Theory Of Guitar

[Cecelia Seiner]

Musictheory is a super powerful tool for guitar players. It helps you navigate the fretboard, makes it easier to communicate with other musicians and deepens your understanding of music. In short: music theory can make you into a better guitarist and musician.

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Table of Contents IntroductionWhen Should You Learn Music Theory?Guitar theory vs. Music TheoryStep 1The Basic Language of Music TheoryStep 2IntervalsStep 3Chord ConstructionStep 4ScalesStep 5Roman NumeralsConclusionNext Steps

INDEXIntroduction

Compare it with a painter learning the names to colours. When you know about red and yellow, you can understand that orange is actually a mix of those two colours. (Sidenote: click here for a more detailed explanation of what music theory is.)

As we saw earlier, music theory gives names to a whole bunch of things, like chords, scales and rhythms. Now the thing is, it's easier to remember what something's called once more of your senses have been exposed to it. After seeing, smelling, feeling and tasting a dish of food, it's easier to remember its name, than after reading a dictionary definition of it, right?

Now, as a guitar player you should always strive to understand how music theory applies to the fretboard. It ensures you truly understand how the theory works in practice, how it actually sounds, and how you can use it yourself. And being able to use the theory yourself is crucial. As we saw in the last section, music theory is nothing more than a tool that can help us make better music. If it remains something that you read in a book once and vaguely remember, music theory won't help you!

There's a second reason why applying theory to the fretboard straight away is a good idea. I've always found the fretboard an excellent 'cheat sheet' that made theory easier to remember. It functions like a visual aid that makes it easier to memorize things like how certain scales or chords are constructed.

You can play a perfect fifth like this anywhere on the fretboard! There's just one important exception you need to keep track of. When you go up one string from the G to the B string, this isn't the same as going up five frets, but only four frets! So to play a perfect fifth on the G string, would look like this:

Because guitar theory should be practical, we'll check out another quiz from Music Theory from Scratch featuring this Lizz Wright tune. First, take a listen to the guitar. Then use the buttons below the TAB to indicate what 'ingredient' each of the notes is in the chord.

As you see, we can give each of those chords it's own Roman numeral. That tells us what role that chord plays in the harmony of the song. For example, the D chord has Roman numeral IV, which basically tells us 'this is the fourth chord we can create using the scale this song is based on'.

Plus, perhaps most importantly, following the music you love makes your musical journey fun, rewarding and meaningful. I hope you found this roadmap for music and guitar theory useful! If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message.

Some years ago I made a concerted effort to bring up this weaker area of my playing. I have since put a lot of time and effort into building my knowledge of guitar chords and understanding guitar chord theory.

And thankfully, doing so has had a profound effect on my guitar playing. I now feel much more comfortable and confident playing a range of guitar chords all over the fretboard. But one additional and significant benefit, is that my lead guitar playing has also improved.

It will help you to create more sophisticated solos. It will also allow you to play alongside the track you are accompanying, rather than on top of it. And this will make your solos sound more melodic and effective.

Finally, if you have any ambitions for writing your own music, I would strongly recommend learning the basics of guitar chord theory. It will help you to construct interesting and impactful chord progressions that will represent the type of music you are trying to create.

As such, here I will be covering the basics. This will give you the fundamentals of guitar chord theory you need to become more comfortable with chords and how they are constructed. Over time you can build on this to take your guitar chord theory knowledge to the next level.

As such, the information outlined here is largely theoretical, rather than practical. Yet once you understand this information, it will make learning different chords and using them in your playing much easier.

So whether you are looking to improve your rhythm guitar skills, write your own music, or develop as a musician more generally, I hope you find the information included here useful. Here are the basics of guitar chord theory:

If we take the example above, you can see that C is the first note of the scale, and D is the second. As a result, E is then the third note that you encounter. Similarly, when you are trying to find the next note a third up from E, you count in the same way.

If you find the above confusing, then you can also think about skipping out or jumping over alternative notes in the scale. In other words, you play the note of C, miss D, play E, miss F, play G, and so on.

And this is because of intervals. As noted above, a triad is formed by taking 3 notes, all of which are a third apart. Yet this triad can sound totally different, depending on the intervals between the notes.

As you can see, there are 2 frets separating many of the notes in the scale, and only 1 fret separating others. This is very important when you begin to create triads from different notes of the scale.

For even though the notes in any given triad might be a third apart, the actual intervals between the notes change, depending on the note on which you start. We can see this by comparing a triad starting on the note of C, with one starting on the note of D:

In this first diagram the starting note (or root note) of the triad is C, shown above in the light blue colour. As you can see, there are 4 frets separating the notes of C and E. There are 3 frets separating the notes of E and G. And between the notes of C and G, there are 7 frets.

Between D and F, there are only 3 frets (or 1 and a half tones). Conversely, between the notes of F and A, there are 4 frets (or 2 tones). And so just like the triad built on C, the distance between D (the root note) and the A is 7 frets, or 3 and a half tones.

And when you do so, you will hopefully be able to hear the differences in the way they sound. The major triad will have an upbeat and happy sound. Conversely, the minor triad will have a more sad and melancholic sound.

The different sounds between these two triads results from the different intervals between the notes which appear in the triads. This is an important concept when it comes to guitar chord theory and one which is covered in more depth below.

As noted above, when you form a triad starting on the note of C (in the key of C major), you form a C major triad. When you do the same but you start on the note of D, you form a D minor triad.

The first note in the chord is always referred to as the root note. And it is this note which determines the name of the chord. So the root note for a C chord is C. The root note for the chord of D is D, and so on.

The perfect fifth is always 7 frets, or 3 and a half tones higher than the root note. Perfect intervals are associated with musical consonance and resolution. The presence of this perfect interval gives the chord a stable and harmonious sound. The chord is devoid of dissonance or tension.

However, like the major triad shown above, this minor triad also contains a perfect fifth. So although it does have a more downbeat sound, like the major triad, it also sounds stable and resolved. It does not have a dissonant or tense sound.

The next step to better understanding guitar chord theory is to apply this idea to all of the notes in the major scale. This will help you to appreciate the relationship between the notes in the scale and how they stack together to form different triads.

The only change you need to make, is to go back to the notes at the beginning of the scale to create the triads, once you reach the 7th note of the scale. In the case of F for example, the notes in the triad are F, A and C. In the case of G they are G, B and D.

If you do go through this process, then hopefully you will discover two things. The first of these is that when you harmonise the major scale, you end up producing a combination of both major and minor triads.

The above diagram simply shows the 3 notes that are present in the triad. And given that the formation of this triad is no different to any of the others in the scale, you might be wondering why it is diminished, rather than simply major or minor.

The root and minor third are exactly the same as the other triads listed above. There are 3 frets between the root note of the triad and the minor third. The key difference is that this diminished triad does not have a perfect fifth. There are not 7 frets between the B (root note) and the F. There are in fact just 6 frets.

At this stage, you might understandably be wondering how you can use this information practically. For whilst it is useful to understand what triads are and how they are formed, there is some more information we need to cover before we can use them in a practical context.

Up to this point, I have spoken about triads in their purest terms. When discussing guitar chord theory, this makes sense. But it can make it difficult to link some of these ideas and apply them to your fretboard.

To help you better understand what a triad is, and also how it functions in a practical context, I think it is important to first clearly define what a triad is in relation to a chord. We can then look at how to use it in a practical context.

As mentioned above, a triad is a chord made of 3 notes. And each note within the triad is a third apart. In short, this means that a triad is type of chord. All triads are chords. But not all chords are triads.

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