Getting Back To The Guitar – Music Theory Basics (Part 3) By Jesse Holmes At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

We can continue on like we did previously in a continuous circle of our fifth notes of each new scale until we find all the major scales. So we started at C Major, went to G Major which had one sharp, then to D Major which had two sharps, A Major, which has three sharps, and so on. Write out all the notes of each of these major scales on a sheet of paper and keep them in front of you to determine a song’s key, or to know which notes to use within each key. Now, you can play any note on your guitar, go up two frets to find the next note in that key’s major scale, go up another two frets for the next note, then one fret, then two frets, then two frets again, then two frets again, and then one fret, and you will have just found out the major scale for that beginning note. Pretty nifty huh?

Now we will get down a little deeper into the harmonies of each note in our scale, which chords to play, and which chords were used in pretty much every old rock and roll song. We can place a number value on each our C Major scales’ notes and learn another new formula that shows each notes’ harmony. We will start at C and call it 1, number the next note D as a 2, E as a 3 and so on, from 1 to 8. This is another formula you can just take at face value, memorize, and then apply. Here is the formula and then I will explain after: 1-Major, 2-minor, 3-minor, 4-Major, 5-Major, 6-minor, 7-diminished, 8-Major. Taking our new numbered valued system where 1 is C, 2 are D, 3 is E, 4 is F, and so on, we apply our previous formula to each of those notes. Once applied, we now know the notes in the scales’ harmonies by playing the specified chords. This would mean that the chords for the key of C would be as follows: 1-C Major, 2-D minor, 3-E minor, 4-F Major, 5-G Major, 6-A minor, 7-B diminished, and 8-C Major again.

In old rock and roll, the first, fourth, and fifth chords where used as a main chord progression. So play these three major chords in any key, and you will have a basic progression. The 5th chord is known as the “turn around chord” that brings you back to your first chord, or a different chord to lead into another verse, chorus, or bridge. Many old love songs included the 6th chord, known as the relative minor chord into the mix as well. Now this becomes a numbers game. You write out your major scales as we learned before, apply the number value and major and minor chords accordingly, and then mess around with those chords to come up with your own progression. Hopefully this short series was helpful to some people, keep on learning and playing guitar.

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