Interactive Fretboard Note Finding Quiz
This lesson drills you on your knowledge of the fingerboard. It will ask you to find a note on a certain string. All you have to do is click on it with your mouse. You should also find that note on your guitar. In the earlier lesson you learned where the natural notes, A, B, C, D, E, F and G are located on each string. Now lets find those notes with accidentals in their names.
Right next door to an A note live two other notes with A in their name: A-sharp and A-flat, usually written A# and Ab. The little b in the Ab is really supposed to be a flat symbol, not a lower-case b.
Here is how you find Ab if you know where A is. To flatten a note, say from A to Ab, means to lower its pitch by one fret. So if you that 2nd fret on the 3rd string is an A, then Ab must be one fret lower (lower in pitch). So Ab is 1st fret 3rd string.
To sharpen a note means to raise its pitch by one fret. So A# must be 3rd fret, 3rd string, one fret above A ( remember, A all by itself is really called A-natural, but that takes to long to say ). So if you know where all the natural notes are you can find any note. To find C# on the 2nd string, start by finding C. C lives at 1st fret on the 2nd string. Now to get to C# just move up to the 2nd fret on the 2nd string. You should also play both notes to get the tactile experience and also to hear the pitch difference between C and C# or whatever notes you are playing.
Why bother?
Well if you are looking at some written music and it says to play a G power chord you better know where G is on the 6th string so you can make the powerchord shape there. What about soloing over an A blues? You need to find the A pentatonic scale. Better know where those A’s are.
You need to know your way around the fingerboard when you are practicing or learning new things. Of course, no one is actually thinking of the names of the notes they play when they are really jamming. But I guarantee you if asked any good player can find any note on any string in less than a second.
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