Notes on the fret board

There are in total twelve notes. These notes are named on the English alphabets. The names of the notes are A,A#,B,C,C#,D,D#,E,F,F#,G,G# and again A. So this cycle continues and there is no first note or the last note although I randomly started with "A" note. Just like the difference between two consecutive numbers is 1 (for example 4 and 5 are 1 unit apart), similarly the consecutive notes are said to be half step apart. So the distance between A# and B is half step. And the distance between C and D is whole step.

Here is a diagram of the fret board. It simply looks like the guitar fret board with the strings on it. It may be vertical or horizontal. Here I am using a horizontal diagram. With the standard tuning, and following the sequence of notes as described above, we can easily tell the name of any note on the guitar fret board. It is just like counting numbers.

So from the above diagram it is clear that each successive fret differs by a half step. So if on the fifth fret and 6th string you have an A note, the  to get a B note, you have to go two frets up or a whole step up the fret board. Some of the notes were represented as A#,C# and so on.

Now there is an another way of writing these notes. As A# means, half step above A note, similarly Ab (pronounced as A flat) will mean half step down the A note. So A# will be same 

as Bb. On the same basis C# and Db are same notes. These are just two different names for the same note. The notes which do not have a # or b (sharp or flat) added to them are called natural notes.