Category: Free Inquiry (Page 1 of 2)

Barre Chords

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barre_chord,

“In music, a barre chord (also spelled bar chord) is a type of chord on a guitar or other stringed instrument played by using one or more fingers to press down multiple strings across a single fret of the fingerboard (like a bar pressing down the strings).”

If you remember what we learned about building chords from the last post, this is just another fingershape for building chords.

It looks like this for a Barre chord in G,

Note how the first finger acts as a ‘bar’ across the fretboard. If we remember that the 1st and 6th strings are both E, by pressing across them at the same place we create two of the same note, one octave apart. In the photo, I am pressing at the third fret which creates 2 G notes. This becomes the Root of the Barre chord, so in this picture, I am playing a G barre chord.

I’m terrible at them because they are super hard to get your fingers to do properly but here’s what it (sorta) sounds like, I caution you before listening…

If you can’t wrap your head around it here’s a tab showing what I mean

Cheers!

Rick

E Major chords.

Remember Dyads from the 2 note blues? chords in western music are (mostly) triads.

So how do we build chords?

Let’s take a look at a fretboard again (the bottom is the 6th string aka the low E string. It’s the thickest one on a guitar),

from https://www.guitarlessons.org/lessons/guitar-notes/

and the first octave of the E Major scale

The notes are a little hard to see but they are,

E F# G# A B C# D# E

To build a chord, The first note is the Tonic or root of the note and since we are building an E major chord we’ll start with E. Next, you need the 3rd and the 5th from the scale. So, if we start at E, that’s G# and B.

But you ask, the guitar has 6 strings! what about the other three strings!? Good question. With those other three strings we repeat notes within that chord. So, The tab for E major looks like this, (The 6th string here is to the far left)

When we compare this to the fretboard image above we’ll note that on the first string, which is played open (indicated by the 0) we are playing a high E, the second string which is also open is a B, and even though the 3rd string when played open is a G when – when we press our finger into the first fret, it turns into a G#, Same Idea with the 4th string or D string, When we press our finger on the second fret it becomes an E. And again on the second fret of A string, it becomes a B note. And finally the 6th string is played open, thus it is an E. So we have E, B,E,G#,B, and E

Which is the 1,3, and 5 notes on the E major scale.

And the E major scale in chords sounds (sorta) like this,

Cheers!

Rick

A Harmonic Minor.

This is another Minor scale, just instead of being a natural, it is a harmonic scale.

Just note there is a slight difference in it’s construction compared to the natural minor scale. And what does that sound like?

I’m glad you asked. It sounds really spooky So spooky that, according to my guitar teacher, the catholic church banned it for some time.

Here’s the Tab,

Here’s me playing it,

And here’s the spooky part.

Cheers!

R

A Major Scale,

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_major

“According to Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, A major is a key suitable for “declarations of innocent love, … hope of seeing one’s beloved again when parting; youthful cheerfulness and trust in God.”

I know when I play the A major I definitely feel a youthful cheerfulness and trust in god. Maybe you’ll feel that listening to a recording of me playing it. I really doubt it. But maybe, just maybe….

Maybe you’ll see your beloved again now. I wish you luck.

Cheers.

R

The A Natural Minor Scale

This is the first minor scale I was introduced to.]

Minor scales have three patterns. This one is a natural minor scale.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_scale#Natural_minor_scale ,

A natural minor scale (or Aeolian mode) is a diatonic scale that is built by starting on the sixth degree of its relative major scale. For instance, the A natural minor scale can be built by starting on the 6th degree of the C major scale: Because of this, the key of A minor is called the relative minor of C major. Every major key has a relative minor, which starts on the 6th scale degree or step. For instance, since the 6th degree of F major is D, the relative minor of F major is D minor.

It looks like this as a tab,

And sounds like this,

Well, not quite like that when played well. But you get the picture…

Cheers,

R

A Pentatonic Scale

From wiki,

“A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave”

Fyi, an octave refers to the interval between one pitch and another with double it’s frequency (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octave)

On a regular western music scale that would look like this. (It would be referred to as a Heptatonic scale because there are 7 notes between Octaves)

A(1),B(2),C(3),D(4),E(5),F(6),G(7), then – A(8) again. (notice the 8? ie OCT-tave)

However, on a pentatonic scale, there are only 5 notes per octave.

In the key of A, which looks like this,

A(1), C(2), D(3), E(4), G(5), A

As a tab – it looks like this,

And it sounds like this,

Cheers!

R

G Major Scale.

From wikipedia,

“According to Spotify, G major is the most common key of music on the streaming service (closely followed by C major).”

I am going to skip over a couple of simple songs I learned into a scale because it kind of marked my next stage of learning. The G Major scale, as you can read above, is an important scale in music. It’s used lots.

So what does G mean and what does major mean and what does scale mean?

A scale according to Wikipedia is,

“In music theory, a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch. A scale ordered by increasing pitch is an ascending scale, and a scale ordered by decreasing pitch is a descending scale.”

Now, about G. The musical Alphabet Start’s at A and ends at G like so,

A, B, C, D, E, F, G

How the notes relate to each other has a lot to do with the sonic spacing between the two. For example, A-B is a distance of one tone. And one tone is composed of two semitones.

The theory is a little much to get into but this site lays it out well, and the preview for it includes a fretboard with each note laid out on it as it corresponds with where you would press your fingers.

The Musical Alphabet on Guitar for Beginners

Very handy stuff for a beginner to have on hand.

SO, what doe’s Major mean? It basically describes how the scale is built but the important thing to remember is, it sounds happy.

G major scale in my lil’ notebook

It sounds like this,

Cheers!

R

Double note blues.

Or playing double stops or Dyads for you fancy science peeps. Just means you are playing two notes, in isolation, at the same time. If you play three notes, that’s a chord! more on this later. For me, in tab form, it looks like this,

And it, unfortunately, sounds like this…

I find the double note blues particularly hard to play. It’s in my rotation every practice session because 2 notes are pretty hard to strike at the time accurately.I would get into blues scales but to be frank, I don’t quite understand that wizardry yet. Hopefully, in the future, I will.

For my free inquiry, I have chosen to learn guitar. It has been a dream of mine for a long time to write and sing a complete song from start to finish. I am an audio-visual technician. Music has always been a part of my life. Right now, I understand music through wavelengths. I can tell you that the boxy sound you hear out of most powered (amp built-in) speakers is probably in the 200-400hz range. I can also tell you what microphones generally work better with what voices (Ex: SM58 with loud singers, rappers mid-range vocalists, Beta 58 or Sennheiser e945 for crooners or breathy singers with a higher pitch). What I don’t know is the notes singers are singing, or guitars are playing. I can tell you a range in Hz but not in the musical alphabet. My hope is with this inquiry, I’ll be able to learn a little more about the music theory side of music and improve my skills on the acoustic guitar. I’ll be using an old Yamaha FG-300A as my weapon of choice.

Photo by 一诺 赵 from Pexels

Before I get too deep into the lessons, I’ll be learning, here’s info on the guitar and my instrument, who I will refer to anthropomorphically as Figgy. 

What is a guitar?

“An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument^[1] in the string family.^[2] When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, resonating through the air in the body, and producing sound from the sound hole” (Acoustic Guitar, Wikipedia)

Figgy is a bit of a mystery. Through my google searches and cruising of various forums, I believe that my guitar was a starter-level guitar produced between 1991-1993 for around 200 bucks. It was named after Yamahas beloved FG300, which, according to my incredible sources of various guitar forums, was a top-line model from the late 1960’s – early 1980’s. Though apparently, they bear no relation.

In regards to the start of this musical journey, I have signed up for lessons so I am hoping to use what I learn in my lessons as a launching board for what I talk about each week with this inquiry. I will draw in sources I use to bolster my knowledge and I will also try and link to some of my favourite online musicians, guitar teachers, and youtube music analysts.

Until next time,

Cheers!

R