Understanding and Learning the Layout of the Guitar

If you’re like me, learning the guitar can be a pretty daunting task. In this short article/lesson, I’ll show you how to learn every chord, key, and scale with minimal memorization. It all comes down to the root note. You learn the root, you learn the shape, and you know it all.

Let’s start from the very beginning. From low string to high string, the guitar is layed out EADGBE (these are the open notes for every string) To start this lesson, I’ll show you the 2 most basic major chord shapes and explain how by knowing these shapes and the root note, you will know every major chord.

Ok, so the first shape is G major starting on the 3rd fret. You barre across the 3rd fret, and place your fingers where the dots are. G major. Now the root of G major is... you guessed it, G. The G note can be found on the 3rd fret of the low E string, the 5th fret of the D string, and again on the 3rd fret of the high E string. For the purpose of this lesson, we’re going to focus on the G note on the low E string. This is the root of the shape. You can use this shape anywhere on the fret board. If you use this same shape but start on the 5th fret, you have an A major chord, with the root of A. If you move this shape to the 12th fret, you have an E Major chord because the bottom root is an E. (the 12th fret of the low E string is an E note) This shape works EVERYWHERE. It is the same with the C major chord shape shown below the G major shape. The root is on the 3rd fret of the A string, which is a C note. If you move this shape to the 12th fret, you have an A major chord. Same shape, but now the root is an A because the 12th fret of the A string is an A. Again, this shape works everywhere on the fret board. In the picture below, I show a B flat major chord and an E flat major chord to demonstrate. I use these same shapes, except both now on the 6th fret. For the first shape, the root on the 6th fret of the low E string is a B flat, so the chord is a B flat major, and for the second shape, the root on the 6th fret of the A string is an E flat so the chord is an E flat major. Make sense? (More examples and shapes to come)

To summarize, if you know the root note of your chord shape, you know the chord. Gone are the days of memorizing every chord, all you need to know is the root and the shape. Now let’s get to some cooler shapes so you can see how important this is.

In the photo above, I show 3 more shapes. Remember, every chord shape on the guitar follows this exact same rule, no matter how jazzy the chord may be. Know the root, know the shape, know every position of the chord. The first shape is a -7 chord shape. The root is on the 9th fret of the A string, which is an F#, so this is an F#-7. If you take this exact same shape and move the root to the 3rd fret, and use this exact same shape, the chord is a C-7 because the 3rd fret of the A string is a C note. Go to the 12th fret and you have an A-7 because the 12th fret of the A string where the root of this shape is located is an A note. The second shape is a -9 shape. The chord is an F#-9 because the root is on the 9th fret of the A string, which is an F#. This chord shape is also just as moveable as every other chord shape. Move the root to the 5th fret and you have a D-9 because the 5th fret of the A string is a D note. The 3rd shape is a -11 shape. The root of this shape is the 9th fret of the low E string, which is a C#. Again, if you move this shape to where the root is on the 3rd fret, you have a G-11 because the 3rd fret of the low E string is a G note. Obviously I’m not going to write out every possible chord shape because that would take forever, but the jist is the same. Know your root note and know your shape, and you can place the chord anywhere and instantly know what the chord is or instantly find the chord you want. Want to play a B-7? Make your -7 shape, and find your root. The B note can be found on the 14th fret of the A string, so place your middle finger on the 14th fret of the A string and make the shape... boom, you have a b-7 chord. Pretty cool, right? Now we’re going to take a quick pivot into understanding relative minors and quickly finding every chord in any key.

Before I explain the above picture, let me explain what a relative minor is. A relative minor means that the minor is the same as a certain major chord. The relative minor of C major is A minor, meaning the C major scale is exactly the same as the A minor scale - they contain all the same notes. Now we get to the picture above. To quickly find any relative minor/major, you use these 2 shapes. The first shape I’ll explain is the minor. For this, we use a minor 7 shape (slightly different shape than previously shown) This shape is the notes on the 5th fret shown above, so to make this shape, you would use your ring finger to barre the B, G, and D strings and your middle finger to hold the low E string on the same fret. The picture above shows an A-7, which you now know because the root, which is on the 5th fret of the low E string is an A. Again, this shape can move anywhere, so on the 10th fret, you have a D-7 because the 10th fret of the low E string is a D. But to demonstrate this example, we’re going to look at the A-7 shape. So we have our A-7, to find the relative major of A-, you simply replace your middle finger with your index finger and move back 2 frets and up 1 string to the major chord shape shown before. For this example, your finger moves from the 5th fret of the low E string to the 3rd fret of the A string, which is a C. So the relative major of A- is C major. This works everywhere. Move your A-7 shape to D-7 on the 10th fret. Now do the same thing, replace your middle finger from the 10th fret of the low E string with your index finger on the 8th fret of the A string, which is an F note. So the relative major of D- is F major, meaning the D minor scale is exactly the same as the F major scale. As you probably already guessed, this technique is reversible. If you take your C major shape from above and replace your index finger which is on the C note (3rd fret of A string) with your middle finger on the 5th fret of the low E string, you have an A-7, showing that the relative minor of C major is A minor. You can try this anywhere. Make a G major chord in this same shape (root on 10th fret of A string) You move your finger and find yourself in an E-7 shape (root on 12th fret of low E string), showing that the relative minor of G major is E minor. Cool! Now that we know relative minors and majors, we just cut out what we need to learn in half. No need to learn every minor and major scale individually when you know the relatives. Note: this is for scale shapes, not chords. An A- chord is different than a C major chord, but the notes and shapes of the scales are exactly the same. Before we get into the scale shapes, let’s quickly learn how to find all the chords in a scale.

First, I’ll show you how to find all the minor and major chords the harder way, and then I’ll show you 2 tricks to finding the 3 major chords in any key. The rule for a major key is root (major 1), whole step (minor 2), whole step (minor 3), half step (major 4), whole step (major 5), whole step (minor 6), whole step (diminished 7). So in the key of D, we would have D major, E minor, F# minor, G major, A major, B minor, C# diminished. I don’t have an easy trick to show you for this, but I do have an easy trick to find the major chords in any key that I will show you below.

Once you know your 2 basic major chord shapes, you can use them to find the major chords in any key. In the photo above, we’re looking at the key of D. The major chords are the 1, 4, and 5 chords of the key. If you make the shown D major shape, that is the 1. Then on the same fret, you switch to your other shape, that is your 5 chord, which in D is an A major. Then you go back 2 frets with the same shape and you have your 4 chord, which in D is a G major. Remember, from 4 to 5 is a whole step, so you move 2 frets. Below, I show another way to do the same thing, but this time in the key of G. You make your chord shape shown below, and you have your 1 chord. Then on the same fret you switch to the other shape as shown, which would get you your 4 chord. In the key of G, this is a C major. Then you move this same shape 1 whole step up to find your 5 chord, which is a D major. Pretty simple? Both of these techniques can be moved anywhere on the fretboard as well.

Ok, now we understand chord shapes, roots, keys, relative minor/majors, lets learn how to apply these same simple tricks to learning scales. There are 5 shapes of every scale, which just like chord shapes, are exactly the same shape for every scale, just moved depending on the root. Below, I will show you the 5 shapes for the minor pentatonic scale as well as the full scale for the key. I will use A minor as my example, but again, these shapes work for every key. I will explain more below, but first, to understand my drawings, I labeled the root note as R, the solid dots represent the notes in the pentatonic scale and the open dots would be added in to create the full scale.

Ok, this looks a bit intimidating maybe, but all you really need to learn are these 5 shapes and you can use the same shapes in any key to find any scale, as the root of the shape will always be in the same place. Learning 5 shapes is a hell of a lot easier than trying to memorize the scales for every single key. So for the minor pentatonic scale, when the root is the first note, you would use the first shape as shown with the solid dots, and if you want to use the full scale, you just add in the open dotted notes. You would use the second shape when the root note is the second note of your pentatonic scale, and so on. So if you want to play E- pentatonic, you would find your E note. Let’s use the 12th fret of the low E string for example. If that’s the note you start on, you would use that first shape and boom, you have E minor. If you want to play E minor on the 7th fret, you would find your root E note, which would be on the 7th fret of the A string or the 3rd note in your pentatonic scale and so you would just use that 3rd shape I listed except on the 7th fret instead of the 12th. When you can find your root note, all you need to know is where in the shape your root is and which of these 5 shapes to use. These shapes I showed are for your minor scales and work everywhere in every minor key. If you want to find any major scale, you can either use the technique I showed above to find the relative minor of the major scale you want to use and use the relative minor shape, as it is the exact same scale, or you could simply take the minor shapes I’ve shown and find your major root. To demonstrate with C major, you can see the root C note is just one note up on the pentatonic shape from your A root in A minor. You can also learn how the major shapes are layed out from these same shapes. For example, in the fifth shape of A minor where the A is the 4th note in the pentatonic, the C is the first note, so you would use that shape for your major scale when the root is the first note. I hope I didn’t over complicate with that addition, but to sinplify, these are the 5 shapes and they work for both minor and major, the only difference is that the root moves.

Pretty incredible that everything is layed out like this on guitar and absolutely blew my mind when I learned it. All you need to know is the root and the shape and you can make whatever you want, whether it be a chord or a scale. I hope this lesson helps you as much as it helped me understand the guitar when I learned it. If you benefited from this lesson, feel free to leave a tip or share my article or send me a message, I’d very much appreciate your support! If this helps people, I’d be glad to do more of these. Happy playing!