It is important to learn the names of the notes found around the nut.

This will give you a better understanding of why you play chords a certain way, what the notes are in the chords, and also help your general musicianship, which will help in pretty much every aspect of your playing! Little things like this really make a bigger difference than it might seem at first, and I’m sure you will find this valuable if you take the time to study it.

Video Lesson

 

Notes In The Open Position

Notes in Open Position

The diagram on the left shows all the notes up to the fifth fret.

The notes we are most concerned with are the B E notes in the first three frets. These MUST be memorised now.

Start by learning the ‘white’ notes. Make sure you also work out the sharps and flats in between those notes. You will find this easy to do if you G C F have learned your Note Circle, see lesson BC-152 • The Note Circle.

Notice that E and F, and B and C, are always next to each other (remember that they are only a semitone apart) and that all the others have a fret (and note) between them.

 

Suggested Exercise

Play any open chord that you know and then work out what the notes are that you are playing. What I want you to get good at is working out the notes in the open position quickly and easily.

Once you can do this, you will find it relatively easy to work out notes all over the neck. You might have to count your way up the neck a little further, but it’s really no harder!

Try working out the notes for every chord we have looked at so far in the course and write down what the notes are. You might even start to see similarities between how each chord is made up.

Practical Music Theory

If you are working through Practical Music Theory - you should start to see the theory in practice - how the chords are constructed, the way that major and minor chords are very similar, and be able see the chord formula's being used.

Now that you have revised the note circle and you know those open position notes, it's time to look at some chords further up the neck, ones that move around!! in BC-172 • Power Chords 1

 

HELP!!!!

HELP

If you need to ask a question about this lesson - there is a topic set up specifically to help you with this lesson. To help you find it easily you can click the following link and it will take you right the topic. You'll be able to see questions that other people had and ask your own questions! Hopefully one of the very helpful members of our community will be there to help you soon, I do go there and answer stuff too - but there are just too many questions for me to answer alone!

So click this link to get help with this lesson!


Justinguitar Beginner's Products

Beginners Course DVD
Justinguitar Beginners Songbook
Beginners Course Book
Practical Music Theory

I have four great beginners products that will help you make the most of this course. Most popular is The Justinguitar Beginners Songbook which contains 100 songs arranged by difficulty that perfectly match up with each level of the course. Many people told me they like books more than web pages so we've made The Justinguitar Beginners Course Book (comes with 2 x CD's too!) and many people found being online to watch the videos a pain so we offer The Justinguitar Beginners Course DVD which also means you can watch the vids in much better quality. Together they complete the whole online course and are perfect when there is no internet connection!! Also very popular is Practical Music Theory for those that like to know what they are doing and why!! It covers very basic theory in an easy to digest way and puts it onto the guitar! They are all available in Bundle Packs too where you can save a bunch of money!!

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