What is key signature ?

If you are guitarist then you should hear the word "key" or a scale or music is in certain key. Key is the root note of a scale or chord progression. It tells us which note are to be played or used in a particular scale. If a piece of music is made up from the notes of F major scale it means that it is in the key of F major. In same way if a piece of music is made up from the notes of G minor scale then it means it is in the key of G minor scale. All the other notes in that piece of music will be heard in relation to G minor key note.

Key signature are used to label keys and to indicate what notes must be raised or lowered in order to maintain the same intervals for the major and minor scales. The key of C major is the simples because it does not have any sharp or flats. The G major is the second simplest key which only contains one sharp note and the third is the key of F which only contains one flat note.

Key of C major:- C    D    E    F    G    A    B    C

Pentatonic scales (major & minor scales explained)

So far we learned major & minor scales, let's now take a look at pentatonic scales. Pentatonic scales are perhaps the most widely used scales in music. Found in the music of nearly all ancient cultures, today they are used in musical styles ranging from blues and rock to jazz and classical.

The term "pentatonic describes the number of tones in the scale, "penta" means five, and "tonic" means tones. Therefore pentatonic scales contain five tones, as opposed to diatonic scales, which contain all seven tones of the musical alphabet. Although they contain fewer notes, the two pentatonic scales in common use still reflect the major and minor qualities of their diatonic counterparts.
Major Pentatonic Scales: The major pentatonic scales can be seen as major scales minus the fourth and seventh scale degrees, leaving the following notes: 1,2,3,5 and 6. Let's take a look at C major & C pentatonic scales below:-

Discussion: Tempo, rhythm and timing

Timing is the ability to play a piece right through without speeding it up or slowing it down. It also involves the ability to keep up a rhythm and to emphasize certain notes at precisely the same moment as other musicians in the band. Timing can be difficult, especially in the early stages of learning to play the guitar or any other instrument, when you are concerned primarily with getting your fingers into the right positions and with sounding the notes or chords that you want. But timing is a skill that grows the more you play; it is directly related to confidence and experience. It is basic discipline which will spoil the effect of your music if it is not up to standard. If your timing is out and your playing speeds up and slows down then anyone can notice it.

How to transpose a song in any key ?

Transposing a piece of music means (it can be chord progression or melody) playing it in any key that is different to the one in which it is written or the one in which you originally learned it. There are two reasons why you might want to transpose a chord sequence. First you may want to sing along with it but find that it is too low or too high for your voice. Second, you may want to use chord shapes or add melody notes which are difficult to play if the music remains in its original key. Transposing the chord progression to an appropriate new key can help to solve both these problems.

Before we learn to start transpose a song let’s first learn the Roman numeral system by which you can identify each chord in a key by a Roman numeral. The 1st chord is (I) the 2nd chord is (II) third chord is (III) fourth chord is (IV) fifth chord is (V) sixth chord is (VI) and the seventh chord is (VII). You can give the chord its position name by above given numbers or you can use simply 1,2,3,4 whatever you like. Each chord also has a name according to its position in the scale and its Roman numeral as given below:-

Remember Note Names Easily On Guitar Fretboard

Introduction

In Previous lesson we learn how to read/write tablature with fret numbers only. But what if someone ask you to play notes by writing C D E F G A B C. Well most of the beginners skip to know about the note names as it may confusing & waste of time to a beginner. But don't worry I am going to cover every possible detail to guide you to be familiar with guitar fretboard. So let's begin.

Formula To Figure Every Note Name On Guitar Fret board:

Yes you read it right my friend, In this section I will tell you a simple but effective formula by which you can figure out all the note names on the guitar fret board. The advantage of this formula is, if you don't want to practice daily (which I am going to tell you) you can just remember the formula & apply the same where you need it. If you are lazy like me then you can skip the practice & can immediately start getting benefits from  this method. 

How to read/write the guitar tablature?

This Lesson is for absolute beginners only

                                                        

Purpose of Reading This topic ??

You are reading this because you purchase a nice looking guitar of your choice and want to play some nice songs or you went to a teacher & he is telling you some theory that you don’t interested in right now & you are crazy to play some songs on guitar as soon as possible. I know the feeling after buying a guitar; you need to play it madly.  If you are among those then let’s begin your journey of guitar by learning how to read Tablature or tab sheet.

                                                    

Introduction:  

Every teacher will give you some notes to play taken from some hit songs or something else (if you are learning from a teacher you don’t need to read this).  You can’t remember all notes here & there on the guitar fret board (the place where you hold strings by your fingertips). So you need some way to remember this. Tablature solves this problem. You can write every note which you can read later or anyone can play your tablature by reading the same.

                                        
What you can't do with Tablature:

Note Values- When and for how long to play notes?

So actually we all are playing by listening already created music. We listen to music and play accordingly but what if we created some sort of music and we need to write that piece of music on the sheet. Yes of course the tablature can do this but the tablature will not tell others how fast and for how long to play the given notes. If they know the song then they can play but if they don't know the original song then they never can play on actual speed.
In order to actually perform a piece of music, it is also essential to arrange the notes in the context of time; that is, it is necessary to know when and for how long to play them.

Beats and Meter: Ordinary clock time is divided into various units of measure, of which the smallest is one second. Musical time is also divided into units of measure, of which the smallest is the beat- the underlying regular rhythm of a piece of music. Just as seconds are grouped into minutes, repetitive patterns of strong and weak beats form the meter, or overall rhythmic feeling, of a piece of music. The meter usually consists of groups of 2, 3, or 4 beats, with the first beat of each group being the strongest, and this pattern usually stays the same throughout a piece of music in order to provide a consistent backdrop for the melody and harmony. The most common time signature is four beats in a measure.

What is pitch ?

Music is made up of sounds that can be organized into three main elements; melody, rhythm, and harmony. These elements are passed from one musician to another by music notation, which allows a reader to precisely locate and reproduce any musical sound by means of a set of symbols that represent both the pitch of a note (relative sense of high or low) and its rhythm (placement in time). We will look first at the symbols that represent pitch.
The system for representing the pitch is based on assigning a different name to each note. These note names are the same as the first seven letters of the alphabet "A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A" and together are called the musical alphabet. In spite of the large number of notes that can be produced by musical instruments, only seven note names are needed because the eighth note, called the octave, has the same sound as the first, but higher in pitch and therefore uses the same letter name as the first note. The octave is both the end of the first set  of notes and the beginning of the next. Different instruments are capable of producing sounds in different ranges of pitch, some in many different octaves and some in only a few, but all of these pitches are notated with the same seven letter names.

Confuse what is octave ? see the chart below of musical alphabets and octave:-

A    B    C    D    E    F    G    A    B    C    D    E    F    G 
1     2     3     4    5    6    7     8/1   2    3     4    5    6     7  
                                            octave    

How to Tune The Guitar? Basic & Modern methods to tune a Guitar.

If you want to play correct then you need to tune your guitar on regular basis. This is the most basic thing which is necessary for every guitar player. In the modern days there are many ways by which you can tune your guitar. There are various software's available in the market for the purpose. You can do it on your computer or on your smartphone. If you have android based smartphone then you can try many goodies available on the play store like gstring & datuner (there are 100s of other, you can experiment with all of them & you can select one as per your liking). You just need to run the software & set it to auto tune that's it, now you can play open strings one by one, the note names will be shown on the screen live. You need to strike the string & adjust its length until you find the correct note.

If you don't have smartphone (as they are expensive, android is starting from Rs. 5000 minimum) then you can buy a separate digital tuner which will do the same thing as you did with your smartphone. So these were the modern ways. Now think if you don't have digital tuner or smartphone with you and you need to tune your guitar? So now i will tell you the basic way by which you can tune your guitar (only if you tune it regularly).

Understanding Scales On Guitar- The Major Scale

Practicing Scales is the most important thing for every beginner as well as expert guitarists. By practicing Scales guitarists can find the correct way on the fretboard without hitting any wrong notes, it will also give strength to the fingers. It also helps in building ear power by which you can recognize the notes by listening them.

So what the scale is? A Scale is a series of notes that forms a progression between one note & its ocatve. The Scale can either go up by an octave or down by an octave. There are many different scales and the history of their development is complex. Any one scale can be different by others by it's step patteren. The characteristic sound of any scale is determined by its number of steps, by the order in which they occur.

Western music divides the octave into twelve steps, each one being equal to a semi tone. On the guitar one octave is divided into twelve frets-one for each note. So a semi tone is one fret & a tone is two frets. All major scales have a semi tone interval between the 3rd, 4th, 7th & 8th notes.  So the pattern of major scale on single string is two fret, two fret, one fret, two fret, two fret, two fret & one fret or you can say whole step(two frets or tone), whole step, half step (one fret or semi tone), whole step, whole step, whole step & half step (or you can wirte W W H W W W H). The first note of the scale is called "key" or "tonic" note of the scale. Below is the chart of major scale in all keys:-

What are the Intervals or Guitar Intervals?

The Distance between any two notes is called Interval. the name of the intervals is based on the amount of scale steps they contain. Intervals can be identified by their position in the diatonic scale. The most fundamental of all intervals is the octave. It determines the first and last notes. All other intervals are then named according to their distance from the first note of the scale. They are called seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths and sevenths.

                                       This system covers the eight notes (including octave) that make up the diatonic major scale. But as we know the octave is divided into twelve semi tones, producing thirteen different notes. Since each of these has its own sound characteristic, there is a system of names which further defines each interval as being perfect, major, minor, augmented or diminished. Below are the rules to identify the intervals:-

• A major interval lowered by a semi tone becomes a minor interval.
• A minor interval raised by a semi tone becomes a major interval.
• A major interval raised by a semi tone becomes an augmented interval.
• A minor interval lowered by a semi tone becomes a diminished interval.
• A perfect interval raised by a semi tone becomes an augmented interval.
• A perfect interval lowered by a semi tone becomes a diminished interval.

What are the Triads or Chords?

Most Basic chords consists of the specific arrangements of the three notes, called Triads. A triad is a simultaneous combination of three notes. Triads consists of Root note which gives the chord its letter name and 3 interval above the root note & the 5th interval above the root note. All triads are three note chords, but not all three note chords are triads.

There are fourth different kind of triads-major, minor & diminished & augmented. Although the intervals that make up the triads are always thirds, they differ in that they may be either major or minor thirds. Every interval has an effect on the sound of the chord, but it is the root that determines the chords identity. It is the interval from the root to the 3rd note of the group that determines whether they are major or minor. A major triad with the sharpened 5th is called augmented and a minor triad with a flattened 5th is called diminished.

Build Chords/Triads from the Scale notes

Most of the guitarists want to play chords as soon as possible & to play it they follow the chord charts or their teacher tells them how to form chords. It is ok to know just the chord notes & how to hold them but as they get experience, the search of so many questions begin to arise like how to build the chords. So in this lesson we will learn to build the chords or triads from the scale itself. Chords are basiclly built from their related scales and they consists of the notes from the related scales.

In any key there are seven diatonic triads. They can be formed by building two intervals of a third on each note in the diatonic scale. Only notes including in the diatonic scale are used to build the thirds. The whereabouts of the semi tone steps will determine whether the intervals are major or minor thirds, and will dictate the type of  triad.

Understanding Scales On Guitar- The Minor Scale

There are three type of minor scales- the natural or relative minor scale, the harmonic minor scale and the melodic minor scale. If you don't know what the scale is then you can find another lesson on this blog on scales (the major scale). Each type of minor scale has its own individual step patter, but they all share one common feature that differentiates them from the major scale. The intervals between the first and 3rd notes in the scale is always a tone and a half. This interval is called a minor third. The minor scales differ from each other in terms of whether the 6h and 7th steps of the scales are raised or whether not. The principle and formation of minor scales is easier to understand if we start by looking at how the natural minor scale is related to the major scale, and then go on to see how it is altered to produce the harmonic and melodic minor scales.

As the Ionian Mode was the predecessor of the major scale, the natural minor scale is derived from what was called the Aeolian Mode. Both these modes were diatonic scales, played only on the white notes of the keyboard. But whereas the Ionian starts on C note, the Aeolian starts on A note. This means that the notes of the two scales are the same. But because the natural minor scale has a different starting point. Lets see both scales side by side:-

Basic Lead Guitar Techniques

Guitar has one very special feature, it allows you to manipulate the sound after a note has been played. With your left hand holding down a specific note, you have a choice of various special techniques which you can use to modify and control the sound as the note rings, or which you can use to go to the next note you want to play. These techniques can be divided into four broad categories- Hammers, Slides, Bends and Vibrato. The first three are principally ways of changing the pitch without having to fret a new note and strike the string again. The fourth, the vibrato is a technique that adds the guitarist's own personal signature to the overall sound.

Hammering techniques:- All these techniques involve sounding two or more notes while striking the string only once. They include hammer ons, hammer offs or pull offs and trills.

What are Arpeggios ?

Fast Arpeggios are a natural feature of many melodic guitar solos. The technique involves holding down a chord shape with your left hand and playing a simple strum or fingerstyle pattern with your right hand. Your left hand should then release the notes one by one, immediately after they have been struck. This produces the effect of hearing the notes in rapid succession. Begin by trying an arpeggio with a major seventh chord shape on the top four strings. Sound each note individually, but release it at the same time as you hit the next note. At the end, only the 1st string should be ringing. When you can do this properly, with a single, quick stroke from your right hand, the four notes will sound as if they are being played very fast indeed.

Moving the shape up the fingerboard by three frets so that your 4th finger is no longer playing the root note  changes the chord from a major seventh to a minor ninth. Using only the top three strings of the same chord shape, you can follow the arpeggio with a hammer-on on the 1st string with your 4th finger. This is a common cliche in jazz guitar solos.

Once you can comfortable with the arpeggio technique, you can apply it to almost any chord shape, and also combine it with hammers and bends.

How to know the Rhythm of Tablature?

Struggling with the rhythm of the Tablature??   

Most of the beginner guitarists face this problem in his/her Guitar journey. If you are among them, then don’t worry. This guide will help you to overcome this problem.

So let’s begin, if you are reading guitar Tablature of any song. The first thing you need to do is to listen the song very carefully.  And what does “carefully” word means here? It means that you need to listen every word along with the rhythm of the song until you are not able to play with it.

For Example If you are reading the below line:-

Ya Ali, Reham Ali

G|---------9--99-------11--9------------------------------|
D|--9-10----------12-----------12-(PO)-9----------------|

Play the song, listen this line (Ya Ali, Reham Ali) & play the song word to word with proper rhythm as its in song.

Additionally you can go with two ways either Lyrics or with Rhythm or music only. With Lyrics you need to speak word to word on your guitar & with Music or Rhythm you need to just follow the music of the lyrics. 

Choose the way, you are comfortable with. You can also add/delete the notes from tablature as per your taste.

Is not it easy?? Let me know.

Enjoy

Have Fun with your Guitar