouble when talking to someone about my guitar. Keep up the good work. I have also been looking for a blank fretboard that is the size you are using. I have plenty of them but not one that is this large, and I do not draw well, even with drawing aids. Think I may have line dislexia or something when trying to draw a straight line. Gene
How about this one for names of strings;
Eat
Apples
Daily
Get
Big Early
Every
Boy
Gets
Drunk
At
Easter
every goof ball does fine…:)
or
every good boy does fine…
Every Aussie Dog Gets Bones Easily
Easter
Bunnies
Get
Drunk
After
Easter
EAD – GBE=
eeead – geebee
hey Jonathan,thanks for the strings, frets & scale info. I am a little slow on it but your clips have helped alot, being able to replay your lessons are great. Many thanks Joanne
You don’t have to remember them all. Just remember the four letters in the middle and the other two are e. AD GB – do these letters look familer? A date designation(i.e. 350 AD) and Great Britian as seen on many bumper stickers as GB).
My orignal memonic was: Eat A Dog Grow Big Ears
It is simpler to just remember and be able to visualize the middle four letters.
Thank you so much Johnathan for your help. I am having fun learning and your lessons are easy to follow. You are great!!
after months of watching video after video ,your the only one who broke it down so that i understood it .thanks
awesome! Glad to hear it’s clicked now!
I didnt see this one …it was the first one I learned. If you like the Blues this is for you, Im sure you know these guys!!
Eric
And
Duane
Got the
Blues
Early
Thanks for the tip. Is all about repetition!
Making your own visual chart helps. I made a wall chart on 14X17 drawing paper for my Ibanez 7 string years ago: However, I moved many times since, haven’t practiced for several years, and never thought about putting it back on a wall. Your video jogged my memory and I’ll put it back in sight.
thank youvery much for free lesson god bless
this is a great explanation…thanks
You write the note on the string, rather than in the “fret box”.
thanku so much
Thanks I think I have it down already. But will continue to practice what you are teaching. Great work!
You really do have a great nack for teaching the guitar. It says that you love what you play.It truly is important to know the fret board if you want to be a good player of this great instrument.
Every Ass*%! Does Get Bashed Eventually – EADGBE, Learned this in my teen years LOL.
You rock Jonathon!
Cheers
On the Major scale table looking at Gb there is Cb at IV ? ( think that Table comes with unlocking the guitar I IV. V)
I get that there needs to be all letters in the scale but also that ( if I understand correctly) there is no Cb it’s B ?
Can you explain what it is I’ve misunderstood please?
Hi Gerry, yes, you’re correct 😉
The sequence to build a major scale starts with tone tone semitone…. so from Gb (I), we go up a tone to get Ab (II), another tone is Bb (III), and then the IV puts us at the pitch we normally call B. However, we have to use all the letter names when we build a scale, and we can’t use any duplicates. In this case, we’ve already used the B letter name as Bb in the III. So we need to write the C letter name in such a way that it means we play the B pitch. If we drop C by one semitone, we get B, but we can also write that as Cb.
This is called and enharmonic equivalent – two names for the same note, and you’re more used to using it with things like F#/Gb, but it can also be applied to B/Cb.
Does that help?
Great video and explanation of these concepts
I also use the Eddie ate dynamite to remember the notes ?
Yeah, that one is a classic!
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