Learning Chromatic Notes on the E String

So you’ve studied our natural notes on the E string lesson and are left wondering how to name those mysterious blank spaces in between? Well, these are the ‘chromatic notes’ and we will learn how to name them in this lesson

In our natural note lesson, we learned a pattern where between most natural notes there is a two fret distance, or a ‘whole-step’. The exceptions was between natural notes ‘E to F’ and ‘B to C’ where only one fret, or a ‘half-step’, separated them.

The spaces between are the ‘chromatic’ notes and are like the ‘black-key’ on the piano. They get their names in relation to the natural notes. That’s why we learned the natural notes first! Chromatic notes have names like “A#” (read ‘A sharp’) or “Db” (read ‘D flat’). When a note is sharp it means it is one fret, or a ‘half-step’, higher in pitch than the natural note. A flat note is the opposite, one fret (or half-step) lower than its natural note counterpart.

We will repeat our exercise from last lesson of naming the notes on the E string, starting on the open string and ascending to the 12th fret octave E. This time, however, we will play every fret and use sharp names for the chromatic notes as we go up the neck.

Once you can do this, descend through the same chromatic scale from the 12th fret to the open string but now use flat names for all the chromatic notes.

Notice there are two possible names for each chromatic note. Which name is correct depends on the song’s key and the direction the melody is moving. Either way you name them you are naming the same pitch! Like our natural note lesson, once you can do the chromatic notes naming on the E string you should move to the remaining five strings and name them as well.

Here again is our chart of natural notes:

Try to mentally fill in the blanks before looking at the information overload of our chromatic note chart at the end of the lesson! Congratulations! You know every note on the neck of the guitar! Give yourself a pat on the back and buy yourself some new gear as a reward.