Twelve notes, seven letters - and why the first one comes round again after the last.
Back to the Music MapNotes lens: Every note wears its name – the seven natural notes bold, the five in between faint. Tap a note - this is where you'll see what it means.
Try it
Tap the notes, as fast as you like. Jumping from the last one back to C, you hear the row start over.
What do you notice?
How many steps until a note has the same name as where you started?
What it's called
Half step (semitone) – the step from one note to the next – the smallest in our music, exactly one fret on the guitar.
Why
The page before was about a single sound and its pitch. Pitch is continuous - between any two notes there are endlessly many more. But music needs a selection everyone can agree on. That selection is the twelve notes.
The step from one to the next is called a semitone, and on a guitar it is the most tangible thing there is: one fret. One fret up is one semitone up, always, on every string.
Every step clockwise is one semitone - one fret on a guitar. Seven notes have a letter of their own, and between some of them sits one more.
So the circle above is not decoration: the notes do not stop, they come round again. A list would have an end; a circle does not.
Why exactly twelve notes?
Because twelve equal steps strike a good compromise: the most important combinations like the fifth and the fourth sound almost pure, and every key can be played from every note. Other musical cultures divide the octave differently – the twelve are an agreement, not a law of nature.
Quick check
You play the open A string and go three frets higher. Which note is that?
Try it
Tap your way up the low E string, fret by fret. Bold: a letter of its own, dashed: a note in between.
What do you notice?
Where do two letters follow each other directly – with no note in between?
What it's called
Natural notes – the seven notes with a letter of their own: C D E F G A B.
Why
Two pairs have nothing in between: E and F, and the last note and C. On a piano those are the places with no black key.
On the string that means: from E to F and from B to C it's only one fret, between all other letters it's two. That's why the natural notes aren't spread evenly across the fretboard – know those two places and you can count your way to any note.
The row C D E F G A B is exactly the C major scale – that's why the letters usually start at C. The letters themselves are older: originally the notes were simply counted through with the alphabet.
Quick check
Which note is at the 2nd fret of the A string?
Try it
C with a sharp gives C#, D with a flat gives Db – both the same note, said “C sharp” and “D flat”.
What do you notice?
Do C# and Db sound different?
What it's called
Sharp and flat – The sharp (#) raises a note by a half step, the flat (b) lowers it by a half step.
Why
C# is C with a sharp, a half step higher. Db is D with a flat, a half step lower. Both land on the same fret – one note, two names.
Said aloud: “C sharp” and “D flat”.
Which name applies depends on the key: in a key, every letter appears exactly once. Without a key – like on this page – both are right; TabForge then writes the sharp.
More about keysEven a natural note sometimes gets a second name when a key demands it: in F# major, for example, the note F is called E#, because the letter F is already taken there. Two names for the same note are called enharmonic equivalents.
Quick check
What's the note a half step below A – written with a flat?
Try it
Tap “Listen”: three notes, each a half step – one fret – apart.
| German | A | B | H |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | A | Bb | B |
The same letter “B” – two different notes.
What do you notice?
“B” appears in both rows – but above the same note?
What it's called
German H and B – In English the seventh natural note is B, the note a half step below it Bb. German calls the same two notes H and B.
Why
In English, the notes between A and C are Bb, then B. German calls them B and H. So a “B” means the higher of the two in English and the lower one in German.
For guitarists that means: a German chord chart with an H chord means B major; a German B chord is Bb major.
TabForge writes the way your interface speaks: B and Bb in English, H and B in German. Switch the language and the names move along – the notes stay the same.
Why? In the Middle Ages the note above A came in two versions – a soft, round b (lower) and a hard, square one (higher). The square one looked like an h and became the German H; English kept the letter B and writes the lower one as Bb. Scandinavia and parts of Eastern Europe say H too.
Quick check
A German chart shows the note H. What is it in English?
Try it
G: low E string fret 3, A string fret 10.
What do you notice?
Where is G on the low E string – and where on the A string?
What it's called
Barre chord – a chord where one finger presses across several strings – movable; its root sits on the low E or the A string.
Why
You move a barre chord as a whole. With the E shape its root sits on the low E string, with the A shape on the A string: where the name is, the chord begins.
With the E shape you play G major where G sits on the low E string – with the A shape where it sits on the A string. Fret 0 means the open string, so the open chord.
Know the seven natural notes on these two strings and you'll find every major and minor barre chord – the in-between notes are one fret next to them.
To chords – shapes to browseCheat sheet: the natural notes of both strings with their fret. The dots on the fretboard (3, 5, 7, 9, 12) help with counting.
E: E 0 · F 1 · G 3 · A 5 · B 7 · C 8 · D 10 · E 12
A: A 0 · B 2 · C 3 · D 5 · E 7 · F 8 · G 10 · A 12
Quick check
At which fret do you play C major with the A shape?
Try it
Pick a note in the circle above and listen to both registers - first on their own, then one after the other.
Both are called C.
What do you notice?
Do the two sound like the same note – just higher?
What it's called
Octave – the distance of twelve half steps: double the frequency, the same name.
Why
After twelve semitones the frequency is exactly double - and then the note sounds like the beginning again. Not similar, but so much like the same thing that it gets the same name. That distance is called an octave.
Twelve semitones up, the same note appears again - at double the frequency and with the same name. You hear straight away that it is the same thing, only higher.
The word comes from the Latin octava, the eighth: in a scale the octave is the eighth note. On the guitar it sits at the 12th fret – exactly halfway along the string.
Why the 12th fret is the octave – on the Sound pageQuick check
Listen to both pairs: which one is an octave?
Try it
A on the E string, fret 5 → D string, fret 7: two frets further.
What do you notice?
How many frets further does the octave move – is it the same on every string?
What it's called
Octave shape – two strings up, two frets further – if it reaches onto or across the B string, three.
Why
The strings are tuned so that the 5th fret of one string sounds like the next open string – only to the B string it's the 4th fret. That one exception shifts the shape: as soon as it spans the gap between the G and B strings, the octave sits one fret further.
With the octave shape you'll find every note you know on the low E or the A string an octave higher – same name, brighter sound.
Two more patterns: the low E and the high e string are exactly two octaves apart at the same fret. And on the same string the octave is twelve frets further – at the 12th fret.
Quick check
The E at fret 2 of the D string: where is it one octave higher?