Blank guitar fretboard diagrams are a great tool for aspiring guitarists of any level. They are especially good for learning your way around the guitar fretboard. You can print these blank fretboard charts and use them when guitar is not around to recall notes on the fretboard, scales and chords, or document new unusual chords.
Back in school, when I was still learning my way around the guitar fretboard, I used to draw blank fretboard diagrams at the back of my notebook. Later, I decided to draw them up on a computer so I can quickly print as many as I need.
The charts that I used back them are long gone, so I designed new (and improved) printable fretboard charts for all to use. These blank guitar fretboard chart come as printable PDFs and they are completely free to download and use.
You might also be interested in printable charts that show all notes on the guitar fretboard.
Blank fretboard chart templates
There are two different chart templates for you to choose from:
- 24-fret 6-string guitar fretboard chart (7 boxes per page)
- 12-fret 6-string guitar fretboard chart (14 boxes per page)
Here are the samples of the fretboard charts you will find in the PDFs.
As you can see these fretboard diagrams are fairly barebones. I added fretboard markers because they serve as a nice visual reference tool for moving around the fretboard. Aside from that these diagrams are decisively clean and simple.
You might not have a 24 fret guitar so just leave those last few frets out. 12 fret diagrams might be handy if you’d like to focus on learning the notes in that first half of the fretboard. The notes and patterns repeat themselves after 12th fret, but you probably know that.
These two blank templates should cover most of your needs whether you are a beginner or more advanced student of guitar. Let me know if you’d like a different layout! At some point I’ll put together blank fretboard diagrams for a 7th string guitar too.
These layouts were designed for print on Letter size paper, but they should work on A4 as well.
Download free blank guitar fretboard diagrams
Click on the image or a link below to open and download free printable blank fretboard diagrams as PDF.
How to use these blank fretboard charts
You can use these blank fretboard diagrams in several different ways. Here are some of my favourite!
1. Visualize scale patterns
One of my favourite ways is to practice visualizing scale patterns. For example, here are some of the popular patterns for G major scale:
I like to use different color for root notes. You can use colored pencils or pens or simply use empty circles for regular notes and fill in root notes.
Another way to recall scales is to put actual names of the notes on the fretboard, or scale degrees/intervals as numbers.
2. Document new or unusual chords
Another great use for these blank diagrams is to document new and unusual chords that you come across. 12-fret version will work especially well for this. You can document chords that might be hard to name (and hard to remember), and that might not fit into traditional guitar chord charts. I found these charts especially useful when working through a book like Chord Chemistry.
Hope you find these blank fretboard diagrams useful. Feel free to share them with others. Also check out blank guitar chord charts (also free to download)!
