Lesson #033, Naming Notes on the Banjo

Hi Everyone,

We are going to get back to the fingerboard in this lesson and name all of the notes on the fingerboard. Learning all the notes on the fingerboard is very important because of there importance to chords and scales in upcoming lessons.

There are twelve notes in music. They are....

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G#
A Bb B C Db D Eb E F Gb G Ab

If you look under the numbers 2, 5, 7, 10 and 12 you will notice two different named notes . They consist of sharps(#) and flats(b). For example.... under the number 2 you see A# and Bb. These are the exact same notes! They sound exactly the same! That holds true for the rest of the notes under 5, 7, 10 and 12 as well.
These notes are called enharmonic. The only reason these notes have two different names is for reading and writing sheet music. Thats it. They are used in sheet music to make the notes easier to look at on paper.

The important thing to remember about the system above is that there are no sharps or flats between B and C....... or between E and F.

Before we apply all of this to the fingerboard I want to liken the fingerboard to a staircase. You can climb the staircase from the nut to the 22nd fret or you can descend the staircase from the 22nd fret to the nut. Remember that the distance between each fret is a half step. We are going to climb and descend in half steps.

I will get into placing these twelve notes on the fingerboard in the next lesson.

Rock On,

David