Memorize Notes
A note is marked on the fretboard — pick its name from the buttons below. Your score and answer speed are tracked as you go. Use the gear button to choose which frets to practise, and the speaker button to hear each note.
About the guitar fretboard
Every fret is one semitone, so twelve frets make an octave: the note at the twelfth fret of any string is the same as that string played open, an octave higher. That repetition is why the whole fretboard can be learned from one octave of information per string.
Standard tuning stacks the strings a perfect fourth apart, with one exception — the gap between the G and B strings is a major third. That single irregularity is why shapes and patterns shift by a fret when they cross the B string, and it is the most common source of confusion when players first move beyond memorised shapes.
Naming notes on sight is the foundation everything else rests on. Once you can find any note anywhere, chords and scales become something you build rather than something you recall, and a shape you have never played before stops being a mystery.
Using this tool
Use the gear button to narrow the practice range to a few frets, drill until the answers come without counting, then widen the range. Working one small region at a time is far more effective than covering the whole neck at once.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the note at the twelfth fret the same as the open string?
Twelve semitones make an octave, and each fret raises the pitch by one semitone. Twelve frets up from the open string is therefore the same note name, one octave higher.
Why do guitar patterns shift when they cross the B string?
In standard tuning every pair of adjacent strings is a perfect fourth apart except G to B, which is a major third. Any shape crossing that pair has to move up one fret to compensate.
What is the fastest way to learn the fretboard notes?
Restrict yourself to a small group of frets and drill it until recall is automatic, then expand. Naming notes on the low E and A strings first pays off quickly, since most chord and scale roots are found there.
Practice this on your own guitar
Fretonomy listens to your instrument and drills notes, scales and chords.