A triad, as you all hopefully know, is a series of three notes of a scale, stacked one on top of another. If you need more of a refresher please read my posts on chord structures and chord inversions.

Today I’d like to talk about upper structure triads and how you can use them to spice up your already smokin’ solos. Just a small dose of triads in your daily guitar diet will give you enough musical protein to extend your playing life for decades to come.

So What the Hell is an Upper Structure Triad?

Yeah, that’s probably a good place to start. Let’s take a look at what I call a master chord structure. This is basically a scale organized as one chord by stacking each note in intervals of a third. In the key of C Major this becomes a CMaj13:

To form an upper structure triad we basically just deal with the chord tones starting from the 5th and higher. So in the case of a CMaj13 chord we have three upper structure triads – G Major, B Diminished, and D minor.

You can use all four triad types: Major, minor, augmented, and diminished.

There are many books and websites that will go on to say that a “true” upper structure triad is one in which there is at least one allowable tension that is not an avoid note. For example, triads containing the note ‘F’ from a CMaj7/13 chord are typically considered not good upper structure triads because ‘F’ (the 11th) doesn’t sound well against the 3rd of a C triad (C, E, G). The question here becomes what someone’s definition of an allowable tension is. Frankly I don’t really care. As long as it sounds cool, play it!

Okay, so back to the upper structure triads. If you play a G Major triad over a C Major chord, you are basically highlighting the 5th, 7th, and 9th notes of the scale. This is a very cool sound because you are putting emphasis on notes that don’t strongly imply the chord. If you play a B diminished triad you get the 7th, 9th, and 11th. (Again, some people don’t like this because of the ‘F’ against the ‘E’, but I think so long as you don’t hang on the ‘F’ then it sounds fine.) Playing a D minor triad gives you the 9th, 11th, and 13th.

It is a little tricky at first because, especially for those of us that grew up playing rock, we’re not used to hearing these sounds. Playing an ‘A’ over a C Major chord can be very foreign to rock players and will take some time to get used to. I suggest that you spend some time working with the diatonic possibilities. Spell out each chord to the 13th and then figure out what each triad is. Play each triad over a chord backing track so you can hear the changes.

Alterations

But you don’t have to stick with diatonic triads, either. There are a ton of possibilities for playing different triads from borrowed key signatures in order to get very hip sounds. Here are some suggestions for upper structure triads borrowed from other keys:

• CMaj7 chord: DMaj, Bmin to get a Lydian sound.
• C7 chord: DMaj, BbAug to get a Lydian (b7) sound.
• C7 chord: GbMaj, AbMaj, Dbmin, Ebmin to get an “alt” sound.
• C7 chord: DAug to get a whole tone sound.
• Cm7: AbMaj to get a Phrygian sound.
• Cm7b5: AbMaj, BbMaj to get a Locrian nat. 9 sound.

How about a few that you can quiz yourself on?

• What does playing an EMaj triad over CMaj7 give you?
• What does playing an F#Maj triad over CMaj7 give you?
• What does playing a Dmin triad over Cm7 give you?

I hope you are playing these while figuring out the answers, rather than just using your theory brain (hint, hint).

Triad Stacking/Polychords

Once you have gotten a few of these under your belt you should obviously try injecting them into your solos. I don’t suggest you only play triads for a solo, however – that would get very lame. But, you can stack a few triads into polychords for a phrase or two and get some awesome sounding runs. For example, over a C7 chord you can see from the above list that you have a lot of choices to create different sounds. So how about playing a few of them one right after another? For example:

Triads are cool, triads are fun. Triads will get you chicks you never thought you could get. Seriously, try it!

Upper Structure Triad Soloing is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

How far down are you willing to go?

As I’m sure you know from my posts here on Fretterverse, I love music theory. Learning about how music is structured and how it all works when put together is my answer to all the guys in high school who took auto, wood, and metal shop classes. I never had the knack for mechanical work, but I’ve always respected the hell out of those who did.

In my senior year of high school, I was the only student in my Music Theory IV class; just me and the teacher. Needless to say, I learned an awful lot of stuff that year. By the time summer was approaching and I was getting ready to graduate, every class included atonal sight-singing exercises courtesy of Modus Novus, jazz theory, harmonization, composing, arranging… it was all there. And I loved every second of it.

Until I actually had to pick up the guitar and play.

Information Overload

I was trying soooooo hard to fit what I was learning in class into my playing. Perhaps too soon, and definitely too much. It was information overload. For some reason I got it in my head that I had to do everything that was being taught because those were the rules. I let my education replace my intuition.

A recent discussion about jazz guitar improvisation dredged up those old high school theory memories. For many years now everyone in this discussion circle has been learning to play jazz guitar a certain way, concentrating on playing what they hear – with certain guidelines, of course – making melodies, comping simple chords, and generally approaching the guitar from a no-frills standpoint. The idea here is that most of the students are just learning how to play jazz and aren’t quite ready for the advanced stuff. (Some are, but most will be the first to admit they are not.)

For years these players bought into a system and have been making amazing progress. They haven’t worried about theory, don’t care about the mechanics behind a melodic minor scale, etc. They are finally making music after all of their collective years hacking around on the guitar. It has been truly inspiring. The success stories are plentiful and all very inspiring to read.

Look Out Rabbits, Here They Come!

Recently, a guest instructor came into the fold – a fantastic player, just so you know – to demonstrate their approach to improvisation. Unlike the previous instruction in the group, these lessons were very jazz theory-oriented. Melodic Minor scale 1/2 step up from the Dom7th chord, bebop scales with the nat7 on the upbeat so chord tones fall on the strong beats… all of the stuff the music book publishing companies have made fortunes on.

Quicker than you can spell out a C#min/Maj7 arpeggio, many of the students who had done so well with their original method jumped right down the jazz theory rabbit hole. All of a sudden, everyone went into a frenzy about the nat7 in a bebop scale and how to use it. All of a sudden, everything was over-analyzed and beaten to a pulp as if the world was going to end if they didn’t somehow add this line of thinking into their playing. They seem to have immediately forgotten that they had already been playing this way for months and months and months when they were just making melodies and following some simple guidelines, ignoring all of the technical mumbo jumbo. (I don’t think it’s mumbo jumbo, btw… I’m just being melodramatic. Call it journalistic license.) But the point is, a name was attached to it and before long everyone acted like it was the first time they had ever learned it.

The Battle of Good vs. Evil

It makes me wonder; if people were doing so well with the “old” system, why all of a sudden did they jump onto this new system, trying to understand it as if it was absolutely crucial to their “getting it.” They were “getting it” before, why didn’t they think they were?

I see this all the time in my martial arts classes. People who have been training for a few years get to a crossroads where they aren’t quite sure if the system really works or not. They see the senior-level students being able to do it, they see the heads of the system being able to do it, but for some reason they still question that it will work for them. I was there, I came to the same crossroads. I and the other senior members always encourage the other students, telling them to “keep going” and not to worry about the finer details. Just keep training and it will all make sense in its own time. We can give you all of the terms and definitions and advanced footwork, but if you’ve only been training for three years it’s not going to mean anything to you. At some point, these students have to stop questioning and have some trust. They have to put away their fear and doubts and run as fast as they can towards the light rather than away from it. Only then will they truly start to “get it.” But until that point, the constant push and pull of good and evil self will just keep them in place. Even moving backwards is better than sitting in limbo, unable to move.

These guitar students are exactly the same as my martial arts students. They are constantly looking for that better mousetrap. What they are doing now is the be-all, end-all, right up until it isn’t. And yet these same people constantly feel like they aren’t making any progress, or that they aren’t progressing fast enough. I’ll tell you why:

Because they don’t trust the system they bought into! They haven’t given it enough time, and they don’t trust their intuition; they’re trusting their own theory!

Students get to a point where they think their teachers (whomever “they” may be) are holding out on them, like they are trying to purposely keep the students down. I have another theory. Perhaps these teachers know what the students need to progress much better than the students do. That is why they came to the teacher in the first place, right?

Guys, you don’t know what you need to do in order to get better, and yet when a seasoned veteran/professional tells you, you doubt them.

You will never climb out of this rabbit hole if you keep flitting about from one “next greatest thing” to another. Why do you think weight-loss companies make billions of dollars but always write in their advertising “results not typical.” It’s because they know you won’t stick with it and do what you’re supposed to. They’re actually counting on it! They want you to chronically fail, to start and stop a new diet program every six months. Because they make money that way. If you stuck with it and succeeded you wouldn’t need them anymore – you’d already be thin!

That Five-Letter Word

If you’ve invested years of your time to a certain method, and that method has worked for you, given you great rewards, produced results, and shown that it can help you to improve, and you know that you haven’t yet gleaned everything you can from that method, then you have to use that five-letter word many run away from so quickly: faith. Faith in yourself, and faith in the system you’re learning. Give it time; it will come to you, but you have to trust that if you’re going in the right direction you will continue to do so. Then, once you finally do “get it” you’ll be better suited to know what path to take next.

Don’t fall down the rabbit hole. Don’t be distracted by the new bright, shiny object being held in front of you. Most importantly, and this is the hardest one for most of us, don’t think you know better than the one you’re learning from. It may not make sense to you now, and it may even be uncomfortable because the teacher is purposely pushing you out of your comfort zone. But, assuming your teacher isn’t sadistic and gets off on watching you fail, you need to trust, have faith, and follow the path he has laid out for you.

Going Down the Rabbit Hole is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

Andres Segovia

I’m still just a tiny bit fired up from last week where I called David Byrne an idiot. He’s more of a knucklehead, really, but it got me thinking along some very interesting tangents. As I was playing devil’s advocate back and forth on a number of topics, it occurred to me that there might be a distinct difference between someone who plays music and someone who is a musician.

And being a guitarist, of course, I started to think about the differences between being a guitarist and a musician who plays guitar. Let’s dig into this a little bit and see if there’s something to my epiphany, or if I’m just another knucklehead that is trying to stir up trouble and talk trash.

The Guitarist

A guitarist, simply, is someone who plays guitar. This can be someone who has only been playing for a few months, or someone who has been playing for 40 years. I think it would be safe to say that if you can hold a pick, tune your guitar, and you know enough basic chords to handle most simple songs, you’re entitled to wear the moniker of a guitarist. (Pick up your patch and membership card on the way out.)

I have met thousands of guitarists who play very well in all genres of music. Very tasty players, great songwriters, exceptional improvisers… people you would love to listen to and jam with. I have also met hundreds of players, however, who don’t know how to play a Major scale. Take them outside of a normal rock blues jam where the Pentatonic scale reigns supreme, and they have no idea what’s going on. I know plenty of players who can’t show you an F# note on the B string.

The Musician

As I was going through this in my head I defined a musician as, instrument of choice notwithstanding, someone who has some understanding of the inner-workings of music. I’m talking about key signatures, reading music/rhythms, basic harmony, etc. Musicians would be people who have learned – at the very least – the fundamental aspects of how music is put together. When at a jam session or seeing a piece of music for the first time, they can read through the music, or at the very least ask someone the notes or chord changes and have a general idea of what is being played. They are also able to describe how to play a piece of music in a way that doesn’t just involve playing the notes while someone looks at what they are doing.

The Distinction

Wes Montgomery

Given the definitions I figured out during my mental debate, being a guitarist doesn’t automatically make you a musician. There is absolutely nothing wrong with “just” being a guitarist. Heck, Wes Montgomery couldn’t read music, and neither can organist Joey DeFrancesco, to name a few. No one in their right mind is going to argue that Wes wasn’t a phenomenal player – arguably the greatest jazz guitarist ever. And perhaps Montgomery is even a bad example as he obviously had knowledge of advanced chords and jazz harmony. But was he a musician?

I’m not sure that necessarily sat right with me. I mean, who could argue that Wes Montgomery was not a musician? Just because he couldn’t read sheet music shouldn’t disqualify him from being given the title. Montgomery certainly played well enough to be classified as more than just a guitarist.

Let’s throw another wrench into the works. Dictionary.com defines a musician as:

1. a person who makes music a profession, esp. as a performer of music.

2. any person, whether professional or not, skilled in music.

So… What’s the Verdict?

I think my original theory was wrong in general, though it did present some very interesting food for thought. I rather like the simplicity of Dictionary.com’s definition of a musician, and I think I will leave it at that. I’m quite sure David Byrne is sitting back and reading this, reveling in the sweet taste of revenge as I join him amongst the ranks of the misinformed. Touché, Mr. Byrne, touché. But I still think lyrics are important…

Are You a Guitarist or a Musician (or Both)? is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

Glenn Tipton - Judas Priest. 'Nuff Said!

Ever notice how power chords, even when played with a clean tone in a blues song, just sound so right? Ever wonder why a major chord sounds so much more concrete than a minor chord? Ever have trouble hearing that F# played over a C chord, thinking it’s just a touch “off?”

The answer is much more than just the style of music you like or who is playing the chord. The answer has to do with the naturally-occurring series of harmonic frequencies that are generated when any single note is played. The answer lies in the multiples of a fundamental tone and their vibrations, spread out over several octaves and with ever-diminishing clarity.

The answer, is the Overtone Series.

You can cue up the imperial army music here if you like for effect, though the reality is that the concept of the overtone series is quite simple to grasp and once understood will really help further your knowledge of music.

Good, Good, Good… Good Vibrations

The Beach Boys had it right; it’s all about good vibrations. When a note is played, it vibrates as a waveform. For example, the note “A440″ — which is the standard tuning note in Western music — vibrates at 440 cycles per second. When that note is played, however, a series of other tones, sympathetic tones, perhaps (my explanation, not necessarily a proven scientific fact), also resonates. In essence, one note actually creates several notes. Take a look at the music staff below, which illustrates the order in which the overtones of a given note occur:

If play the note ‘C’, a naturally-occurring ‘G’ located a perfect fifth higher is also produced.  (If you don’t understand the intervalic relationships between pitches, I suggest you read my intervals music theory lesson first.) Above that another ‘C’ note an octave higher than the fundamental tone is heard. Continuing up you hear another ‘C’ note two octaves higher, then a third (‘E’), a fifth (‘G’), a b7 (‘Bb’ – and an approximate pitch), etc.

Please bear in mind that this is a very over-simplified explanation. It’s enough to get you started, but there is a bit more to it. Quite frankly, the “bit more to it” is bland and boring, and we Fretheads are all about fun and zaniness, right? (Yeah, right…)

Back to that Power Chord

To get back to my article opener about the power chord, you can see just by looking at the music staff that the interval of a fifth (the same interval that power chords are made of) sound very strong if for nothing else than they happen naturally. The same principle is also why a major triad sounds so heavy and grounded than other types of triads.

So I suggest you break out that Gibson Explorer that’s been sitting in your closet, crank up the Marshall stack, and start rockin’ out to Living After Midnight right away!

Music Theory Lesson: The Overtone Series is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

The "Scale Identification" lesson screen from EarMaster Pro 5

EarMaster, the interactive ear training and music theory software program, is the most comprehensive learning tool I have seen in a very long time.

The developers say:

Covering pitch and rhythm training, music theory and solfege, EarMaster is a complete and powerful ear trainer for all musicians at any level.

The question is, does it live up to the hype?

Getting Started

When first launching the EarMaster program, you arrive at a main menu that asks you to choose which Training Mode, Exercise Area, and input method (piano or guitar interface) you want to start with. Graphic menu buttons at the top of the interface also allow you to choose what area you want to start with. The Exercise Areas in the “Standard Tutor” mode are:

• Interval Comparison
• Interval Identification
• Interval Singing
• Chord Identification
• Chord Inversions
• Chord Progressions
• Scale Identification
• Rhythm Reading
• Rhythm Imitation
• Rhythm Dictation
• Rhythm Correction
• Melodic Dictation

Interface and Functionality

Interval Comparison Screen and Interface

Overall the functionality and interface of EarMaster is very intuitive and not hard to figure out at all. The Exercise Area menu is at the top, the note input menu is on the right, the main learning area is in the middle, and the utilities menu is at the bottom. It’s laid out perfectly and I don’t think it can be improved upon.

One thing that I didn’t quite like was that when starting a new module, if you don’t hit the “New Question” button, it will automatically start for you after a few seconds. I would prefer this to not happen as I like to have full control over when I want to begin. But, a very minor annoyance for sure.

The Chord Progressions Exercise Area

Each area has several lessons which increase in complexity as you progress higher. For example, the “Chord Progressions” module starts off with identifying major and minor tonic V-I chords. By the time you get to lesson 20 you are working on modulations to bIII and bVI, with everything in between. It’s very comprehensive. Here is the complete Chord Progressions lesson list:

1. Identify major and minor tonic in V-I
2. Dominants with and without 7
3. VIIdim7 in major and minor
4. Common dominant – tonic combinations
5. Major/minor subdominant (IV) and supertonic (II)
6. Various dominant-tonic combinations
7. ii-V-I combinations
8. ii-V-I and ii-bII-I combinations
9. IV-I combinations
10. Two mediant combinations
11. Four mediant combinations
12. Three part plagal cadences
13. Extended tonal cadences
14. Fifth sequences
15. Folk progressions
16. Progressions with bVII7(b)
17. Interrupted cadences
18. Modulations #1
19. Modulations #2
20. Modulations to bIII and bVI
21. Last Step!

And that’s just one Exercise Area. You can see that EarMaster covers a lot of ground.

Scoring and Tracking Progress

Oops! Wrong Answer.

Each area has you start a new question, enter your answer, and then check to see how well you did. A scoring meter at the bottom of the screen shows your correct answer percentage. If you get a question right, you are congratulated and can proceed to the next question. If you get a question wrong, EarMaster will tell you so but also show you what the correct answer is. This seems like a no-brainer, but they do a very good job in terms of graphic design to make your results very clear and easy-to-understand.

There is also a Statistics screen that allows you to see, organized by date, what you worked on and how well you did. This is an excellent way to see if you’re actually improving or not, and which areas you need to work on.

Jazz Tutor Mode

EarMaster also has a “jazz tutor” mode which you can choose on start up or through the “Change Tutor” option found at the beginning of each lesson and in the main menu. Jazz Tutor mode works exactly the same way as the normal mode, but many of the exercises are different, geared towards the harmonic and melodic elements that you’ll find common to jazz music. Unless you are very, very good at music theory, rhythms, and you have a great ear, I recommend you work through the normal mode first.

Concerns

The only concern I have with EarMaster is in the rhythm modules. There are several lessons that play a rhythmic example and ask you to play back the rhythm by tapping on the space bar of your keyboard. Perhaps it’s a latency issue, but no matter how hard I tried there was a very noticeable delay in the time I hit the space bar to the time the beat sounded and was checked against the example. For the life of me I could not fix the latency problem, resulting in continuously incorrect answers. I suspect this can be fixed somehow, but I was unable to figure it out.

Pricing and Ordering Information

EarMaster is available in many options including a Pro option, Essentials edition, and several school and academic licensing versions for classroom learning. The EarMaster Pro 5.0 Internet download version is reasonably priced at $59.99.

Is It Worth the Price?

In a word, absolutely! I was a music theory major in college and the EarMaster program is just as comprehensive as many of the classes I took at the university. With the only downside I found being the rhythm module, there is hundreds of hours worth of lesson material here to study and self-test on. I especially recommend this for music students of middle school age up through college, as well as home musicians that are interested in becoming better at music and their instruments.

For more information on how to purchase EarMaster, visit their website – www.earmaster.com.

Improve Your Ear With EarMaster is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

If you remember from my chord structures article I showed you how to build chords from scales. We covered major, minor, dominant, half-diminished (also known as minor 7b5) and fully diminished chords. We also went from triads to 7^th chords, 9^th chords, 11^th chords, and 13^th chords. If you need a refresher, please go back and review that article.

So what exactly is a chord inversion?

To explain this, let’s use the C Major scale once again and use the C Major triad as a staring point:

And let’s also take a look at an F Major triad:

Nothing wrong with these two chords separately. The problem is what happens when you want to play them one after another as part of a chord progression. On your polyphonic instrument of choice (um, your guitar, of course!) play the C triad followed by the F triad and try to make it sound musical. It’s not bad, right? But something tells me you’re thinking it can probably sound better. You may not be able to put your finger on it, but it’s somehow lacking. That’s where inversions come in.

First Inversion

What we’re going to do is manipulate the F major triad. It may not make sense at first, but when we put it all together it should turn on the light bulb over your head.  Okay, so what I want you to do with the F major triad is take the bottom note – in this case the ‘F’ – and move it up an octave. That will give you this:

Same notes, but in a different order it produces a slightly different sound. Play it and see what you think. What we did was “invert” the first note, hence it’s called a chord inversion. For the sake of theoretical reference, we refer to this as “first inversion.” In traditional music, especially church music and organ/piano music, you will sometimes see this written under a chord like this:

6
3

The 6/3 written under the chord tells you that this particular chord is in first inversion. These numbers refer to the position of the notes. Starting at the bottom note of the inverted chord (the ‘A’ in this case), move up 3 steps to get the next note (C), and move up six steps from the bottom note to get the next note (F). Man those music dudes were smart back then!

Second Inversion

So let’s do it again. We’ll take the bottom note again (this time the ‘A’ note) and move it up an octave as well. That gives us the following:

This is “second inversion,” also designated by:

6
4

Try playing this chord voicing and see what you think. Sound good? Aside from the root position chord, this second inversion chord sounds the next strongest of the three. Why is that? I believe it’s because of the interval of a fourth between the bottom two notes. It’s a “grounded” sound, and one that the human ear identifies as stable.

Right. So we have the root position chords and the two inversions. Now let’s go back to the chord progression from C Major to F Major. We’ve identified that it sounds pretty good, but could perhaps sound better. What happens if we play the C Major chord, and then play one of the inversions of the F Major chord? Let’s see:

C Major followed by F major in first inversion gives us:

Play it and see what you think. Again, it sounds pretty good, but in my opinion it could still sound better. So let’s try playing C major followed by F major in second inversion. I’m going to cheat a little bit, however, and also drop the entire F major chord down an octave.

Play it and see how it sounds.

Woah! There’s something about this chord progression using the F Major in second inversion voicing that really connects the two chords. It’s the fact that the ‘C’ note in the bass is common to both chords. We, as humans, feel more comfortable when we can see and hear things that are connected and easily relatable. In this case the ‘C’ note in the bass of both chords provides a stable base that gives the listener a feeling of familiarity.

7th Chords

Cool. So we just did triad inversions. Well guess what? We’re not quite done yet. You can also do the same thing with seventh chords:

Because we have four notes per chord, we can do three inversions per chord. Notice the new inversion numbers.

The same rules apply to 9^th, 11^th, and 13^th chords, but to be honest these chord extensions weren’t used “back in the day” when the traditional inversion numbering system was created. Those notes were considered off-limits for chords, so we don’t really use any numerical designation for them.

That’s about it. It’s very straight forward and simple. What you should do now is take some of your favorite progressions and play with the inversions to see what you can come up with. It will not only expand your capacity to play new things on your instrument, but hopefully it will also stimulate some creativity in your writing.

Enjoy!

Music Theory Lesson: Chord Inversions is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

From a theoretical standpoint we can think of the melodic minor scale as a major scale with a flattened third. Those of us who are familiar with classical music theory will know that the melodic minor scale has different notes when ascending and descending, but in pop, rock, jazz, rock and metal music we use the same notes on the way up and down the scale.

Try playing the A major scale up and down, then play the A melodic minor scale up and down. After doing so you’ll be able to see how the melodic minor scale differs by only one note, the flattened third.

Once you’ve got these scales under your fingers and in your ears, try using the melodic minor scale in one of your solos or compositions, where it fits well over a minor chord or vamp.

The first example lays out probably the most common fingering for the melodic minor scale, one that starts with the middle finger on the sixth string. The whole scale stays in position, meaning the fretting hand doesn’t move left to right on the neck, and it covers just over two octaves in its length.

Ex. 1 – Starting on Middle Finger

Example two is more commonly associated with shred and metal guitarists as the fingering is often used by some of those genres most famous players. The fingering gets its name very literally, as there are three notes on each of the six strings.

Notice that this scale takes you out of position, in that it moves horizontally across the neck, as well as vertically. This is a great fingering to get players out of the typical box patterns and begin to see scales in larger chunks of the neck, not just within four or five fret areas.

Ex. 2 – Three Note Per String Fingering

The next example is both simple and tricky at the same time. It’s an in position scale, similar to example one, but it begins with the pinky finger on the sixth string. Because of this, this particular fingering is a great way to build up our pinky, as that finger is used on five of the six strings, and provides more of a workout than example one, mostly because of the stretch on the fourth string.

Ex. 3 – Starting on Pinky Finger

The last fingering we’ll look at is commonly used by players such as Kurt Rosenwinkel and Allan Holdsworth. It covers almost the entire neck of the guitar, from the fifth fret on the sixth string to the seventeenth fret on the first string, and is three octaves in length.

This fingering isn’t for the beginning player, but it’s a great way to get us out of box patterns, while at the same time forcing us to see the scale across a good portion of the neck.

As well, by featuring four notes on each string this fingering allows us to experiment with extreme legato techniques as we can now hammer-on, pull off and/or slide three times on each string set, something that we couldn’t do with any of the other fingerings.

Ex. 4 – Four Note Per String Three Octave Fingering

Now that you’ve checked out these four fingerings through the A melodic minor scale, try practicing them through the other eleven keys. You can also practice these fingerings with any scale or mode you’re working on, such as the major or harmonic minor scale.

As with any scale exercise, you should focus your attention on memorizing the fingerings, playing slowly but accurately and transitioning as smoothly as possible from note to note and string to string.

That Other Minor Scale: Melodic Minor Scale Fingerings for Guitar is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

Alright, so in this lesson I’m going to talk about chords. Chords are another very important part of music, obviously. As per usual, we’ll discuss chords using the C Major scale.

Building Triads

To build chords off each scale degree, all you really have to do is start on the first note and build chords by stacking every other note on top of each other. In the beginning we’re going to work with triads. A “triad” is a three-note chord.

Okay, starting on the note ‘C’ we’re going to stack every other note; so we’ll skip the next note ‘D’ and stack the E. Then we’ll skip the next note ‘F’ and stack the ‘G’. This gives us C, E, G:

This is known as a C triad. We’ll figure out what kind of C triad it is in a minute. First, we want to continue building triads off of each note of the scale. Starting on ‘D’ will give us D, F, and A:

Going through all the rest of the triads will look like this:

Triads galore! We now have all of the triads associated with the C Major scale. Try playing them on your guitar and hear how they sound. They are all technically the key of C Major, but each chord has a distinct sound.

Triad Types

We now need to figure out what type of chord each triad is (major, minor, augmented, diminished, etc…). To do this we have to go back to my lesson on intervals. (If you need a refresher, go and read the intervals article now.)

If we analyze the intervallic relationships between each note, we know that C to E is a major third, and E to G is a minor third. This relationship (major third followed by minor third) is known as a major triad. So, the above chord is a C Major triad.

Try the same thing with D:

The intervallic relationship of this triad is a minor third followed by a major third. This is known as a minor chord. So, the above chord is a D minor chord.

• A triad with a major third followed by a major third is known as an augmented triad.
• A triad with a minor third followed by another minor third is known as a diminished triad.

If we go back to all of the triads built from the C Major scale, we can now analyze each chord and figure out what type of triad each one is.

Roman Numerals

So within a C Major scale we have three major triads, three minor triads, and one diminished triad. We’re going to hearken back to the days of yore once again and assign each one of these triads a roman numeral. This helps us to quickly determine what chord we are talking about. Where this really comes in handy is when playing jazz. Quite often you’ll find situations where jazz songs (called “standards”) will be played in different keys. Perhaps one person will like to play On Green Dolphin Street in C, but someone else will play it in Eb. These situations – which happen all the time – make it very difficult to memorize tunes. Because of this, many people will memorize a tune according to the roman numerals associated with each chord, rather than the chord name. This way you only have to learn the song once and apply it to any key.

Staring on the first chord we’ll assign roman numerals to each scale degree/chord:

Notice that some of the roman numerals are uppercase, and some are lowercase. This is the music theory way of telling the player what type of chord it is.

• Uppercase numerals represent major chords.
• Lowercase numerals represent minor chords.
• Lowercase numerals with a small circle after it represent a diminished chord.
• Augmented chords (not shown here) will be an uppercase numeral with a small plus sign (+) after it.

Once you’re used to seeing chords represented this way it really makes things very easy. You’ll be memorizing tunes much quicker (though admittedly I’m still working on this one myself).

Seventh Chords (7th Chords)

Do you remember in my intervals article where I was discussing 9th, 11th, and 13th interval degrees? It is with the study of chords that these intervals become most apparent. What we want to do now is build extended chords from the triads and see what we come up with. Using the same skip/stack procedure that we used to build the triads, we want to add one more note to each triad. This will give us “seventh chords.” We call them seventh chords because the top note of the chord is seven scale degrees away from the bottom note (also known as the “root” of the chord). Here are the seventh chords in the C major scale:

As with triads, uppercase and lowercase numerals are used, as are the circle and plus signs to designate diminished and augmented chords, and the number 7 tells us that us that we are dealing with a seventh chord.

Looking at the above seventh chord chart you’ll see “Dom 7” and “½ dim 7.” What is that you ask? Well… “Dom 7” means “Dominant 7th chord” and “½ dim 7” means “half-diminished 7th chord.” For now, keep in mind that a Dominant 7th chord is a major triad with a minor third from the fifth of the chord to the seventh. A ½ diminished 7th chord is a diminished triad with a minor third from the fifth to the seventh. (In jazz circles the ½ diminished chord is known as a “minor 7b5” (minor seven flat five) chord.)

There is also a fully-diminished seventh chord (just called a diminished seventh chord), which are three minor third intervals. There are also many others, but let’s stick with these for now.

Extended Chords

Take each seventh chord and add another interval on top of that – these are ninth chords. For example, a C Major ninth chord is C, E, G, B, D; a D minor ninth chord is D, F, A, C, E. You can do the rest on your own.

11th chords would add a third over the 9th, and 13th chords would add a third over the 11th. 13th chords basically use every note of a particular scale, but stacked in thirds instead of played consecutively as you would when playing a scale.

Phew! That’s a lot of chord stuff to absorb, but you’re now well on your way. Once we start getting into jazz theory and advanced chord structures all of this information will start coming together and we’ll be making some wonderful music.

Enjoy!

Music Theory Lesson: Chord Structures is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

As always, we’re going to start working from the C Major scale. To once again refresh your memory:

C D E F G A B

What we’re going to do is build different scales off of each scale degree. It doesn’t get much easier than this:

C D E F G A B C

D E F G A B C D

E F G A B C D E

F G A B C D E F

G A B C D E F G

A B C D E F G A

B C D E F G A B

Naming the Modes

Play through each of them a little bit to get an idea of what they sound like. The idea here is that each mode has its own tonal center, despite the fact that they are technically all the C Major scale. Make sense?

Now, we have to give names to these things. Luckily, they already have names; we just have to know what they are. Well, back in the day the music dudes decided to give each mode Greek names. They are:

C Major scale starting on C = Ionian mode
C Major scale starting on D = Dorian mode
C Major scale starting on E = Phrygian mode
C Major scale starting on F = Lydian mode
C Major scale starting on G = Mixolydian mode
C Major scale starting on A = Aeolian mode
C Major scale starting on B = Locrian mode

Once again, these names are just something you’re going to have to commit to memory. Collectively, these seven modes are known as the “church modes.” Bear in mind that these mode names aren’t specific to the C Major Scale. Any mode based on the second scale degree of a major scale will be the Dorian mode of that scale. So, for example, Ab Dorian is based on the Gb Major Scale.

Alternate Method of Determining The Modes

Okay, so we have the names of the modes. Pretty cool, but the problem is that we’re still just operating in the key of C Major. That’s not a lot of fun. Obviously, you’re going to want apply this methodology (finding the modes) to all of the keys, but that’s also pretty boring in and of itself. Where things get fun is when you take the intervallic relationships within each mode and figure out what makes them tick.

I’ve already discussed the intervals of the Major Scale (from now on in this article referring to as the Ionian mode). We don’t need to go through this again. So let’s start with the Dorian mode and see how they relate to the intervals of the Ionian mode.

• Think of the Dorian mode as an Ionian mode with a flat 3rd and 7th.
• Think of the Phrygian mode as an Ionian mode with a flat 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 7th.
• Think of the Lydian mode as an Ionian mode with a sharp 4th.
• Think of the Mixolydian mode as an Ionian mode with a flat 7th.
• Think of the Aeolian mode as an Ionian mode with a flat 3rd, 6th, and 7th. (The Aeolian mode is also known as “natural minor scale” by the way…)
• Think of the Locrian mode as an Ionian mode with a flat 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th.

If you relate every mode to the Ionian mode, you start to see much greater differences than just having everything in the key of C Major. You can also simplify further by associating one mode to the intervals of another. For example, remembering Phrygian mode as an Ionian mode with a flat 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 7th can be quite a lot to remember. However, intervalically-speaking, the Phrygian mode is the same as an Aeolian mode with a flat 2nd. Since the Aeolian mode already has the 3rd, 6th, and 7th scale degrees lowered in relation to the Ionian mode, just remember to further add a lowered 2nd and you have Phrygian mode. Similarly, the Locrian mode can be thought of as an Ionian mode with everything flatted except the root and 4th. Basically, whatever method you use to remember the associations is perfectly fine.

Experimenting With the Modes

Here is where things start to get fun. Although you should absolutely be able to relate each mode to its key signature/tonal center, applying these modes to your playing as they relate to smaller groups of chords within a composition opens up a whole world of sonic possibilities. For example:

When playing over a C Major chord, basic theory would dictate that you play the C Ionian mode (or any of the church modes associated with it). In many ways this sounds pretty cool. However, the problem lies with the ‘F’ note. The C Major chord has the note ‘E’ in it. The note ‘F,’ which is part of the C Ionian mode, is one half step away from the note ‘E’. a lot of the time this doesn’t sound that great, especially when you end up hanging on the ‘F’ note (accidentally or otherwise). Especially in jazz improvisation circles you’re often taught not to hang on the ‘F’ against the ‘E’ of the C Major chord. Of course you can break the rules, but we’re not quite there yet.

So what do we do? We certainly don’t want to take out one of the notes we can use; that would suck. So how about this: take a look back at the church mode explanations at the beginning of the post. Notice that the Lydian mode is the same as the Ionian mode with a raised 4th degree. Some quick calculations tell me that in the key of C Major the 4th is F. How convenient for us! If we raised the 4th (F) ½ step to F#, we no longer seem to have the problem of playing the ‘F’ over the ‘E’ of the C Major chord. Try it; play a C Major chord and then run over a C Lydian mode (C D E F# G A B C) to hear how it sounds. At least to me it sounds awesome.

With this in mind there are two approaches we can now use to play over a C Major chord. The first is that when we approach a Major chord we can substitute the Lydian mode for the Ionian mode. This is great, but doesn’t always work, so use it with caution. The second approach is that if you look at the C Lydian mode (C D E F# G A B C) and go back to my article on key signatures, hopefully you’ll recognize that C Lydian is exactly the same as the key of G Major. Pretty cool, eh? We now know that you can play any of the modes of G Major over a C Major chord.

Woo hoo! We’re making progress now.

Try this for a while. I will give you one word of caution, however; you don’t really want to play Lydian mode over EVERY SINGLE major chord you come across. In theory (pun intended) this is okay, but once we get into chords and chord theory you’ll understand why you don’t always want to play the Lydian mode over every major chord. For now just take my word for it.

Cool, so we can play over major chords now. What about minor chords? Well… let’s go back to our church modes chart and see which mode is most closely related to a natural minor scale. Any ideas?

Yeah, I’m sure you figured it out. The Aeolian mode (also known as the “natural minor” scale) would work perfectly. Try it. Play an A minor chord and then play the A Aeolian mode over it. Hear how it sounds. Do you like it? It’s pretty cool, but in my opinion it’s pretty boring after a while. *sigh* So let’s go back to the church mode chart and find the NEXT closest mode for a minor chord.

Have you found it yet? I’ll give you a hint… the Dorian Mode! (Okay, not really a hint, I gave it away. That’s how I roll!)

The Dorian Mode in ‘A’ would be A B C D E F# G A. Same as the G Major scale, and technically would also work over a C Major chord.

But we’re talking about the A minor chord here (A, C, E). The same rule applies with playing the ‘F’ against the ‘E’, though it’s less annoying when played over an A minor chord for some reason. Try playing the A Dorian mode over an A minor chord and hear how it sounds. It sounds good to me.

There are a ton of other possibilities, but I think it would be best to stop here – at least until we’ve covered chords, which will vastly open up the possibilities of what you can play. But for now I’ll leave you with this information. Try the Lydian and Dorian modes especially and see how you like it. At first they may sound “out,” but before too long you’ll really start to dig those hip new sounds.

Enjoy!

Music Theory Lesson: Scales and Modes Primer is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

There are two basic types of intervals – minor and major.

For the sake of simplicity were going to work with the note C as the starting note. The note C looks like this:

The first interval is the minor 2nd. To figure out what note this is we first want to figure out what a 2nd from C is. Basically, all you have to do is count up from the C note, using C as 1. So, if C is 1, then D must be 2 (the 2nd), right?

Well done. But we still have to determine the minor or major part of the interval. This is where key signatures come in. If you remember my key signatures article (shame on you if you don’t), the list of pitches in Western Music is:

C – C#/Db – D – D#/Eb – E – F – F#/Gb – G – G#/Ab – A – A#/Bb – B/Cb

For now, think of a minor interval as working with half steps, and think of major as working with whole steps. It’s not quite that simple in the grand scheme of things, but in dealing with intervals of a 2nd the concept will do.

If we are trying to determine a minor second, you want to go up one half step from the starting note (C in this case), which brings you to C#/Db. A minor second from C is C#/Db. (Remember that C# and Db are enharmonically the same.) They are notated this way:

Since we moved up one half step to get the minor second, to get the major second we want to move up another half step. You can also think of it as moving up one whole step from the original note. This gives us the note D:

Often you will hear someone say “D natural.” It’s the same note; saying “natural” after the note name implies that the tone is neither sharp nor flat, but just the plain old generic note.

If we continue to the minor third, we move up another half step from D which gives us D#/Eb:

The Major third would be E (natural).

Is it making sense to you so far? I’m going to assume the answer is yes, which is great. You should go through the rest of the intervals up to the octave yourself. When you think you have all of the intervals figured out in the key of C Major, try to do the rest with ALL of the major keys.

Here is something interesting to point out. Take the minor third example (C to Eb), reverse the order of notes (Eb to C), and move the C note up an octave. It looks like this:

If you had done your assignment and finished the rest of the intervals on your own you’ll notice that this interval is a major sixth. The point behind this exercise is to understand the relationship between intervals. When you reverse the order of notes and displace the octave, a minor interval automatically becomes a major interval. Also, the intervals are correlative. Meaning:

2nd correlates to 7th
3rd correlates to 6th
4th correlates to 5th
5th correlates to 4th
6th correlates to the 3rd
7th correlates to the 2nd

• A minor third when inverted properly becomes a major 6th (C to Eb is minor third; Eb to C is a major sixth).
• A major second (when inverted properly) becomes a minor 7th (C to D is a major second; D to C is a minor seventh).

Those Damn Wrenches!

There are three more small wrenches to throw into the mix. I figured I would save them for last, just in case you thought you were actually getting a handle on intervals and how they work. These wrenches are three other types of intervals in addition to major and minor. These new interval types are:

Perfect intervals
Augmented intervals
Diminished intervals

The perfect intervals are easy. Perfect intervals really only refer to 4ths and 5ths, when the notes are in accordance with the key signature. So in the key of C, the interval from C to F is known as a perfect 4th. The interval from C to G is known as a perfect 5th. In Ab, a perfect 4th would be Db, and in E a perfect 5th would be B.

If you were raise the F in the first example to F# this interval (C to F#) would be considered an augmented 4th. In the jazz world you could call it a sharp 4 or a raised 4th. It’s also commonly referred to as a tritone in all forms of music. (Tritone implies a flatted fifth interval, which is enharmonically the same as a raised fourth. The tritone interval cuts the major scale precisely in half).

A diminished fifth would technically be the same as the augmented fourth, so from C the diminished fifth would be Gb.

(I’m sorry that I don’t have a concrete way of explaining this better than I have.)

In my opinion, augmented and diminished is only used when describing intervals of the fourth and fifth.

Here’s a quick recap list of intervals in the key of C:

C to Db = minor second
C to D = major second
C to Eb = minor third
C to E = major third
C to F = perfect fourth
C to F# = augmented fourth (raised 4th, sharp 4)
C to Gb = diminished fifth (flat 5th – enharmonically the same as C to F#)
C to G = perfect fifth
C to Ab = minor sixth
C to A = major sixth
C to Bb = minor seventh
C to B = major seventh

Going Beyond the Octave

Sounds like a bad Dr. Who episode or something. Anyway, music obviously doesn’t stop at the octave; otherwise music would be very boring. If you go one whole step higher than the octave C, you have the note D again. This note is nine steps higher from the original (root) note, so we call this interval a 9th.

• The 9th is the interval of a second displaced an octave higher.
• An 11th is the interval of a fourth displaced an octave higher.
• A 13th is the interval of a sixth displaced an octave higher.

There really are no 15th, 17th, or 19th intervals to speak of. The reason for this is if you were to spell out all of the notes in a scale as a chord (playing every other note in order rather than every note in succession) all of the notes would be used up by the time you got to the 13th (the 6th of the scale). A 15th would be two octaves plus a third higher from the root, so we just say E, two octaves higher and leave the math to the guys at MIT and Intel.

9th, 11th, and 13th intervals become way more exciting – and useful – when the topic of chords comes up, and I’ll be hipping y’all to that very soon, so stay tuned!

Music Theory Lesson: Intervals is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.