Guitar Theory

The Basic Of Music

Notes

All the music in the world is made of notes. Standard notations for piano, tabs for guitar and even our voice while singing are all bunch of notes played in a row.

Octave

An octave is the interval between a note to the same note with greater pitch. For example, the interval between the open sixth string(note E) and the six string played on the 12th fret(also the note E) is one octave, and the interval between the sixth string and the first string played open is two octaves.

Dividing the Octave

As you probably know, a whole octave in western music is divided to seven notes: C D E F G A B C (Later you will understand why I started with the note C and not with the note A) Important: The pitch difference between each pair of sequential notes is not equal. For example: the note D is one tone higher than C, but the note C is just one semi-tone higher than B, not a whole tone. Another way to divide the octave is by using accidentals. We have two main accidental signs: ♭- which lower the pitch by one semi-tone and # - which higher the pitch by one semi-tone. So now the octave dividing is this: C C#/D♭ D D#/E♭ E F F#/G♭ G G#/A♭ A A#/B♭ B C We divided the octave to 12 semi-tones, or 6 tones. Please pay attention:
1.Some of the pitches(like C#/D♭) have two names and they both mean the same note. 2. The pairs E&F and B&C do not have a note in between each pair, that’s because they both built from one semi-tone interval. Now, when you know how we divide the octave and what semi-tones and tones are, you are ready to learn scales.

Scales

Scale is a series of notes in ascending or descending order. The two most common scales in the western music are the Major scale and the Minor scale, and those two are the scales that we will use in this article.

How to create a scale?

Every scale in music is created by a formula. The formula is a series of Intervals that define the scale type. Every scale type(like Major Scale, Minor Scale and so on) have 12 “variations”, one for each tone in an octave.
So when you create a scale you should consider two aspects: the first note in the scale and the scale’s formula. Now let’s define the two main formulas: The Major Scale and The Minor Scale.

The Major Scale

The Major Scale is the first scale that we will learn. If you know the song “Do, Re, Mi” you actually know the C Major Scale.
The Major Scale Formula is: T-T-S-T-T-T-S. Let’s find out what is means. Let’s start with the note C, just for the example. First, we should write an octave from low C to higher C: C C#/D♭ D D#/E♭ E F F#/G♭ G G#/A♭ A A#/B♭ B C Let’s start with the first note in the scale: C. The first letter in the formula is T so we need to “jump” one tone higher from C. One semi-tone higher than C we got C# (or D♭). Now let’s “jump” another semi-tone and we will get to D. Two semi-tones are one tone, so the second note in the scale is D. From D we will jump again one tone higher, or two semi-tones and we will get E. The third jump is one semi-tone, not one tone, so we’ll get to F. We will repeat the process until we will get to C again and write all the notes in a line. What we got is this: C Major Scale: C D E F G A B C Now, if we will do the same process, but we will start with F and not with C we will get this: F Major Scale: F G A B♭ C D E F Pay attention that now B is not natural B (B♮) but it is B♭! Exercise: Now, when you know how to find major scale in each key, try to build those scales: A Major, B major, E♭ Major, G Major and F# Major.

The Minor Scale

The minor scale is another important scale in music. Its formula is: T-S-T-T-S-T-T. Building Minor Scale is exactly like building Major Scale but with a little different formula. A Minor Scale: A B C D E F G A D Minor Scale: D E F G A B♭ C D

Parallel Scales

Pay attention to C Major Scale and to Am Scale(A Minor). You’ll see that they both have the same accidental signs(in this case, no flats and no sharps). The only difference between those two is that the first note in the C Major Scale is the third note in Am Scale. The same statement is true for F Major and Dm Scales. They both have only one sharp sign(on the note B) and the note F, the first note in F Major Scale, is the third note in Dm scale. Actually, every Major Scale has a parallel Minor Scale. Exercise: Find all the pairs of parallels scales. (Hint: they are 12 pairs)

Chords

Now, it’s a great time to take a break. The material about scales is pretty hard and confusing. Read it again, do the exercises and make sure that you understand the scales before you continue the reading. So you repeated the material and you understand it? Good. So what are chords? Chords are group of three(or more) notes played simultaneously. The basic types of chords are, surprisingly, Major and Minor Chords.

Constructing a chord

The process of constructing a chord is pretty simple and it is the same when building Major and Minor Chords. First, take the first note of the chord. If you want to construct a C Major Chord it will be C, for example. Now pick the matching scale. If you want a Major Chord, pick Major Scale, and for a Minor Chord, pick Minor Scale. Now all you need to the is to take the first, third and fifth notes in the scale and this is your chord. For example, C Major Chord contains the notes: C, E, G.
D Minor chord contains: D, F, A and so on… Exercise: Find the notes of those chords: D, A, E, F, Gm, Dm, Bb, Am and C.

Practical Example

As a guitar player you probably know how to play open D Chord(D Major). When playing D Chord you play the forth string open(note D), third string second fret(note A), second string third fret(note D) and first string second fret(note F#).
So the notes you play are: D, A, D and F#. If you will build the D Major Scale and take the first, third and fifth notes from it you’ll get: D, F#, A. Surprise! Those are the same notes that you play on the guitar! Exercise: Analyze the chords: A, E, F, C, Bb, Dm and G(open or Barre) in the same way as the above.

Chords And Scales

When an artist writes a tune, many times he wants to write it in a specific key. But there is a problem! Let’s say that our writer wants to write his poem with our old friend, the key of C Major. He could play C Chord without a problem, but if, for example, he wants to play D Chord? D chord has the note F#, which is not part of C Major Scale! So what should he do? To solve this problem, we use diatonic chords.

Diatonic Chords

You can say that a chord is diatonic to a scale if the scale contains all the notes of the chord. For example, C Chord is diatonic to C Major Scale, but D isn’t, because D Chord has the note F#, which is not part of C Major Scale. There is a little nice formula that can help us to find all the diatonic chords to a major scale and there is it:
 I IIm IIIm IV V VIm VIIm♭5 In other words, the first chord will always be a major chord. The second chord is a minor chord and so on.. The seventh chord(VIIm♭5) is a diminished chord. Diminished chord are not very common in music other than jazz so we didn’t talk about it in this article, but if you want to learn jazz you definitely should learn diminished chords. Example in C Major Scale: I IIm IIIm IV V VIm VIIm♭5 C Dm Em F G Am Bdim As you can see in the example: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim are the diatonic chords to C Major Scale, so if someone writes a tune in C Major Key, he will use especially those chords. The formula for Minor Scale is: Im IIm♭5 III IVm Vm VI VII

How diatonic chords help me as a player?

Diatonic chords are important tool in improvising. If you want to improvise over a tune, you should find the key of the tune first, and the best way to do it is by using diatonic chords. Also when improvising over a tune in a specific key, you can play arpeggios of diatonic chords and make the improvisation more interesting that just playing the scale.
Another place where it helps is when writing poems and tunes. You can use diatonic chords to give the make the tune a stable feeling and make it sound like a tune and not like a bunch of unconnected and random chords.

Conclusions

Music theory is a very wide subject and it has much more material that I couldn’t cover in this article. If you have found this article interesting it may be a good idea for you to search in the internet or in books for additional information about music theory, it could raise your playing level a lot. Good Luck!