Guitar strings notes

Guitar strings notes

The guitar string notes order from bottom to the top (thickest to the thinnest) are:

E-A-D-C-B-E

Guitar Strings Notes Chart

Guitar strings notes chart

Guitar Strings Names

The note of each string is used identify them.

Numbering the Strings in Order

The first string is usually referred as the thin E (or top string).

  • 1=E
  • 2=B
  • 3=G
  • 4=D
  • 5=A
  • 6=E

The Benefits of Learning Guitar Strings Notes

It is highly recommended to learn these notes. It helps tune your guitar and is a great start to learning the whole fretboard.

Alternate Guitar Tunings

The notes of the strings described above correspond to the standard  E tuning. Other tunings are also very common depending on the music genre.

Some popular alternate tunings are:

  • Drop D: DADGBE (metal or heavy rock sound)
  • Open G: DGDGBD (bluesy sound great for slide guitar)
  • Open D: DADFAD (blues and rock sounding great for slide guitar)
  • All fourths: EADGCF (the interval between each string is a perfect 4th)

Some more “extreme” alternate tunings are also very common in the metal genre using dropped tunings in which every string is tuned 2 steps down.

Open Tunings and the Slide Guitar

When playing the slide guitar open tunings are almost a must.

They are made of a major triad notes. This makes the guitar sound like a chord when no notes are fretted.

If you are not familiar with them you should just experiment with them they are so much fun.

For more on that topic check out: this great article.