Guitar Fretboard

A guitar is a grid of pitches. Each string starts on a fixed note, and each fret raises it by one semitone, the smallest step in the twelve-note system. Once that is clear, the neck stops looking like a maze: a dot is a pitch with an address, a string and a fret. This tool draws that grid, colours each dot by its pitch class, and shows which addresses belong to the scale or chord you are studying.

#How the neck maps to pitch

In standard tuning the open strings sound E, A, D, G, B and E from low to high. Neighbouring strings are a perfect fourth apart, five semitones, except the step from G to B, which is a major third of four semitones. That one step is why a chord shape using the open G and B strings sounds slightly different from a shape built only on fourths.

Because the strings are tuned in fourths, one note appears on several strings. The open A string and the fifth fret of the low E both sound A. Moving along the neck does not reach new notes; it repeats the same twelve pitch classes in a different pattern on each string.

The tuning menu changes the open strings and the names beside the nut. Drop D lowers the low string to D, and Half-step down lowers every string by one semitone. Open G, Open D and Open E are chords in themselves: strum the open strings and you hear the tuning’s chord. DADGAD is a common tuning with a suspended sound, built on D and A.

#Scales, chords and why shapes repeat

Choose a root and a scale type, and the tool shows every position of that scale across the chosen frets. The root carries a ring. A scale shape is a pattern of frets; moving it one fret higher raises every note by one semitone and gives the same pattern in a new key. That is why a shape learned in one place can be carried anywhere on the neck. Moved twelve frets up, it gives the same note names an octave higher, so the pattern repeats along the neck.

The chord view works the same way. Every chord tone is marked on every string. Labels come from the chord formula: a major chord reads 1, 3 and 5, a minor seventh reads 1, ♭3, 5 and ♭7, and a dominant ninth adds a 9. Switch the labels to none when you want to check your own fingering against the dots.

The All notes view shows every fret. Its Accidentals switch decides how sharp notes are written, since no key is in charge of the spelling. In Scale or Chord mode the spelling follows the key: F♯ major is written F♯ G♯ A♯ B C♯ D♯ E♯, not G♭ A♭ B♭ C♭ D♭ E♭ F.

#What the capo does

A capo clamps across all six strings at one fret and shortens them there, so every string sounds that many semitones higher. With the capo at 2, the low E becomes F♯ and the open G becomes A. A G shape played with the capo at 2 sounds as A.

In the diagram, frets behind the capo are dimmed and the capo bar carries the open notes. Fret numbers still count from the nut, so with a capo at 2 the note at fret 5 is the third fret of the shape you finger. A click plays the sounding pitch: the bar on the low string plays F♯2, not E2.

#Playing scales, chords and single notes

Clicking a dot plays that pitch with a plucked tone at its correct octave, capo included. Tab moves into the neck, and the arrow keys move between neighbouring dots along a string or across strings.

Play scale starts at the lowest root on the lowest string and runs the scale up an octave. Play chord strums the chord low to high, 30 ms between strings, with one tone per string near the lowest chord tone. These are voicings the tool picks to sound together, not shapes to copy.

#Limits

The tool shows where notes are, not how to play them. It does not choose fingerings or check reach, and the chord view marks every chord tone, more than one hand can use at once. The sound is a synthesised pluck in equal temperament, so each fret is exactly one semitone; the small adjustments a player makes by ear are not modelled. Use the neck to find the notes and your hand to choose the shape.