A Brief Introduction to Chord Theory

You find chords everywhere.

Not just chords but the theory chords represent: Harmony.

A concept of layered sounds separated by specific distances known as ‘intervals’.

What is a scale?

As far as you need to be concerned, a scale is a starting point known as a root followed by notes located at specific intervals. Here is the Major Scale.

To observe the typical ‘do re mi’ major scale that you have most likely been exposed to, play all eight notes of the scale from the root until the octave. Each fret is the same distance apart from those preceding and following.

We call this distance a ‘Semitone’. Therefore the distance between two frets is known as a ‘Tone’. Between the Root and 2nd note of the Major Scale there lies a Tone.

A Tone

This numeric naming process is present throughout each ‘degree’ of the scale. Since this particular scale is the Major scale, they are occasionally prefaced with the word ‘major’ when it is important to make the distinction.

Play the Root and 2nd note of this, the C major scale. You will be alternating between the notes C and D. You are playing a major 2nd interval.

Where do chords fit in?

An appropriate question to ask at this point, knowing that this post is supposed to address a player’s first introduction to chord theory. The answer is that chords take place over specific intervals in the scales from which they are derived. 

This table is a handy tool which highlights the individual distance between each note in the major scale. The scale consists of the following intervals:

Tone,      Tone, Semitone, Tone,       Tone,     Tone, Semitone.

Each note in the scale can be the basis for a chord. The degree of the scale on which you're basing the chord will affect the tonality of the chord. At this point in your learning (~<6 months), Major or minor are the only real tonalities of a chord that you should be concerned with.

By this point you can probably play some songs that you have learned from chords or tab and can maybe work a few things out by ear. Now let’s take a look at building chords in the C Major scale.

C Major:

To build the first chord in the scale, simply take the first note, the third and the fifth from the scale. In this case the notes are C, E and G and the chord is C Major.

But how do we know it’s major (other than being aware of the name of the scale)?

Well, the distance between C, the 1st note and E, the 3rd is two Tones.

Two tones distance is a Major 3rd interval and is the first interval of a Major Triad (Also known as Major Chord).

The distance between the third and fifth in a major chord is one Tone and one semitone.

The second chord in C Major begins from the note D. It follows the same pattern as the first chord only this time, counts from and uses D as the root. This chord has the notes D, F and A.

The distance between D and F is a Tone and a Semitone, that’s a minor third and this is a minor chord.

The distance between F and A, the 3rd and 5th of this chord is two Tones.

See how the intervals are reversed for Major and minor?

As an exercise, try to work through the entire scale, when you get to B, start again at C and continue throughout the next Octave. This will allow you to work out any three note chord which is either minor or Major one of them however is different but which one and why?

Guitar Chords: A Major, D Major, G Major, E Major

These chords and the two mentioned in "On Learning Chords" are as far as one should progress in studying guitar before being introduced to basic chord theory.

A major

D Major

G Major

E Major

To progress with basic chord theory, click here.

On Learning Chords

On Learning Chords

As you go off on your adventure to learn the guitar, chords are an essential part of the musician’s vocabulary. It is important to learn a lot of them. At first you will learn them as shapes and places to put your fingers, eventually you will learn codes to create the shapes for yourself.

Here are some basic chords that are easy to learn.

How to read chord charts

A chord chart is a visual representation of a section of your guitar’s fretboard. It commonly consists of a matrix of strings and frets as pictured below.

A black circle will show you where to place your fingers. 

A white circle will show you which strings to play, even if you aren’t pressing any strings down. 

If a string has nothing on it, don’t play anything. Easy.

To get started, let us take a look at the chart for a C Major chord…

Not only do chord chart tell you where to put your fingers, they also show you which fingers to place at each position through the chord. 

Your first to little finger are labelled numbers 1 to 4.

It should look something like this however it is unlikely that when you first start to play, it will sound anything like how you wish. It’s difficult to compress the tense wire with the fleshy pads of your fingers but as you persevere and you gain a greater degree of control, you will be able to manipulate the sound as you please.

Your fingers will hurt

It’s not just that they’ll hurt, your fingers are going to harden. If you’re serious about learning to play the guitar, you must be willing to be in pain a decent amount of your first 3 - 6 months of playing depending on the hardness of your skin.

In order to fret the string properly, use the tip of your finger. The most sensitive and vulnerable part a few millimetres beneath the nail. It’s the only way to ensure that you are only fretting the strings needed while allowing the other strings the mobility they need in order to ring out.

After you get to grips with the shape of C Major, why not branch out to your first minor chord.

A minor

These two chords are related to each other. I won’t go into how until later but if you’d care to practice them until you can switch between them smoothly you can hear their similarities even though they are very much unique.

Hint: Use the note on the first fret of the B string as an anchor for the changing chords.

The rest of the beginner chords in the series can be found here.

Learning Guitar: On beginning and Reflection

Now I know what you're thinking:

The Guitar Theory Hour manifesto is completely without substance and specifics.

It’s common sense that learning an instrument contains specific places of where to place your fingers, anyone could tell you that. I will most certainly get to the actual places you can put your hand sausages [read: fingers] but my intention is not to give a man a fish. You may be hungry for chord shapes and scale patterns but there are underlying concepts which upon reflection will provide you with rod and bait.

Full credit goes to http://powderedwigcouture.com/ for the image

All you need to bring is a willingness to learn and an understanding that almost anyone can pick this stuff up.

In the next hour we will reflect on the notion that when learning an instrument, reflection itself is a vast slice of the pie. 

In reflection, your openness and willingness to see things as patterns and frameworks rather than unique occurrences will allow you to progress. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

What happens when I start?

When you first begin your musical education for guitar, you will notice that songs you learn are made of repeated chords grouped together in what is known as a chord progression.

As you continue to learn more pieces, similarities between progressions and songs will prompt you with the revelation that some songs aren’t unique in quite the way you thought.

Chords, notes, intervals and rhythms are building blocks regurgitated through time. We play them in orders devised by people we call composers and songwriters, named for the song or piece we are attempting to recreate. Learning other people’s compositions is a valid way of furthering your ability.

You can never accurately repeat something.

At least, not on an analogue instrument such as the guitar. You are always approximating, at most; a part and at least, a sound that you wish to express with your ability. In playing the guitar you enter into a dialogue with yourself, a feedback loop of listening and adjusting to the sounds you make and the feel of making the sounds. Part of being able to express the sound you want is a notion of preparedness.

On beginning to make a sound

If you are not sure of where the notes you need to play are, the sound will be unsure. Conversely, if you are overly aware and conscious of playing only the appropriate places, the sound may take on a mechanical texture. To “learn” or “know” a piece of music as a beginning guitarist you must pay attention to the feedback loop between what you play, expect and hear. Do not let how you want it to sound pollute your ear’s comprehension of how it does sound. It is never going to be perfect, no; you aren’t looking for perfection, only purposeful expression.

                                  

Are you fully in control of how you sound? Do you sound fully in control, is control a facet of sound you even wish to achieve? Nothing is set in stone and you can do what you like, but don’t.

Here are some chords it will come in handy to know.

Music Theory for Guitar

Today I'd like to discuss Music Theory and how it applies to the aspiring guitarist in 2014 lol. I aim to write this post as an assessment of the importance and undeniable occurrence of theory. I will throughout this blog; attempt to create a tangible resource of theory for guitar. There is an entire spectrum of guitarists, ranging from anywhere throughout an un-quantifiable mix of traits. A few of which are ability, knowledge, fashion and style.

Some of you are gearheads, technique-o-philes, aural perfectionists and sloppy jammers. Some of you like and know theory, some simply know it and some avoid it at all costs. Whether you apply theory or not, theory applies to you.

What is Music Theory?

If you search Google for 'what is music theory' you are presented with the wikipedia definition.

It goes on to say...

Now I know that Wikipedia isn't the last word on any of the issues it covers but what it does show is our latest collective effort to define music theory across the platform and is extremely accessible for all.

If you delve a little further, you'll find that searching for 'what is music theory on guitar' will result in this...

It's the equivalent of asking what is food and being shown a sandwich

There are definitely a lot of places to learn parts of theory. They come in a range of lists of technical advice, explanations of an assortment of places to put your fingers and groups of selected people who prove the existence of music theory with examples of its application.

If this is the human endeavor into understanding and developing music, I see a lack of an attempt to create a critical language which defines the processes by which its application to the guitar is experienced by the learner. I feel this is a critical part of learning an instrument.

This post is an attempt to explain what I would like to refer to as Meta-Music Theory.

The real hypocrisy is that I can only use technical advice, explanations of an assortment of places to put your fingers and groups of selected people who prove the existence of music theory with examples of its application within an ensemble of other musicians. I can resolve this by understanding that interaction with material explaining these things are part of a communal fabric interwoven in MMT.

In 2014, I think this aspect of experiencing the guitar is much ignored, unheard of, its discussion is resisted as if it's an offense. If I ask you what music theory is, can you answer with anything other than an example of its existence?

Another question to ask yourself is: in what ways, other than your ability to sit with a guitar, are you a guitarist. Are there any other ways?' Unlike many of the listeners, you can most likely discern rock ensemble instruments from each other even when they're playing together. That is not a trait held by an untrained ear. When mixed with the right kind of training and understanding, a musician's instrument becomes a platform for the interpretation and retextualising of sounds within specific relativistic interval distances.

There is the argument that these different systems of the music theory are semi rigid rules or guidelines. The fundamental idea that they provide a structured  guide to the which notes have a canonical reputation for suitability. I think this is the most basic understanding of what music theory actually is.

What exactly are the 'permitted' notes suitable for? This is where the theory gets murky. In learning music theory, intervals play a key role in the defining of the function of permitted sounds. As you learn the notes in a scale, you should also learn their number which corresponds to their position and function in the scale.

In the learner arises a seemingly homeostatic relationships with the governing rules outlining the modes of a structured creation of binary opposition between precedence and disruption.

Dichotomies are established of contrasting qualities such as consonance and dissonance, loud and quiet, hard and soft.

This seems to be a formalist's way of utilizing theory:

A dynamic system of precedent setting and disruption.

Sometimes, I think of this push-pull relationship as more of a dialogue between myself and the theory. The interdependence of each dynamic relationship such as silence and noise, consonant and dissonant, rhythmic and arrhythmic reinforce themselves in order to increase the excitement and impact of the disrupting other.

These are the systems music theory teaches you to work with.

Your dealings with these transactions are the Meta-Theory. Your playing is an exposition of these transactions and the manipulation of your playing to suit the context of your music, whether purposeful or not, is the new virtuosity. Some people call it 'feel' or 'musicality'; its perceived effect is one of the things frequently projected back onto the musician as genius or an x-factor.

Tools of the Trade

As any good guide to the context for which the theory of an emergent context of music and its application to a specific instrument should, I will list a few of the commonly taught bits of music theory as applied to guitar in the early 21st Century.

• Where to place your fingers to play a chord or melody
• Specific pools of notes known as scales
• Where these notes appear on your instrument
• How to build chords from scales
• How common scales and modes apply to each other
• How to read tab
• Chord progressions

A few other aspects of playing guitar are: -

• Your 'technique'
• Your 'ear'

For the Beginner Guitarist

You start out by holding a piece of wood. It feels kind of weird and almost out of this world but you really like the sounds other people have made with similar pieces and thought you'd have a try. You may seek out lessons from another person that plays or you may use another method in order to teach yourself.

The ends of your fingers will hurt and it's going to sound awkward for quite a while but this piece of wood will give you back in progress and accomplishment at a decent effort to outcome ratio. It has a nonlinear difficulty curve and progression system with many options and styles to specialise in.

Oh, And... you should know this too... we've developed an unfathomably large range of styles of playing, a multitude of different techniques and approaches to make almost any sound a possibility, an audience with widely varying taste and no set in stone definitive right way to do or even interpret guitar playing.

Be especially aware of your own blind spots. You will meet guitarists who are invested in genres or techniques or styles that they're almost typecast into roles. It's fine if you want to specialise but don't let a process of normalisation spoil or hinder the development of a wider pool from which you can derive influence and perceive.

Expose yourself to as much music as you can.