I have a question about octaves on the fretboard. So every 12 steps you reach an octave on the same string, but how is it that a string over automatically equals an octave since you can't count that in terms of steps? Or can you?

You can count intervals across strings. I explain this topic in depth in these GF2 tutorials on intervals & scales.

http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=362
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=363

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Christopher Schlegel
Guitar Tricks Instructor
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Not sure what you are trying to say there. One string over is NOT an automatic octave though. That would imply that every string is the same note (E, one string over E octave, one string over another E octave, ect.)

Thank you very much for the quick reply.

Hi Christopher,
After watching these videos I now see how poorly phrased my question was. After watching your tutorials on intervals, I have a question just to be sure I'm understanding octaves. If, for example, I was playing a C major scale and I wanted to start with a C note on the Low E string, play all the other notes in between on any other strings I feel like, and then end on a C on the High E string, would the C on the High E string be the octave?

Conversely, if I started on the C on the High E string and worked my way back to the C on the low E string, would this then be my octave?

I do realize that from a realistic perspective it wouldn't make sense to do play the C Major scale like this. This question is just to confirm my understanding of this topic.

I appreciate your assistance with this.

It wouldn't be a direct octave. It would be the octave of the C on the 4th string, 10th fret (It is 2 octaves higher basically). The octave is the FIRST note you come to after 12 half steps.

Thank you for the explanation. So are these octaves simply differentiated by their hertz measurement? I guess what I'm struggling with is that we are supposed to count out the intervals when playing on one string, but I'm not seeing how that equates when we move two strings over and then down several frets to find the direct octave. It seems like we're just directed to do that, but I don't understand why quite yet. So would the C on the high E string vibrate twice as fast as the C on the low e string?