Greetings guitar fans, Scott here from LearnLoveGuitar.com,
the online authority for learning and loving
to play guitar.
If you have ever wanted know the basics of
music theory as it applies to a guitar but
were too scared or intimidated to get started,
then this introductory video is made just
for you. I will share with you some critically
important information for any new guitarist
and, while it will not be enough to earn you
a bachelor’s degree in music theory, it
will be enough to get you moving on your journey
of learning and loving to play guitar.
To keep things simple and not too intimidating,
I’m going to focus on four fundamental guitar
music theory concepts and if you can get your
head wrapped around each of these principles,
you’ll be amazed at the musical world that
opens up for you. The four basic guitar music
theory concepts are:
One, the musical alphabet, two, sharps and
flats, three, half-steps and whole-steps,
and four the BC/EF rule.
Guitar music theory literally starts out with
the ABC’s that you learned as a toddler.
But in a way, it is even easier because instead
of having to remember all 26 letters, you
only really have to remember the first 7.
The pattern of these seven notes simply repeat
themselves as the pitch of the notes continues
to raise or lower.
The musical distance, or interval, between
any note in the first sequence and the same
letter note in the next repeating sequence
is considered an octave. For reference, these
notes are 8 units apart, just think of an
octagon that has 8 sides. The most basic musical
note pattern goes like this:
A B C D E F G A B C D E F G and so on and
so forth.
See, you’ve already conquered the first
fundamental music theory concept! Let’s
move on to the next one.
OK, so it does get slightly more complex than
just the letters A through G repeating themselves.
But it’s not all that complicated. Most
of the basic notes of the musical alphabet
contain an extra note between each of the
letters. A useful analogy to understand this
concept is to use numbers. Let’s say that
we replace the musical alphabet of A, B, C,
D, E, F and G with the numbers 1 through 7.
The equivalent pattern would look like this:
Now, we already know that fractional numbers
exist between each integer number (for example,
the fraction 1 and a half exists between the
integers 1 and 2). And the musical alphabet
works on a similar basis. The music theory
terms used to describe these “notes between
the notes” are sharps and flats, which are
formally known musically as accidentals. Sharps
raise the pitch up by a half step, while flats
lower the pitch by a half step. If we add
these extra notes to our previous pattern
of letter and numbers, we get the following
updated sequences:
The inner portion of the diagram probably
makes perfect sense because everyone knows
that between the numbers 1 and 2 is the fraction
one and a half, or written as as a decimal
one point five. But what about the strange
symbols above and between the notes A and
B for example? The diagram shows “A number
sign capital B lower case b” and this requires
a bit more explanation.
The symbol to denote a sharp note is the number
sign or hashtag symbol and to denote a flat
note a lower case b is used. So when an A
note is raised in pitch by a half step, it
is called “A Sharp”. And when a B note
is lowered in pitch by a half step, it is
called “B Flat”. So if you’re asking
yourself if A sharp and B flat are actually
the same note (again, based on numbers they
both align with one point five), you’re
catching on because they are in fact the same
note!
When the same note can be musically “spelled”
two different ways, it is called an enharmonic
equivalent. All of the other sharp and flat
notes called out above each single letter
note are also equivalent. So C sharp is musically
equivalent to D flat, and D sharp is musically
equivalent to E flat, and so on and so on…..
If you’re still confused, that’s OK. I
have another analogy that might help you figure
this out. I’m going to use the keys of a
piano to describe the exact same concept of
sharps and flats.
All of the white keys on a piano are natural
letter notes, or integers in our number analogy.
And similarly, all of the black keys are accidentals,
or sharps and flats as they’re more commonly
known. Hopefully you can now see that the
black keys are the “notes between the notes”.
So when I stated earlier that you only had
to know 7 letters of the alphabet, it was
only partially true. Because you also need
to know the names of the basic sharp and flat
notes. So how many actual notes are there
within a single octave? Remember that an octave
is all of the notes starting from any single
note and climbing the chromatic scale until
the same note is at the next higher or lower
pitch.
If you answered twelve, you would be correct!
If you came up with a different answer, start
with the letter C on the far-left side of
the piano key diagram above. Count both the
white and black keys stopping just before
you reach the next C on the right side of
the diagram. Did you count 12 notes? Now you’re
getting it!
Now you may be thinking, wait a minute, I
thought this was a guitar website and not
a piano website. Of course, you are correct
that this is indeed a guitar website, so how
does the concept of natural notes, sharps
and flats apply to a guitar? Pretty easily
actually. And it’s basically the same concept
as you just learned for a piano, except that
instead of keys being next to each other,
the guitar frets are next to each other.
The next major piece of music theory for beginners
that relates to the guitar is the concept
of Half Steps and Whole Steps.
Going back to the piano analogy, the musical
interval between any two adjacent keys on
a piano is called a half step, and if you
move two keys from whichever key you’re
starting on by skipping a note, that iss called
a whole step.
Once again, the guitar behaves very similarly
to the piano because moving one fret up or
down the fretboard represents a half step
and skipping over a note and moving up or
down two frets on a guitar is a whole step.
You’ve made it to the last major guitar
music theory building block for this article.
And by now, what I am about to explain should
not come as any big surprise and you may have
already figured it out. It’s called the
BC EF Rule and the rule states the following:
Every natural note in the musical alphabet
EXCEPT for the notes B and C and E and F have
a whole step between them. Once again, this
concept is easily visualized on a piano keyboard.
You may have also noticed that in the image
further above with the guitar fretboard and
the lettered note names on the low E string,
that the B and C notes were right next to
each other without any sharp or flat note
between them.
And lastly, I need to make an update to one
of the earlier images from above, to remove
the “extra” accidentals from the diagram
that really don’t exist between the B and
C and E and F notes.
Now technically, could you refer to a C note
as a B Sharp? Technically, yes these notes
are enharmonic equivalents, along with C Flat,
E Sharp and F Flat, but they are rarely ever
used in the music world.
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations!
You have now come full circle in the understanding
of some basic guitar music theory. Of course,
there is a ton more to learn to master more
advanced guitar music theory, but these four
key fundamental concepts should be enough
to get your journey started for a beginning
guitarist and well into the intermediate stage.
And don’t forget to check out my other videos
and subscribe to my LearnLoveGuitar YouTube
channel. Also, there’s tons of additional
content on my website at www.LearnLoveGuitar.com.
Thanks for listening and good luck!
