ACOUSTIC GUITAR MADE EASY

The Acoustic Guitar Fretboard, making sense of it is easy.

I’ll assume that you’ve read my previous post Acoustic Guitar Fretboard, if not please read it to make better sense of this post.

You’ll notice I've barely even mentioned the guitar so far. Why not?
Well, it’s the same as learning to read a language, you need to learn the components, “the letters” first.

What I‘ve noticed is that many self taught guitarists don’t see the pattern of notes as they move up the fretboard, “ABCDEFG”. Maybe the confusion came about because of a misunderstanding about sharps and flats and / or a music teacher told them, “ Every good boy deserves fruit”, no wonder music students are confused. I was discussing this issue with my good friend the guitar great (the late) Ike Isaacs about 25 years ago, and we both decided that it should be outlawed as it is quite nonsensical and is really a hinderence to the learning process.

To put it simply:

a Sharp is ONE NOTE HIGHER, up one fret on the guitar
a Flat is ONE NOTE LOWER, one fret down the neck closer to the tuning pegs.

The rule is:
There are no sharps or flats between B and C
There are NO sharps or flats between E and F

This means there are sharps and flats between all the other notes
A and B
C and D
F and G
G and A

It’s really quite simple!