Notes On The Fretboard Part 4

Steve Rieck: So now that we have gotten through three of the six strings, the fourth, the fifth and the sixth string. I want to talk about chromatic notes, the sharps and flats, the notes in between the notes that we have already played.

So I am just going to start with the fifth string, as example, we have covered the fifth string, we know that's an open A. We talked about the how the second fret was B, and so then you are left with that first fret. What exactly will that be -- and the term sharp and flat are going to come in here. So a sharp simply means that we are moving a note up a half step. So if this is A open, one fret higher is A sharp. So the first fret on the fifth string is A sharp. But then it can also be a B lower and a half step, which would be B flat.

So this A sharp at the first fret could also be referred to as a B flat. So A sharp and B flat are what we would call enharmonic tones that means that there are two different names for really the same pitch to your ear. And that seems pretty unintuitive and confusing at first and you would wonder why not just name it one note and it seems kind of crazy. It really goes into understanding keys and understanding what scales -- and in certain keys you would refer to this as an A sharp and others you would refer to as B flat.

So we will talk more about that in other tutorials. But for right now you just have to get that simple concept that up one fret is a sharp, down one fret is a flat. So we have a C at the third fret and D at the fifth fret, so that the C sharp or D flat at the fourth fret and so one up the fifth string. So let's take a look at the third string next.

Alex Lifeson Rush: Hi! This is Alex Lifeson Rush and today we are going to work on The Spirit of Radio. It starts at the F sharp which is the second fret on the high E string and it's.


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