HEAVY MEDICINE

Reading and playing standard music notation on a guitar, or any multi-stringed musical instrument, is more difficult than reading and playing music notation on a piano or other instruments. The reason is there are many different places on a guitar where a specific note can be played. On a piano there is only one place where a specific pitch can be sounded. Because of this most guitar players learn how to read and write TAB (tablature) in order to share information and communicate ideas. Standard music notation is written on a “staff” consisting of 5 horizontal lines, as follows.

TAB is generally written using 6 horizontal lines with each line representing a string, like this…

In order to better understand tab here is a picture of a guitar neck from the point of view of looking at it as it leans against a wall. Here we have the big string on the left (6th string) and the small string on the right (first string).

If we take this neck and rotate it 90 degrees to the left we would get this…

Now if we place the TAB lines below this graphic we can see where tab comes from.

The bottom string is the ’sixth’ string and the top string is the ‘first’ string. This might seem a little counter-intuitive at first since when you actually play a guitar the sixth string is generally on top.

Do you see the numbers on the TAB lines? They indicate the frets that are to be played on the string holding the number. In the above example, “6th string-7th fret”, “6th string-7th fret” again, “5th string-6th fret”, “5th string-7th fret”, “5th string-9th fret”. These notes are to be played in order from left to right.

Sometimes you can have 2 or more notes played at the same time, like this…

Open strings ( no fretted notes) are symbolized like this…

There are 26 letters in the alphabet but there are only 7 letters in the “music alphabet”. They are the same as the first 7 letters of the regular alphabet.

A B C D E F G

In the music alphabet, after you get to G you don’t go to H (there is no such thing as an “H” note) but you go back A again. This is called an octave.

The other components to the music alphabet are as follows:

- the symbol “b” is called a flat and it lowers a pitch (note) by what is called a ‘half step’, or one fret on the guitar.

-  the symbol (#) is called a sharp and it raises a pitch by a half step (1 fret). The next stage in explaining the music alphabet is to place a flat and a sharp between each pair of letters like this:

A (A#,Bb ) B (B#,Cb) C (C#,Db) D (D#,Eb) E (E#,Fb) F (F#,Gb) G (G#, Ab) A

At this point I should let you know that each pair of letters in a bracket-set represents the same pitch. A# is the same note as Bb. G# is the same note as Ab, etc. Notice there are 14 different pitches (notes) above before they start repeating themselves at the octave. BUT WAIT!!!…Why is the title of this post “12 Notes of the Music Alphabet” if there are 14 notes? I’ll tell you why.

Have you ever looked on a piano and noticed that sometimes there are 2 white keys in a row with no black key between them? This happens twice on a piano, between B and C, and also between E and F. This is because there are no sharps or flats (called accidentals, but that is not important.) between these pairs of letters in the music alphabet. B goes right to C and E goes right to F. (you might want to remember these by British Columbia and Extra Fudge.) The white keys on a piano are the letters and the black keys are the sharps and flats… SO the REAL “12 Notes of the Music Alphabet” are:

A(A#,Bb ) B C (C#,Db) D (D#Eb) E F (F#,Gb) G (G#, Ab) A

Most guitars have 6 strings. Each string is given a number with the smallest string getting the smallest number. When holding a guitar usually the smallest string is on the bottom and is called the first string. The sixth string (the thickest string) is on the top. When you hit an open string (no fingers pressed down on the fretboard) a pitch specific to that string sounds. When tuned to “standard tuning” the pitches are as follows.

From the top string to the bottom string.

6th string = E

5th string = A

4th string = D

3rd string = G

2nd string = B

1st string = E

The 6th string is called the low E string because of it’s lower pitch and the 1st string is called high E string.

In last week’s post “12 Notes of the Music Alphabet” I introduced you to the music alphabet which is as follows.

A(A#,Bb)BC(C#,Db)D(D#,Eb)EF(F#,Gb)G(G#,Ab) A

Now that you know the names of the open strings AND the 12 notes of the music alphabet you can use these 2 pieces of information to figure out where every note is located on the fingerboard. It might take you a while at first but you will get faster at it and ultimately it will be second nature. In the beginning you might have to count up from the open string 1 fret at a time.

Example:

5th string (open) = A

5th string (1st fret) = A# or Bb (Remember A# and Bb are 2 different ways of saying the same note. Refer to last weeks lesson “12 Notes of the Music Alphabet”.)

5th string (2nd fret) = B

5th string (3rd fret) = C

6th string (open) = E

6th string (1st fret) = F

6th string (2nd fret) = F# or Gb

2nd string (open) = B

2nd string (11th fret) = A# or Bb

Since there are only 12 notes in the music alphabet the names of the notes begin repeating at the 12th fret which is usually where the double dots on the fingerboard are located. Playing a note at the 12th fret physically cuts the string in half making it vibrate at double the frequency of the open string.

12th fret (1st string) = E

12th fret (2nd string) = B

12th fret (3rd string) = G

12th fret (4th string) = D

12th fret (5th string) = A

12th fret (6th string) = E

A ‘model’ is something you compare something to. If I wanted to build a guitar from scratch I might choose to model my design after an existing guitar, perhaps a Gibson Les Paul. All music theory is relative which means it is based on how things are viewed in different contexts. When it gets right down to it we can pretty much compare anything in the study of music theory to a specific ‘model’ scale, the mother of all scales. The C Major scale.

The C Major scale contains the notes of all the white keys on a piano. The black keys on a piano are the ’sharps’ and ‘flats’ while the white keys just have letter names. The notes in a C Major scale are as follows.

Since we plan to use the C Major scale as a model for all major scales we will now analyze it in order to determine what makes it special. A few weeks ago ago we learned the music alphabet which contained the following notes.

A (A#,Bb) B C (C#,Db) D (D#,Eb) E F (F#,Gb) G (G#,Ab) A

We also learned that the distance from one of the notes in the music alphabet to the next one is called a half step.

A – Bb = 1/2 step

E – F = 1/2 step

It should also be known that 2 half-steps equals a whole-step

E – F# = 2 x 1/2 step = 1 whole step

Knowing the above information we can now analyze the C Major Scale and determine its structure.

1 – 1 – 1/2 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1/2 ……THAT is the definition of a major scale. You can start on any one of the 12 notes and if you make sure to follow the above sequence, you will have a major scale named after the first note.