lesson 1: Fundamentals of Music

So you’ve decided you want to learn the guitar. Well artist, it will be a difficult journey, but it will be gratifying. The guitar is somewhat frustrating starting because half the battle is getting your hands to do what you’re telling them to do. Think about a runner and how their muscles are shaped. This is so that they can run the way that they do.

So too, will your hands shape themselves to play the guitar. If you are serious about the instrument, then you must practice regularly. Atrophy is the degradation of muscular tissue, and it is the nemesis of every beginner guitarist.

Your hands will hurt, and your fingertips will bleed, but one day, you’ll be shredding out some phat licks, and you’ll look back at the battles and smile.

First, there is an important lesson to be learned about music. This is a lesson that you must have under your belt before you play any instrument. It is the fundamentals of music.

If you have a piano handy, it is a great resource to have with you so you can understand the lesson I am teaching you.We will talk about what notes are and how they form together to become scales.

Then we’ll talk about 3’s, 5’s and 7’s and their importance to the chord structure. We’ll shortly speak about the power of the 7th, but we’ll get into that more later on. We’ll also talk a little bit about the major scale and how notes form into chords.

We’ll have more on that next time, for now, let’s learn about notes.

What are notes?

Pick up your piano or guitar and pluck a key or string. It doesn’t matter which one, every key you could hit is a note. On the keyboard, the white keys are the major notes. That is, A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. There are seven major notes altogether. The black keys are the sharps and flats, or minor notes.

If you play the C note, then play the black key to the right of it that note is C sharp. Sharp refers to the note that is a half-step (or note) up the scale. A flat is a half-step down the scale.
You might notice that some black keys are missing. That would be B sharp and E sharp.

This is a consequence of the way that the musicians before us designed the note structure. You see, notes are symbols standing for specific frequencies being emitted from the instruments. Due to a phenomenon in harmonics, there is no need for a B sharp or E sharp.

Although, you will sometimes see these notes written when the key of the music is in G flat or C sharp. More on that later.

Notes form the scale

With these notes, you can play them in succession to create many scales. A scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch. (Wikipedia) What this essentially means is that they fit together because the notes harmonize together.

The scales that you can play are named after their base note, and every note has a scale associated with it. When you learn to play any instrument, it is most important to learn the scales first.

This will do two things for you. One, it will give you a deep understanding of how the notes sound when played together. Second, it will teach your hands to form the shape that is required to play all of the notes.

When you start playing chords, you will easily reach for the notes that form them rather than struggling to teach your hands to make complex shapes right off the bat.

3’s, 5’s and 7’s

There is a rule that can be applied to every scale out there. This rule is called 3’s, 5’s, and 7’s. This is referring to the third, fifth, and seventh notes in the scale. Using these notes, you can form chords out of the scale. Chords are what is formed when multiple notes are played together.

When you play your scales, you’ll want to practice playing the first, third, and seventh notes in succession because they will always harmonize together. Many songs use these combinations to form their riffs, and so it is imperative to understand what they sound like. More on that later.

The power of the 7th

The seventh note in a scale can be altered to form a special type of scale. That is the seventh scale. Let’s use the C scale as an example.

The C scale consists of all of the major notes. That is C, D, E, F, G, A, B. If you make the seventh note in the scale sharp, then you will have the C7 scale. Playing this scale sounds bluesy and is considered minor. That’s because many blues and jazz riffs are played in seventh scales.

Learning these scales is also important, but don’t worry about them too much when you first start. You want to learn the major scales first before getting into the minor scales.

The major scale

The first scale you will learn is the E scale, but first, we’ll learn about the major scale. This scale is the C scale, and it is called that because it consists of only major notes. This scale is used quite often in classical music because of its wholesome harmony.

The counter to the major scale is the C sharp scale, which is all the same notes a half-step up. That is C#, D#, E#, F#, G#, A#, B#.

Notice that there is E sharp and B sharp in the scale even though they technically can’t be played on the piano? That is because sharp only refers to a half-step up, so even though there isn’t a B sharp, you still play the note as one half-step up from B.

Next time: Fundamentals of The Chord

Next time well teach about chord structure and how they form together to become scales of their own. Then we’ll learn about what key means and how it affects the chords that are played. We’ll talk shortly about measures and stanzas, which is how the music is displayed on the sheet music.

Once you learn about the fundamentals of music, we’ll teach you how to practice your scales and give you some great tips on how to stay focused.

Did we help you learn more about the fundamentals of music? Let us know in the comments below!