Download Basic Music Theory

Don Eaves, 2009
Basic Music Theory For Guitar and Banjo Students
The music commonly played in our part of the world has twelve different notes: A, B, C,
D, E, F, and G with a sharp (#) or flat (b) note between all the notes except B and C and
E and F. The notes between the letters can be called either sharp or flat. A sharp (#) note
is one fret higher than the letter note. A flat (b) note is one fret lower than the letter note.
So the note between A and B can be called either A# or Bb, the note between D and E
can be called D# or Eb, etc. That's a total of twelve notes, the letters A through G with a
sharp or flat note between each pair of letters except between B and C and E and F.
To find the twelve notes move up the neck one fret at a time. The distance from each note
to the next at one-fret intervals is called a half step. Each fret is one half step. This type
of sequence, twelve consecutive notes separated by half steps, is called a chromatic
scale. The notes in the chromatic A scale are A, A# (Bb), B, C, C#(Db), D, D# (Eb), E, F,
F# (Gb), G, and G# (Ab).
Most of the music we play is based on the major scale, which consists of only 7 notes
out of the chromatic scale (the 8th note shown below is the same as the first note, which
is an "octave" above the first note). The major scale sounds like “do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti,
do.” The scale can start with any of the twelve notes named in the last paragraph. The
starting note (“do”), is also called the root, or the tonic. The rest of the notes in the
major scale are separated by a certain distances (intervals) between the notes. Intervals
are referred to in several ways:
Whole step: two frets, or two semitones (w)
Half step: one fret, or one semitone (h)
The intervals to find the notes in the major scale are w,w,h,w,w,w,h. In other words, there
are 2 frets between notes 1-2 and 2-3, one fret between 3-4, 2 frets between notes 4-5, 5-6
and 6-7, and one fret between 7 and 8.
Note in scale:
1
2
3 4
5
6
7 8
Interval between notes: -----w----w--h----w----w----w--h
For example, here are the chromatic notes in the key of C, with the notes in the major
scale highlighted:
C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C
------ w------w--h------w-----w-----w--h
1
2
3 4
5
6
7 8
Here is the chromatic G scale with the major scale notes highlighed:
G G# A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G
After the 1st note (the root or tonic), the other notes are known as the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th,
7th, etc.
In other words, you can find the notes for the major scale in any key by starting with any
note and going up a whole step at a time except for the one half step space between the
third and fourth notes and the seventh and eighth notes of the scale. It would be good
practice for you to add to the following list of scales by figuring a few out yourself. The
first note of the scale is the same as the last note (they're both “do”, but one octave apart).
Note:
Key
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
1(do) 2(re)
3(mi) 4(fa)
5(so) 6(la)
7(ti)
8(do)
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
C#
D#
E
F#
G#
A
B
E
F#
G
A
B
C
D
G#
A#
B
C#
D#
E
F#
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
B
C#
D
E
F#
G
A
D
E
F
G
A
A#
C
F#
G#
A
B
C#
D
E