Reading Music In The 5th Position

Since the guitar has six strings, most notes on the guitar can be found in several “positions” on the fretboard. Instead of learning all of the note locations at once, we can divide the guitar into positions to help us locate the best fingering for each piece of music. We can determine the best position by studying the range (highest and lowest note) of the piece to find a suitable position 

The “5th Position” refers to the notes found between the 5th and 8th frets on the guitar. This is the most versatile position on the neck, as you can play into both the lower and upper ranges of the guitar. Note that this position goes up to the High C as well as the Low A, and is the most balanced range for reading into the low and high notes. 

The diagram below shows the notes in the 5th position. Notice that we lose notes on the lower end of the staff and gain notes on the higher end above the staff. 

The diagram below shows the sharps and flats in the 5th position. Note that we sometimes extend this position down to the 4th fret and up to the 9th fret to find some of these notes. Typically we will use the closest finger to the fret, so the 4th fret will use the first finger, and the 9th fret will use the 4th finger.