GloopyJon
Distinguished Member
OK, I'll copy in my posts from the other thread which explain a few of the basics. If anyone has any more questions, shoot them up here and if it's something I know a bit about, I'll try to answer in relatively simple terms. I see that a lot of the explanations on the net quickly use a lot of specialist jargon that not everyone will understand.
My first post was about scales...
I'll try to explain the relationship between the major scale and all of the notes. A scale is simply a collection of notes that sound pleasing to our ears in relation to one another. There are fixed mathematical relations between the notes, as I alluded to briefly before, but I won't go into that (and I don't know much about it either).
There are 12 different notes in an octave, with the octave note (e.g. the top C if you start from a lower C) being the 13th. Each of these notes is a semitone apart (semitone = 1 fret). So the full chromatic scale contains all of the notes like this:
C - C# - D - D# - E - F - F# - G - G# - A - A# - B - C
I used only sharp signs to avoid getting into the subject of sharps and flats. You don't normally see some of these, particularly A# for example which is usually written as Bb, but they are the same note.
Secondly, we have the major scale which contains a subset of these notes, 7 of them (8 with the top C again), which make a more pleasing set. These are:
C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C
To make this scale, we have dropped all of the sharp notes, which are the black notes on a piano.
Thirdly, we have a scale that is more familiar for guitarists, the pentatonic scale. Pentatonic means "five tones", and a pentatonic scale contains five notes out of the twelve (plus the octave). The most commonly used pentatonic scale on the guitar is a minor scale, not a major one, and this is the minor pentatonic scale in C:
C - D# - F - G - A# - C
Lastly, there are the infamous arpeggios, which form another scale with only three notes. The basic major arpeggio is as follows:
C - E - G - C
Arpeggios are where we make the link into chords. The three notes of an arpeggio are called a triad and these three notes make a major chord. If you play a C chord on the guitar (x-3-2-o-1-0) they are all Cs, Es and Gs (the corresponding notes are x-C-E-G-C-E). Therefore a major chord is simply a major arpeggio with all of the notes played together, and usually with one or more of them duplicated. Generally, the lowest pitched note in a chord should be the root note (i.e. the first note in the scale) - that's why we don't play the bottom E string in a C chord, even though E is one of the arpeggio notes. A triad with a different bottom note from the root is called an inversion.
As you may have spotted, there are many variations on these scales. The variants of the major scale are the modes which you may have heard of - Lydian, Aeolian, Phrygian etc. These modes are simply a different selection of notes that makes a different sounding scale. Similarly, there are the different pentatonic scales, although they all use the same notes (a major pentatonic is the same as a minor pentatonic, but the root note is the next one up, i.e. the C minor pentatonic earlier is the same as a D# major pentatonic). Similarly, there are variants on the arpeggios and chords, changing notes or adding extra notes in (such as a 7th). All of that gets very complicated, though, and I just wanted to cover the basics here.
Finally, to answer the question about "why is that a perfect fifth", the interval from C to G is a fifth because it spans five notes on the major scale (C-D-E-F-G), which is the scale of reference for intervals. Intervals are another topic, though, and this is already too long!
My first post was about scales...
I'll try to explain the relationship between the major scale and all of the notes. A scale is simply a collection of notes that sound pleasing to our ears in relation to one another. There are fixed mathematical relations between the notes, as I alluded to briefly before, but I won't go into that (and I don't know much about it either).
There are 12 different notes in an octave, with the octave note (e.g. the top C if you start from a lower C) being the 13th. Each of these notes is a semitone apart (semitone = 1 fret). So the full chromatic scale contains all of the notes like this:
C - C# - D - D# - E - F - F# - G - G# - A - A# - B - C
I used only sharp signs to avoid getting into the subject of sharps and flats. You don't normally see some of these, particularly A# for example which is usually written as Bb, but they are the same note.
Secondly, we have the major scale which contains a subset of these notes, 7 of them (8 with the top C again), which make a more pleasing set. These are:
C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C
To make this scale, we have dropped all of the sharp notes, which are the black notes on a piano.
Thirdly, we have a scale that is more familiar for guitarists, the pentatonic scale. Pentatonic means "five tones", and a pentatonic scale contains five notes out of the twelve (plus the octave). The most commonly used pentatonic scale on the guitar is a minor scale, not a major one, and this is the minor pentatonic scale in C:
C - D# - F - G - A# - C
Lastly, there are the infamous arpeggios, which form another scale with only three notes. The basic major arpeggio is as follows:
C - E - G - C
Arpeggios are where we make the link into chords. The three notes of an arpeggio are called a triad and these three notes make a major chord. If you play a C chord on the guitar (x-3-2-o-1-0) they are all Cs, Es and Gs (the corresponding notes are x-C-E-G-C-E). Therefore a major chord is simply a major arpeggio with all of the notes played together, and usually with one or more of them duplicated. Generally, the lowest pitched note in a chord should be the root note (i.e. the first note in the scale) - that's why we don't play the bottom E string in a C chord, even though E is one of the arpeggio notes. A triad with a different bottom note from the root is called an inversion.
As you may have spotted, there are many variations on these scales. The variants of the major scale are the modes which you may have heard of - Lydian, Aeolian, Phrygian etc. These modes are simply a different selection of notes that makes a different sounding scale. Similarly, there are the different pentatonic scales, although they all use the same notes (a major pentatonic is the same as a minor pentatonic, but the root note is the next one up, i.e. the C minor pentatonic earlier is the same as a D# major pentatonic). Similarly, there are variants on the arpeggios and chords, changing notes or adding extra notes in (such as a 7th). All of that gets very complicated, though, and I just wanted to cover the basics here.
Finally, to answer the question about "why is that a perfect fifth", the interval from C to G is a fifth because it spans five notes on the major scale (C-D-E-F-G), which is the scale of reference for intervals. Intervals are another topic, though, and this is already too long!