The 6-String Guitar: A Beginner's Guide to Strings, Tunings and the Fretboard
The six-string guitar is probably the most popular instrument on the planet, and for good reason. It can strum chords for a campfire singalong, drive a rock band, or carry a delicate solo melody all on its own. Before you dive into scales and chords on the interactive fretboard, it really helps to understand how the instrument is laid out. Once you see the logic behind the strings and frets, the whole neck stops looking like a maze and starts looking like a map.
Six Strings and Standard Tuning
A guitar has six strings. When you hold it in playing position, the thickest string is the one nearest your face, and it makes the lowest sound. The thinnest string is nearest the floor and makes the highest sound. That can feel backwards at first. Guitarists usually talk about pitch, so the "low" string is the thick one, even though it sits physically on top.
Tuning simply means the note each string plays when you pluck it without pressing any frets. We call that an open string. The most common setup is called Standard Tuning, and from the thickest string to the thinnest it goes:
E, A, D, G, B, E
Notice that both outer strings are E. The thin one sounds the same note name, just two octaves higher. An octave is the same note at a higher or lower pitch, the way a man and a child can sing the same tune at different heights.
How to Remember It
Players have been using little sayings for decades. A classic one is "Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie." Silly, but you won't forget it. Say it out loud while you pluck each open string, thickest to thinnest, and within a few days it'll stick for good.
How Notes Are Laid Out on the Fretboard
The metal strips across the neck are frets. Pressing a string just behind a fret shortens the part that vibrates, which raises the pitch. Every single fret raises the note by a half step, the smallest distance between two notes in Western music. Two frets make a whole step.
The musical alphabet only uses seven letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Between most of them there's an extra note, written as a sharp (#) or flat (b). For example, the note between A and B is called A# or Bb. There are two exceptions: there's no note between B and C, and none between E and F. They're just one fret apart.
So if you start on the open low E string and walk up one fret at a time, you get F at fret 1, F# at fret 2, G at fret 3, and so on. At fret 12 you're back to E, one octave higher. That's why the 12th fret usually has a double dot marker.
The Fifth-Fret Pattern
Here's the trick that unlocks the neck. In standard tuning, the note at the 5th fret of one string matches the open string next to it. The 5th fret of the low E string is A, the same as the open A string. The 5th fret of A gives you D, and so on. There's one exception: on the G string, you use the 4th fret to match the open B. That little shift is why chord and scale shapes bend slightly when they cross from the G string to the B string. Remember that and a lot of mysteries disappear.
What the Guitar Does in a Band
In most bands the guitar wears two hats. As a rhythm instrument, it strums or picks chords, working with the bass and drums to lay down the groove and the harmony. As a lead instrument, it plays melodies, riffs and solos, often using scales you'll find on this site. Plenty of bands have two guitarists splitting these jobs, while a solo singer-songwriter might do both at once. Learning a little of each role makes you far more useful in any musical situation.
Alternate Tunings and What They Change
Retuning some or all strings changes which notes sit under your fingers, which opens up new sounds and easier shapes. Here are the tunings covered on the site, listed from the thickest string to the thinnest.
- E Flat (D#, G#, C#, F#, A#, D#): every string lowered by one half step. All your usual shapes work exactly the same, they just sound a bit lower and heavier, and the strings feel slightly looser for bending.
- Drop D (D, A, D, G, B, E): only the thickest string drops a whole step to D. That gives you a deeper low end, and you can play a powerful low chord by laying one finger across the bottom three strings. A favourite in rock and heavier styles.
- Open D (D, A, D, F#, A, D): strum all six open strings and you hear a D major chord. Great for slide guitar and ringing, folky sounds.
- Open E (E, B, E, G#, B, E): same idea, but the open strings form an E major chord. A bright, punchy choice for slide and blues.
- Open G (D, G, D, G, B, D): the open strings form a G major chord. Laying one finger flat across all strings at any fret gives you a new major chord. Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones famously built many riffs around this tuning.
- DADGAD (D, A, D, G, A, D): an airy, unresolved sound loved in Celtic and acoustic music, and the tuning Jimmy Page used for Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir."
- DGCGCD (D, G, C, G, C, D): a shimmering, open tuning associated with Led Zeppelin's "The Rain Song."
- Ostrich (D, D, D, D, D, D): every string tuned to D. It creates a huge, buzzing drone, an experimental sound rather than an everyday tuning.
One important thing to know: whenever you change tuning, the note names on the fretboard move. The fifth-fret pattern from standard tuning no longer applies, so lean on the interactive fretboard to see where the notes now land.
Where to Start
This week, spend five minutes a day on just two things. First, pluck each open string and say its name using the Eddie saying. Second, pick one string and walk up from the open note to the 12th fret, naming every note as you go. Listen for that moment at fret 12 when the open note comes back around. Do that for each string over the week, and you'll be amazed how quickly the fretboard starts to feel like home.