Music theory for Guitar

[UncleTito]

I was wondering...

I have been a player and a private instructor for many years now. I have tons of useful knowledge about guitar music. Since I'm not teaching anymore, this is going to waste and I have an itch to share this with somebody. Since some of you are musicians, I was wondering if any of you could use some of this wonderful knoweldege.

My proposal is this: If any of you think it's a good Idea to post it here, I will cover a wide array of topics covering the basics. Then, should you have any questions, you can post them here and I will give you a thorough answer. Like personalized guitar lessons.

I will do this only if the moderators think it would add to the diversity of the forum. I figured this would be a significant contribution, the gift of knowledge. And this would be brought to you for the wonderfully irresistible price of FREE!!! ;D

So what do you think?

[Victor]

Hey UncleTito, that sounds really cool to me! I'll let the moderators weigh in though to see if they think this is appropriate for this forum.

Just to let you know where I'm at with guitar playing... I've been taking lessons for just about two years. I grew up playing piano and trumpet, so I read music but I never had a teacher who did much with teaching theory. So for me music has always just been about learning the notes on the page. I've always admired musicians who can improvise. I think it would be so exciting to be able to play that way!

With my guitar playing I started out studying classical and flamenco technique. Recently, I've been getting into playing jazz both because I enjoy the music and because it's highly improvisational. My guitar teacher obviously understands music theory in depth but so far it's not really coming together for me - at least not in application. So, I figure if I can get more and more exposure from different sources (a little different way of explaining something) then eventually it will sink in.

I'm curious to know if you generally approach music theory in a systematic way and if there are any books you recommend. Well, I'll leave it at that for now. Anyway, thanks for the offer to share your knowlege and experience - I think that's very generous of you!

[Carolynn]

I'm supposedly a Moderator, and here's my opinion -- YES!

There are those of us who don't have any musical talent in their bodies who would enjoy learning all we can!

[Adam Solomon]

You have the admin's blessing

[boris]

You have my eyes open for reading.

(Sounds like LOFTR: you have my sword ... and my bow ... and my axe ...)

[Adam Solomon]

Those lines actually wasn't in the book...made a nice addition to the movie, though

[UncleTito]

Wow! This is quite a response! Thank you all for your interest. Victor: I definitely view music in a very systematic way. A very good analogy is that of someone who is trying to build something. Let's say an engineer. He or she can only design or create something if they have the knowledge to do so. Knowledge is what let's an engineer create without having to experiment and get satisfactory results. It is the same in music. You can only compose if you know how. This can only be achieved if you know music theory. If you only know two chords, then all songs that you write will have the same two chords. As you learn how music works, you will have more compositional tools at your disposal and your music will move forward as opposed to stagnating.

Here is a lesson I wrote for a friend of mine. He has a minimal knowledge about theory. I assume that this lesson will spark some questions. If this is too confusing I can give you a distilled version. If you have any questions, fire away!!!!

Lesson 1


Many top players don’t know what I’m about to tell you here. That alone is a testimony that you probably do not need this knowledge to succeed with your craft. But I will tell you this: Knowing how things work in music will make you a better songwriter, and a better musician. You will know exactly what’s happening in a song once you hear it. You will be able to communicate your ideas to other musicians and they will understand what you are conveying to them, and you will not have to scramble as much to find chords that support your melodies. So, let’s get down to it.

Most popular music is composed using the Western System of Music. There are many systems of music. Music of the Middle East uses a different system. That is what gives it its particular sound. Music from India, China, Japan and many parts of the world is composed using their own systems that includes different tones, rhythms, sounds and instruments with their particular way of tuning. The Western System, however, is the one that is most widely used because of its adaptability, versatility and ease of use. Many musicians are able to adapt features of other systems into the Western System. The most vivid example of this is Flamenco music from the south of Spain, which has incorporated many of the features found in Middle Eastern music.

In our system (Western) we have only 12 Tones. Each of these tones has several Pitches. A pitch is the highness or lowness of a particular tone. These tones are usually arranged so that we only use 7 of them at a time. This arrangement of tones is referred to as a Scale. It is very important that you become familiar with the scale because your melodies and the chords that support them are derived from this particular arrangement of tones we call a scale. We use the first seven letters of the alphabet to name these tones, A B C D E F G. You have probably noticed that there are 12 tones and only 7 names. We will get into that later. For now, focus on the 7 tones that will make up a scale.

The most common scale is called the Major Scale. To make a major scale we use a formula of Intervals. We call an interval the distance between pitches within the scale. On the guitar, intervals are sometimes referred to as Steps. This formula is:

Whole step – whole step - half step – whole step – whole step – whole step – half step

A whole step on the guitar is the distance of two frets, and a half step would be that of one fret. To illustrate this arrangement and its particular sound grab your guitar and play the tone found on the fifth string, third fret, which is C. If you follow the interval formula that I just gave you, what you will hear is the C Major Scale. Here is a diagram of the string and the frets that should be played:

------3-----5-----7-----8-----10-----12-----14-----15------
C D E F G A B C

If you paid attention, you probably saw the formula. From C to D that’s a whole step, or two frets. From D to E is a whole step, from E to F is a half step and so on until the formula is completed and then it repeats with the same pitch names and interval relationship. Most guitarists find this linear way of playing a scale not very practical, so they arrange it in a way that it is played over three strings. Like this:

--------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------4-----5-----
------------------------3-----5-----7-----------------
-----3-----5-----7------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------

Or with a different fingering:

------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------2-----4-----5----
-----------------2-----3-----5-----------------------
-----3-----5------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------


Many people ask about tones that have the same name, but that are clearly higher or lower in pitch. This is what we call an Octave. A term that refers to any given pitch being played, within the scale, eight tones higher or lower than the reference pitch. These are pitches that have similar tonal characteristics but are not necessarily within the same range. They have the same name, but are higher or lower in pitch. You may use a color analogy to describe this relationship. If you take C, for example, and relate it to the color blue, you can say that a C an octave higher than its reference pitch is a lighter shade of blue. An octave lower would be a deeper shade of blue. Just remember that we arrange tones in groups of 7. After we reach the 7th pitch, the 8th pitch will have the same name as the 1st and you will keep going up alphabetically and following the major scale formula until you reach the limit of your instrument.

When you have organized your tones into scales and use these to compose music, the final product is a song that is written in a Key or Tonality. To understand the meaning of these two words the first thing you need to know is that keys are named after the first tone of the scale being used. If you are using the C Major scale to write a song, then that song will be in the key of C. When a musician wants to learn or compose a song, the first thing that he or she may want to know is the key to the song. This will not only tell the musician the scale that is being used to compose the melody, but also what Chords are needed to support that melody. Chords are two or more notes played at the same time and the notes for each chord are determined, once again, by the scale that you use to compose your music.

You will learn how to construct chords later on, but for now what you will need is the formula to know what chords go with what scale. This is actually quite simple. Each tone of the major scale yields a chord with a particular Quality. The quality of a chord is what tells you whether a chord is major or minor, happy sounding or sad sounding. As you progress in your study of the guitar and songwriting, you will learn that there is a reason as to why a chord sounds major or minor. Until we get there, this is what you need to know: All major scales have the same quality of chords within them. And they happen in the following order:

Major
Minor
Minor
Major
Major
Minor
Diminished (hardly used in popular music)

Following this formula, we can then determine that the chords to be used with the C major scale are:

C Major
D Minor
E Minor
F Major
G Major
A Minor
B Diminished

Now that you have this knowledge, your homework is to write a song in the key of C using the chords shown above. You may want to try different fingerings for each chord. Use a chord book and be creative. You will probably use only three or four chords and not all seven. There is a reason for this and I will explain it to you on your next lesson.


The core of the Western System is the Scale.

[Adam Solomon]

UncleTito, if you want to e-mail me a lesson like this whenever you come up with one, I'll be sure to put them up on OLnet

[Victor]

Excellent Lesson 1 UncleTito! For me, that pulled together a lot of concepts I was familiar with but didn't have a clear understanding of how they meshed. And I must say I never had a music teacher ask me to write a song. I started experimenting with it yesterday - this is going to be fun! I think I know where you're headed with saying we will probably only use 3 or 4 chords. At least, I think I can guess which 3 would be dominant - but I'll be interested to hear your explanation of why.

Thanks!

[UncleTito]

So, how did you folks do? I hope that by now you can see that music is a highly organized craft. Everything in music happens for a reason and not randomly. Music has rules. If you follow them, they make things so much easier. The funny thing about this lesson is that the guy I originally wrote it for did not like it. He said that it took away the magic out of music. He prefers to view music as a "highly organic creative process" and not a "mechanical" one. He always thaught that his favorite players were geniuses that just had an uncanny talent for choosing the right combination of notes. Once he realized that they were mere mortals following some kind of musical rule he was highly dissapointed. To me, knowing that after a C chord you will most likely play an F or a G chord (if you are in the key of C) is absolute freedom. It eliminates guess work.

I realize that I told you I was going to tell you why certain chords follow certain chords, but that really should be lesson #5 (or something like that). I need to edit lesson #1. This is something that I made for someone that was into songwriting. I had it in a disk and did a copy and paste job without edits. If you folks don't mind, I want to cover what SHOULD be lesson #2, which will cover the circle of fiths and how to create scales on any of the 12 tones. It will also cover accidentals (sharps and flats). We will get into chord progressions later on. Until then you can experiment with what you have learned thus far. I will post the lesson Sunday night.

[Adam Solomon]

As I said, Tito, if you want to perfect the various lessons and e-mail them to me, I'll definitely put them on OLnet

[Victor]

Hey UncleTito, it's going pretty good - although I can't say I really have a song yet. I've been playing with different chord sequences and a melody that might go with it. Only problem is I keep forgetting what I just made up, so it keeps changing.

Anyway, please proceed with the material and order you think is best. Up till now most the theory I've gotten is in little bits and pieces and not in any structured approach so I appreciate what you're doing!

Looking forward to more!

[Adam Solomon]

Victor, get a cheap vocal mic for your computer and whenever a cool idea comes into your head, just record! That way you'll never forget

[UncleTito]

Here you have the second lesson. Sorry it took so long. I tried to cut and paste a picture of the Circle of fifths/fourths but it did not work. You can easily find one on the net. Enjoy!!! ;D


Lesson 2


On our previous lesson we learned quite a few things. We learned about music systems, that we only have twelve tones, how to construct a major scale and what kinds of chords are contained therein. On this lesson we will take things a little bit further and we will learn how to construct major scales on all twelve tones. We will also cover the Circle of Fifths/Fourths.

We have already determined that the simplest scale is the C Major scale, because it has no accidentals. The C Major scale only covers a fraction of the tones found on the guitar. So, what about the rest of the tones? Will we get to use them? Sure. It is just a matter of what Tonality you choose to play in. Remember, scales have only seven tones. There are several pitches (highness or lowness) to every tone, depending on the range of the instrument, but we only work with seven tones at the time, at least for now. Before we get any further, let’s see if we can construct a major scale on a different tone. For this I have chosen G as our new tone. With G as our new tonal center, we will now construct The G Major scale.

Do you remember the first lesson? Do you remember the pattern to make a major scale? It was whole step – whole step – half step – whole step – whole step - whole step – half step. Notice that the half steps occur between the third and fourth tones, and between the seventh and eighth tones. Make sure you memorize this, because this will never change. In the C Major scale they happen between E and F and between B and C. Will this change if we start on a different pitch? Yes and no. The tones within the scale will, but not the place of the half steps. These will always fall between the third and fourth tones and between the seventh and eighth tone. Let’s do a little experiment. For illustration purposes, let’s use the low G found on the sixth string, on the third fret. If we were to follow the whole step/half step pattern to construct a Major scale, our one string diagram would look like this:

-----3-----5-----7-----8-----10-----12-----14-----15-----
G A B C D E F# G

Or with a different fingering:

-------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------4-----5-------------
-----------------------3-----5-----7-----------------------
------3-----5-----7----------------------------------------
G A B C D E F# G

Yes, that is correct. There is an F # in there. You have to alter the F to keep the pattern. If you don’t do that, then it would not be the G Major scale. Remember that the half steps fall between the third and fourth tones and between the seventh and eight tones. From B to C it’s a half step; we don’t have to do anything there. From F to G it’s a whole step. The problem is that we need a half step there. To keep the pattern we raise F up one fret to F # and stay within our new tonal center, which is now G. So F # becomes our first Accidental. Accidentals are used to keep the Major scale pattern. In the C Major scale all of the tones are Natural.

I don’t know if you have noticed, but G is the fifth tone in the C scale. Hmm… Let’s try something else. Let’s go to D, which is the fifth tone in the G scale, and try the same thing there. This time we will use the D found on the fifth string, fifth fret.

-----5-----7-----9-----10-----12-----14-----16-----17---
D E F# G A B C# D

Or:

------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------6-----7---------------
------------------------5-----7-----9---------------------------
-----5-----7-----9---------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
D E F# G A B C# D

That’s right. We had to alter the seventh tone again. Now we have a C #. The F # is a carry over from the previous scale. You have just discovered how the Circle of Fifths works. The Circle of fifths is a nifty little device used in music to give us a sense of organization. In the Circle of Fifths every thing happens every five tones. We start out with C. To get the next scale, we move up to the fifth tone, to G, and sharpen the seventh tone to keep the whole step/half step pattern. We then move up to the fifth tone, starting with G, all the way up to D and do the same thing. For this system to work we not only need to move up in fifths, but we also need keep all of the accidentals we have added every time you move up. So we add sharps one fifth up from the previous one. If you examine the D scale you will notice that C # is a fifth from F # .

Having Fun? Good! Go to the fifth tone on the D scale. What do you get? That’s right, A. And what will your next accidental be? Did you say G #? Man, you’re good! Let’s look at it on the sixth string:

-----5-----7-----9-----10-----12-----14-----16-----17-----
A B C# D E F# G# A

Or:
----------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------6-----9-------------
------------------------5-----7-----9--------------------------
-----5-----7-----9---------------------------------------------
A B C# D E F# G# A


This is what the circle of fifths looks like:

img.thefreedictionary.com/wiki/c/ce/Fifths.png

The letter on the outside of the circle determines the scale’s position according to how many sharps or flats it has. This is the Tonic. The number on the inside tells you how many sharps or flats each scale has. You can follow this pattern until you get to F #. I prefer to stop there for the sharp keys. For the flat keys what I do is to go back to C and move counterclockwise and turn this into the Circle of Fourths. Now you go to the fourth tone in the C scale (F) and start working from there. You will move in fourths, and your next flat will be a fourth from the last. Is this confusing you? It shouldn’t. Lets try this on written form:

The C Scale is C D E F G A B C. Go to F, the fourth tone in the scale, and build a Major scale there. You should come up with F G A Bb C D E F (remember to keep the half steps where they belong). This is the F Major Scale. If you go to the fourth tone of the F Major scale (Bb) and do the Major scale pattern there you will come up with Bb C D Eb F G A Bb. Eb is a fourth from Bb. This keeps on going until you get to the Key of Db. Cool, eh?

You have probably noticed that there are two keys in the circle that have more than one name. F# (Gb) and Db (C#). Now is a good time to introduce a new word into our musical lexicon. Enharmonic.

Enharmonic is a word that is used to describe tones that sound the same but that have different names. This applies to keys as well, although there are only two scales that have enharmonic equivalents. For individual tones, you will find that Db and C# are the exact same note. They are enharmonic. Whether you use a Db or a C# depends on the note you are using as a root. You have to go up alphabetically from the tonic. If your starting note is A, then you have A B C# D E F# G# A. You can’t have A B Db D E Gb Ab A because this is not in alphabetical order, even if to our ears these sound exactly alike. The thing to remember here is that you need to keep the alphabetical sequence.

So there you have it. I imagine that you are either diggin’ it or are totally confused. If the latter is true for you, feel free to ask as many questions as you would like. We are in this for the long run, so make sure you know this material.

Your homework is to construct all twelve major keys and to find what chords go with each. You will have to refer to the first lesson to get this information.

On our next lesson we will cover the minor scale (all three of them), how they relate to the major scale, and what chords are included with them.

[UncleTito]

Boy, It has been quiet in here for a few days now. Are you folks doing your homework? Because if you are not, you will get the dunce hat!!!