Where to start with the fret board? So many different notes... so many unknowns...

A music scale is a group of musical notes arranged in ascending or descending order by pitch. The notes in a scale are selected from a set of 12 pitches, and the scale has a pattern of intervals between the notes. The tonic note is the starting and ending note of the scale, which gives the scale its name. For example, the C major scale consists of the following notes: C D E F G A B C. The interval pattern for a major scale is whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. You also have some sharps (#) or flats (b) between some but not all notes. C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B. Note C# equals Db, D# equals Eb and so on.

That said, we need to learn where these notes fit on the fret board. And how they repeat. Hopefully you are familiar with a piano and the key layout. The white keys are the natural keys (C, D, E etc) and the black keys are the sharps/flat keys. From left to right you have the order of notes repeating such that:

C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# BC C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B

...for example. Whilst this pattern repeats, the notes are an Octave higher each time such that the pitch increases. They can be numbered to explain...

C1 C#1 D1 D#1 E1 F1 F#1 G1 G#1 A1 A#1 B1 C2 C#2 D2 D#2 E2 F2 F#2 G2 G#2 A2 A#2 B2 C3 C#3 D3 D#3 E3 F3 F#3 G3 G#3 A3 A#3 B3 C4...

If you study the actual frequency of each note, you find that each repeat of a note has a frequency twice that of the previous one. For example, C1 has a frequency of 32.7Hz. C2 has a frequency of 65.4Hz. Anyway, enough of that, in short, all C notes sound similar because of this. Alls C# notes sound similar and so on.

Lets start to look at the notes on the fret board. We'll start with the strings. (Note this is standard tuning, there are other ways, but look at them later in your journey)

In this representation (and most that you will see) the thin string is at the top, and the thicker string at the bottom. When you look down and bring the guitar up a little to see the strings, it should mimic what you see. The nearest string to you being the bottom one on the diagram.

Notes, there are 2 E notes. These are two octaves apart, and the equivalent of E1 and E3. For now, just know them both as E. There are more on the fret board which we'll find later. Memorise these... it will take some time. You may see them referred to as "e,B,G,D,A,E" (thin to thick strings) or also referred to as 1 to 6. 1 being the thinnest string, 6 being the thickest. See the following string numbers on the left, and also fret numbers running along the top.

These are known and referred to as the open string notes. So if you pluck the thickest string (string 6) without any frets pressed, you are playing "open E". If you pluck string 5, you are playing open A.

Now for the rest of the notes. This will take months or years to learn fully, but you can learn the basics enough to get going.
There are 22 to 24 frets on most standard guitars. As there are 12 notes (C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B), they will repeat from the 12th fret onwards, so you only need to learn half the fret board. Great!

The notes on each string follow the same order as mentioned above: C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B on a loop. So the E string(s) start with E.... E F F# G G# A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C C# D D# along all 24 frets, as highlighted below:

You could learn these in order if you want. It is possible. It may be better to learn a few along the string and fill in the gaps. You should see on the fret board of your guitar and also the diagrams here, that there are markers. These markers are on the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 17th, 19th and 21st frets. For now focus on 3, 5, 7 and 9 as 12 onwards are the repeat. Start with learning the notes on the 3rd, 5th and 7th fret. G, A and B.

It's also useful to learn the corresponding notes on the 5th (A) string:

If you know those notes, you can quickly locate the notes either side, but also, it is useful to know that the notes repeat on the 4th and 3rd frets. Not only that but the E strings share the same notes:

This gives us quite a few notes over the first half (first 12 frets) of the fret board. We also know the open strings. There are also a few other places where the GAB and CDE pattern can be placed in sequence. These are a little trickier to learn and will take time. Concentrate on the 5th and 6th string first, and work your way towards the 2nd string (as the 1st string is a copy of the 6th string, both E strings)

As you can see, with the exception of a few areas, if you know these notes, you can learn the sharps/flats either side (all shown as sharps here). Repeat that from the 12th fret, and you're almost there.

Other things to note are the patterns as to how the notes/octaves relate to each other. Lets highlight all of the 'E' notes:

The E notes shown here are grouped by the notes frequency. For example, all of the blue notes are the same E2 note. They may sound a little different when played due to the string length and resonation but they are the same note. Many of the notes on the guitar are repeats. If you want to go from the lowest E note on string 6, open E, up to the highest pitch note, shown here as D# on the 1st (high E) string, there a total of 48 different notes. Shown below as the green notes, where as soon as the next string has that note, the next string is used. Alternatively, you could just play both E strings in sequence.

Scales... chords... tabs...