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I teach many students at my guitar school in Chicago, and early on in their guitar lessons, I like to teach both beginner more advanced students how to find notes on the guitar. Being able to identify note names is an important skill that can help with many things that come later in guitar lessons, like knowing which barre chord or power chord you’re playing, understanding music theory, and of course, reading music.
If you are playing the low E string on the 5th fret, what note are you playing? E, G, C#? The correct answer is actually ‘A,’ and if you didn’t know that, this article is for you! By the end of this article, you’ll be able to figure it out for yourself, as well as be able to identify what any other note is on the guitar.
First, there are a few terms to understand:
Half-Steps and Whole-Steps
Half-step – A half-step is a distance between two notes. On the guitar, a half-step is one fret. So abercrombie outlet , if you move from a note on the 5th fret to a note on the same string on the 6th fret, you’ve gone up a half-step. If you move the same note down to the 4th fret, you’ve gone down a half-step.
Whole-step – A whole-step is also a distance between two notes. On the guitar, a whole-step is two frets. So, if you go from a note on the 5th fret to a note on the same string on the 7th fret, you’ve gone up a whole-step. If you move the same note down to the 3rd fret, you’ve gone down a whole-step. Sharps and Flats
Two other terms you will need to understand are ‘sharp’ and ‘flat.’ You’ve probably heard of these, but maybe never knew what they meant. Sharps and flats are ‘added’ to notes and change their pitch slightly. They are called ‘accidentals.’ Here’s a quick explanation of each one with each terms musical symbol in parentheses.
Sharp (#) – A sharp placed before a note means that the note is raised a half-step from its normal position. So, going back to the example in the opening paragraph, if you moved an A (6th string, 5th fret) up one fret to the 6th fret, that note would now be A# (A sharp).
Flat (b) – A flat placed before a note means that the note is lowered a half-step from its normal position. In the same example, if you moved that note to the 4th fret, it would then be called Ab (A flat). One Note, Two Names!
One idea to understand is that any note that has an accidental (a sharp or a flat), can actually have two different names. For example, we already said that playing the 6th string on the 5th fret is the note A. If you play the same string on the 7th fret, that note would be B. That leaves only one fret, the 6th fret, between the two notes on that string. That note could either be called A# or Bb. Either name would be correct. The important thing to understand is that it is actually one note, even though it can be called by two names.
There are Only 12 Different Notes!
In music there are only 12 different notes. They are 7 ‘natural’ notes (notes without sharps or flats) and 5 notes with accidentals. In alphabetical order, here are the notes: A – A#/Bb -B – C – C#/Db – D – D#/Eb – E – F – F#/Gb – G – G#/Ab
In the way I wrote the notes above, each dash would be a half-step up from the previous note. So, A#/Bb is one half-step up from A. The sets of two notes with a slash between the two note names are notes with accidentals that are actually one note, or one point on the guitar, with two names.
One important thing to note is that there are two sets of notes without a sharp/flat note between them. B and C are only a half-step apart, and so are E and F.
How to Put it All Together to Find Notes
Now, to use all of this information to be able to identify notes on the guitar, you need to have a note that you already know the name of to use as a starting point. You can use open strings as notes that you already know the name of. When you play an open string, the name of the string is the note that you are playing. The string names are (from low to high): E, A, D, G, B, and E. As an example, when you play the 6th, or lowest, string, you are playing the E string. That means you are playing the note E. If you go from the open 6th string to the 1st fret on the same string, you’ve gone up one half-step. So, on the 6th string, the first fret would be F (one half-step above E), the second fret would be F#, the third fret G, etc. You can go through the note list along with the frets with this method to find any note. When you reach the end of the list on any given string, you simply go back to the beginning and start over. For example, as we said earlier, the 5th fret on the 6th string would be the note A because it comes after G#/Ab on the 4th fret.
I hope you found this guitar lesson helpful. Have fun being able to find notes on your guitar! If you’re interested in more free guitar lessons, please stop by my guitar blog.

Floater frames are a type of picture frame that is intended for use with a piece of artwork that has been placed into a gallery wrap or canvas that has been stretched and attached to wooden stretcher bars. The canvas gallery wrap is then placed inside the floater frame, which edges the artwork nicely yet does not cut off the viewer from seeing the part of the edges of the artwork on the sides of the gallery wrap that are visible in the float space. Floater frames make a great change from just a simple gallery wrap appearance for fine artwork, and you will find that canvas floater frames are available in different profile styles and colors.

A floater picture frame gives a unique appearance to the artwork because the artwork looks as if it is floating inside the picture frame. Fine art photographs, even wedding photographs, can be printed on canvas, after which they can be placed in a gallery wrap and then situated inside a floater frame for a polished, finalized look.

Once you have your artwork in a gallery wrap, the next step will be to mount it inside the canvas floater frame. The canvas in the gallery wrap may need to be raised a bit if you discover that the rabbet of the floater frame is higher than the canvas. Archival-quality mount board may be useful for this step if needed. You will next want to make sure that the back of the canvas touches the inner edge of the floater frame, and then adjust the borders of the canvas inside the canvas floater frame so that the borders are of equal width. Offset clips are then used to hold the stretcher bars of the gallery-wrapped canvas in the proper position inside the floater picture frame, alternating placement from top to bottom and then to the sides of the canvas abercrombie outlet , so that subtle adjustments in alignment can still be made until the final moment of attaching clips. Wire hangers can then be attached to the backs of floater frames, the wire strung from hanger to hanger, and then wall bumpers put into place to protect the wall surface. Then you are ready to hang up your artwork framed in canvas floater frames.

Differing from traditional picture frames, canvas floater frames require neither mat board nor glazing to achieve the finished look. Dozens of different ready-made frame sizes are available and you may also find custom-sized frames will work with unusually large pieces of artwork. These unique frames are available from better fine-art photography frame suppliers online.

Susan Slobac is a consultant in the frame industry. Susan writes about trends in floater frame & floater frames.