Guitar
June 25th 2004 -
Guitar
I thought I’d better come up with a picture to describe what I’m talking about with this guitar theory stuff, so here it is:
The horizontal lines are the strings, the vertical lines are the fret board, and the dots are all the notes on the C Major scale (assuming the left-hand side is the end of the fret board). But really, the whole thing repeats ad infinitum to the left and the right as far as theory is concerned.
I’ve put down the notes for the C Major scale – the number 1 along the bottom corresponds to the C (and the Ionian mode). The Dorian mode just means starting playing from the 2, the Phrygian mode from the 3, and so on. In other words, all the modes exist on this basic pattern here. If you learn this big pattern, you can play any of the modes.
You can play the scale without moving up and down the fretboard too much by moving up and down the strings instead, as I’ve shown in these two diagrams:
As you can see, there are five separate convenient positions in which you can play scales without moving up and down the fret board. I’ve been practicing this a bit, using the drum machine to do scales. It’s quite relaxing and fun: the faster you want to play, the more you have to relax. I have a real tendency to press hard on the fretboard, and I’m feel like I’m getting over it now.
Recently, I’ve been learning other tricks for getting around this shape quickly:
That’s a pretty simple shape. If I ever find myself playing the middle bit – the block of four notes in a square – then I immediately know all the notes four frets to the left and four frets to the right in that block. That’s pretty cool, but even better is that this pattern is on other pairs of strings too. In fact, the only pair of strings that doesn’t have this pattern is the G & B string pair (that’s the second and third down).
So I’ve been practicing this a bit lately too: finding this pattern, and going up and down the fret board from there – it’s helping me learn this rather big, complicated mess of guitar theory…
Lexifab Says:
June 28th, 2004 at 5:07 pm
You’ve put a lot of work into this. However I am much too intellectually lazy to attempt to follow it…I get the positioning of the frets, but does the "6 dots across fret 6" mean that you have to hold down all six strings in order to play an "A", or what?
Andrew Says:
June 28th, 2004 at 5:20 pm
I might try and put this into a more formal format at some point.
The point of what I’ve been learning so far is to be able to do guitar solos (but the same theory is true for writing any melodic line).
If you were to play the C major chord (CEG), you can play the C major scale over it (CDEFGAB), and it will sound appropriately "major". If you choose any of these notes and play them in any order, it will still sound OK. If you play any other note, it will sound a bit weird.
So the chart here shows all the notes you can play that will sound good for a given chord.
Lexifab Says:
June 28th, 2004 at 5:59 pm
Aha. What about major and minor chords (and all that other weirder stuff, like diminshed chords ‘n’ suchlike)?
Lexifab Says:
June 28th, 2004 at 6:01 pm
Oh, you already said these were majors. Obviously, I meant what about *just* minor chords, plus diminished chords and fifths and sevenths and whateverths.
Andrew Says:
June 28th, 2004 at 7:33 pm
Actually, this covers minor, major 7th, and half-diminished chords as well. If you were to play a minor chord (1 b3 5) you can play any of the minor modes – Dorian, Phrygian, or Aeolian over it, and it’ll sound fine (although each has it’s own individual sound – Dorian sounds like Santana, Phrygian sounds Spanish, and Aeolian sounds normal, ’cause it’s used the most).
I’ve been mostly playing minor melody lines, learning the differences between Dorian, Phrygian and Aeolian. You can certainly play solos over Major, Major 7th, Minor, diminished, and half-diminished chords with this stuff, though.
Noswonky Says:
June 28th, 2004 at 7:36 pm
I think I’d better pull out my guitar and give it a try.
PS: The fret lines are not visible on your diagrams but it’s obvious where they should be.