Satriani
Before starting to learn anything on a theory level, it's important to know how to put things together from any starting point. Same a you learn what a + sign is, or a - sign in maths, they are formulas telling y ou to either add or subtract something.
When you see something like W W H W W W H and scratch your head thinking what the hell does that mean, it's very simple.
Intervals are the spaces between 2 or more notes. I am going to approach this as I do in a live situation when I physically teach someone on their very first day.
You have to know how to FIND all the notes on your guitar. You don't have to memorise where they all are yet, don't worry ?
There are 12 notes you need to learn. 7 of them come straight from the alphabet. A B C D E F and G make up your 'white keys', or naturals. In between them, you have 'black keys', called accidentals. There are only 2 white keys that DO NOT have black keys in between them. They are B and E. That you must memorise. The black keys are called Sharps when moving up, and flats when moving down. In other words, if you are on A, and move to the VERY next available note, that would be the black key, A Sharp. The sign for a sharp in music is a hash mark (#). When moving directly down from the A you get A Flat. The sign for a flat is a small case b slightly slanted. So lets go through the 'musical alphabet' if you will.
A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G#
Pretty simple so far, right? Now we deal with intervals. There are 2 intervals (for now) that you need to concern yourself with. These are Whole steps (or a Tone) and Half steps (or a Semitone). A Whole step means moving either up or down, exactly 2 spaces to the next note. So if we're on A, and we move a Whole step up, we get to B. Remember, A, skip 1 gets A#, skip another gets to B. A Semitone is moving up or down exactly 1 space. So moving up a Semitone from a lands you at A#. Moving down a Semitone from A lands you at Ab or G#. Same thing. Notes that have the same sound, but 2 possible names are called 'enharmonic' notes. You don't really need to know that right now, but nice to know I guess ?
Now, finding these notes on a guitar is very simple. TO do this, you MUST know the names of the strings. I will deal with a standard 6 string guitar. STarting from the thickest to thinnest, they are :
E - Thickest (6th)
A - (5th)
D - (4th)
G - (3rd)
B - (2nd)
e - Thinnest (1st)
Now you just start on any string you like, and use the musical alphabet you learnt to move up slowly in semitones until you reach the 12th fret. You will notice once you reach the 12th fret, that you have done a full circle and ended up back on the name of the string you started on. Hence, there are 12 notes, so you've gone through them all. If we start on the A string (5th), and pick it (WITHOUT PRESSING ANYWHERE) the note you just played is an A, because that's the name of the string and the pitch it is tuned to gives it it's name. When you press the 1st fret, you have moved UP a Semitone, so after a comes A#.
Now, lets try a sequence of intervals (Tones & Semitones) to create a familiar sounding thing (called a Scale). By the way, the word Scale comes from Italian meaning ladder, which is exactly what a scale is. IT is a bunch of notes (usually 8) going from one place, up up up till you reach the same note again, and back down to your starting note again. Much like you'd climb a ladder, you step all the way up, then all the way down (yeah some of you like to jump off...oh well!!)
Lets start on A. WE will follow this formula - W W H W W W H meaning Whole Whole Half Whole Whole Whole Half. These are you intervals, the spacings between each note.
So A is our first note. It is NOT an interval, because we have not moved from 1 note to another yet. So a Whole step up from A is B. Another Whole step is C#, then a Half step is D. Another Whole step is E, another Whole step is F#, another Whole step is G# and finally a Half step brings you to A, the original note you started on. You have just played the Do, Re, Mi, FA, So, LA, Ti, Da scale you all learnt back in school. This is called the MAJOR scale. Don't worry about it's name right now. This lesson isn't to learn scales, it's to learn where the notes are, and what intervals are.
Phew, that was alot of typing, seemed to take forever. I teach this stuff in about 10 mins in person lol.
Any questions, please ask ?
Manfred-Klose
Downlaod a application from the internet called "Cute PDF writer", install it ,and when finished with project in word, go to print and select the cute pdf writer as the printer, it will then ask you to save the file.
You can create real basic diagrams using Word,Excel and paint, just copy and paste into paint and arrange everything.
