Ok, so in my life as a professional musician I’ve had many opportunities open up to me thanks to my understanding of music theory. Even though I get paid to get on stage and play rock tunes, I’ve always been appreciative to my parents for putting me through music lessons that helped to provide me with the background knowledge to get to the top of the music industry. It’s now my responsibility to help lay down a solid foundation for you to build a lifetime of musical mastery and enjoyment. I know theory doesn’t sound like the most exciting topic, and you may be sitting there thinking you can skip this chapter and jump right in. Hang in there – I’ll make this quick and easy, get some important basic music theory concepts under your belt, and let you get into the fun stuff as soon as possible. The more music knowledge you gain, the easier it will be to rock out on the guitar. A greater musical understanding also helps you learn faster, as you’ll pick up on your own mistakes. Remember to revisit this chapter to refresh your musical theory anytime you don’t understand the concepts in the lessons.
In some of the lessons I have provided advanced tips and information in special sections, which allow you to choose your study path depending on what you want to focus on.
Musical Alphabet
The musical alphabet ranges from A through to G.
A B C D E F G
Each of these letters corresponds to a note.
Every note has what is called a ‘sharp’ (#), except B and E:
A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G#
These are the 12 notes that are used in Western music. If you start on the A string and play a note on each and every fret up to the 12 th fret, you’re playing what is known as a ‘Chromatic Scale’. To make a note sharp, simply move your finger one fret right towards the body of the guitar. Every sharp note has a ‘flat’ (
) name. They are the same notes but named differently due to the different keys in music. To make a note flat, move it one fret left away from the body of the guitar.
A A G G F E E D D C B B
Music is written on a staff, this has 5 parallel lines with 4 spaces:
The treble or ‘G’ clef is placed at the beginning of each staff.
The treble clef indicates the position of the G note. You’ll see from the diagram that it wraps around the line that the G note is on:
The other lines and spaces on the staff are named:
* The vertical lines coming off the notes are called stems. You can see that when the notes get to the centre of the staff the stems start pointing downwards. Stems below the centre of the staff point upwards. A note on the centre line can have a stem going up or down.
Extra notes above or below these notes can be added on what are called leger lines:
Bar lines are used to divide music into sections. A double bar line signifies the end of the music.
Note Values
Below you’ll see a list of common note types and their name. The beats describe how long each one is. For example to count a whole note, count: 1, 2, 3, 4.
Here are the notes’ equivalent rest values. When you see a rest in music, it indicates silence.
A dot placed after a note adds half the notes’ value to the original value:
Ties
A tie is a curved line joining together two notes of the same pitch. The second note is not played but the time value of the second note is added to that of the first note.
Time Signatures
At the beginning of most music a time signature is featured just after the treble clef. The most common time signature is four/four (4/4) time.
What the time signatures indicates:
4(top) = four beats per bar
4(bottom) = each beat is worth one quarter note.
It can also be written as common time:
So in four/four time we count four beats per bar:
There are many other time signatures you may come across, for example 2/4, 3/4, 6/8 etc.
Congratulations, and Your Next Steps in Theory
Congratulations and great work in getting through the sometimes difficult musical theory section. You’ll now be able to build upon your music knowledge over your entire guitar playing career, with a solid understanding of essential concepts. For more detailed theory and information, see the chapter ‘Step 2 of the Basic Building Blocks of Music’, found in the Lead Guitar section of Pro Guitar Tips.
You must log in to post a comment.