Music Theory for Guitarists: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask by Tom Kolb
Between these, come the likes of the most simple and common p (piano- quiet) and f (forte- loud). More middling volumes can be created via mf and mp, while sudden moments of loudness can be achieved through sfz instructions. Dynamics are one of the most simple concepts in music theory as they a have a very distinctive and definitive existence. The Western chromatic scale organises a specific set of pitches within the human hearing range, and allows us to move up through every single note. While we are used to this sound, it’s important to remember that this doesn’t nearly cover every single pitch.
A set of quaver triplets, for example, would tell you to play three equally spaced notes within the rhythmic period that would normally be filled by two normal quavers. Technically, tempo and metre are encompassed by rhythm, but rhythm also has its own distinctive action. For example, a semibreve rhythm implies that its note should be a held for four beats. You should familiarise yourself with these terms as well as semiquaver, minim and crotchet, as they all give length to notes. The ideas of tonality and harmony often overlap as harmony is created from notes that exist within a tonality.
Plus, it’s important to understand intervals as they are a foundational concept of music theory. You can think of the guitar fretboard as one big connected grid. It stands to reason that if the notes on the fretboard follow a given pattern, so too do the scales that are derived from these notes. This is important to understand because once you learn to recognize the patterns that make up a given scale, it gives you the freedom to play across the entire fretboard. Using what we already know about scales, the concept of tonality is something rather easy to grasp. While a scale is a selection of notes organised into a specific order, a key is just those notes in their unorganised form.
When you’re performing on your instrument, you don’t have any time to think through the theory of what you’re playing. A mode is a type of scale or tonality built on something aside from the typical major and minor scales and keys we are used to. An easy way to explore the major modes is by viewing them as a selection of white notes that start on a different note to the C major scale we’d expect to create using white notes. As such, the Dorian scale is the white notes from D-D, creating a distinctive sound. The first step in understanding guitar theory is learning guitar scales. Guitar players use scales to play melodies, riffs, solos, and bass lines.
Sharps and Flats, for example, C♯ and D♭ and of the same note value, despite being notated differently. When accidentals are of the same note value in this way they are referred to as enharmonic equivalents. First of all, be sure to have read our tutorial on guitar fretboard notes , it will show how to navigate the fretboard fluently .
Learning to read chord charts is one of the first things you'll need to do as a beginner guitarist. You'll be using them for the rest of your guitar-playing life actually. The way they try to Guitar teach you music theory on the guitar is very often hard to understand and can become overwhelming fast. Knowing that the interval between a C and D is one step, you’ll need to move up two frets from the C to arrive at the D, on the tenth fret. In this diagram, the notes E, F, G, A, B and C have been highlighted.
Once you get to the last position , the patterns repeat themselves, starting again with the pattern of position 1. Of importance to note is that these patterns are all connected to the position above and below by shared notes. You can form a C major scale, D major scale, etc. all by using this same pattern. A whole step on the guitar is equal to two frets while a half step is equal to one fret.