Interactive Guitar Fretboard Chart

Open strings and the EADGBE foundation

Standard tuning is EADGBE from the lowest (thickest) string to the highest. Those six open strings are your first landmark system. Learn them by saying them out loud: E A D G B E. Notice that the low E (string 6) and high E (string 1) share the same pitch name two octaves apart — a pattern that repeats in different ways all the way up the neck.

The B and G strings are the only pair without a perfect fourth between them. That three-semitone gap (a major third) is why chord shapes shift slightly when crossing the B string. Every guitarist learns to account for it, and once you do, the rest of the neck snaps into a consistent logic.

Natural semitone pairs: B–C and E–F

Two spots on the chromatic scale have no black key between them on a piano — B to C, and E to F. On guitar these natural half-steps are one fret apart with no sharps or flats in between. They are important markers:

• B to C: the open B string (string 2) produces C at fret 1. The open E strings produce F at fret 1.
• E to F: on every string, the note F is always one fret above E with no accidental in between.

Memorising these two pairs removes a lot of mental arithmetic when you are reading names off the fretboard.

The 12th fret octave rule

Every note at the 12th fret is exactly one octave above the open string. The fret markers at 12 (usually a double dot) are a visual reset — whatever you know about frets 1–11 applies identically from fret 13 onwards, just an octave higher. This halving of the string length is why the 12th fret sits exactly in the middle of the scale length.

Fret markers as anchor points

Most guitars mark frets 3, 5, 7, 9, and 12 with dots or inlays. These fret markers are navigation shortcuts:

Marker fret	Key landmarks
3	Three semitones up from open — G on low E, C on A, F on D, Bb on G, Eb on B, G on high E
5	A classic anchor: A on low E = open A string pitch; D on A = open D string pitch
7	B on low E — root of B Phrygian and a useful pentatonic anchor
9	C# / Db on low E
12	Exact octave of every open string

The 5th fret rule is especially useful: the note at fret 5 on any string (except the G string, where it is fret 4) matches the next open string. This is how guitarists tune by ear.

Octave shapes across strings

Once you know one note, you can find the same pitch on adjacent strings using two simple shapes:

• Two strings up, two frets forward: the note at string 6 fret 5 (A) appears at string 4 fret 7 (A). Jump two strings and add two frets.
• Two strings up, three frets forward on the G→B crossing: the G–B string gap (a major third instead of a perfect fourth) adds one extra fret to the jump.

These octave shapes let you anchor solos and riffs across the neck without being pinned to a single string.

String-by-string memorisation method

The most reliable way to learn every note on the fretboard is string by string, starting from the open and going up to the 12th fret. For each string, use three steps:

1. Name the open string (E, A, D, G, B, E).
2. Identify the natural notes on that string (no sharps or flats): on the low E string, the naturals are E (open), F (1), G (3), A (5), B (7), C (8), D (10), E (12).
3. Fill in the sharps/flats between the naturals. Every gap that is two frets wide contains a sharp or flat — every gap that is one fret wide is a natural semitone pair (E–F or B–C).

Work one string per day and quiz yourself. Within a week you will have the complete map across all six strings.

Use this chart alongside other tools

Once you know the notes, the next step is understanding how they group into scales and keys. Use the guitar scale finder to layer any scale over the note map and see which pitches belong together. For chord shapes and voicings built from the same notes, try the guitar chord finder.