The first thing you need to learn in guitar lessons are the String Names and the Fret Names.
Starting from the top string, all the way to the bottom, the string names are:
E, A, D, G, B, and e.
In this first lesson, I’ll use a small letter “e” to help remind you that it’s the smaller e-string of the two.
On your guitar you may only have 12 frets (like the diagrams above). But some guitars have as many as 24. In Part 2 of this guitar lesson, you will learn the note names for each fret.
An easy way to remember the string order is:
Elephants
And
Dogs
Got
Big
ears
While that sentence won’t win me any grammar awards, it’s what I’ve been using over 30 years to help students memorize the guitar string names. And it works!
The high E string and low e strings both have the same name because they are the same note, only they are an octave apart. More on Octaves in a later lesson.
SO, now that you know your string names and your fret names – If I asked you to play the 2nd Fret on the G String of your guitar it would look like this:
