Understanding the B String

As we saw previously, while looking at Moving A Note, the G to B string relationship is an outlier.

Let's look at how we can learn to get along with the B string.

I want you to imagine there's a river running across your fretboard. It runs all the way along, sitting between the G and B strings. 

When you cross the river from the EADG strings to the B and high E strings, you enter flat (♭) territory.

Notice that the high E string is included in that. That's because the E string is tuned 5 frets higher relative to the B string, which means it's flat relative to the rest of the guitar as well.

This means we need to sharp (#) anything we want to move over the river, to keep it the same.

Look at how our traditional octave shape (2 strings up, 2 frets up) breaks when it crosses the river. We have to move up an extra fret to account for it.

This will go for any shapes you've learned for intervals, triads, arpeggios, etc. They will break if you use them in a way that crosses the river, and you will need to account for that by sharping the notes that end up on the B and high E.

If you can remember this one rule, you can freely move any notes and shapes across all six strings!