Beginner Guitar Theory

In music, no matter what instrument you play there are only 12 notes to choose from, these notes are given names from the first 7 letters of the alphabet: A through to G (known as natural notes).
Now you maybe asking..there are only seven letters but you say there are 12 notes. Well this is true and i shall explain why further along.

The six strings on the guitar running from thickest to thinnest are played openly (without fingers on the fretboard) are given a name from these letters, and they are also given number to tell you which string you should pluck.

The name of the note played and the number of the string running from thickest to thinnest are illustrated below:

E - 6th string (thickest)
A - 5th string
D - 4th string
G - 3rd string
B - 2nd string
E - 1st string (thinnest)

As you can see the the thinnest string is called the 1st string, and the numbers go up as you increase in thickness. You must memorize this as this is very important and you will come across it often.

Now that we have the open strings out of the way, we shall talk about tones and semitones which are a fundamental part of playing any instrument.

If the 6th string (the thickest) is an E note, what do you think the note will be called if you placed a finger on the first fret on that string? You guessed it... an F.
That is a semitone... when we talk about semitones and tones, we are talking about the distance between one note and the next.
if you placed a finger on the 3rd fret of the 6th string, you will get the note G.. this is a tone.

The difference between a tone and a semitone is fret distance. A semitone, is ONE fret difference between a note, and a tone is TWO frets apart.

It does not matter what direction you go in, if you started at F and go down one semitone, you will arrive at E. If you start at G and move down one tone you will arrive at F. The point is, and what you should remember is that:

A tone = 2 frets distance, in any direction.
A semitone = 1 Fret distance in any direction.

Octaves
What is an octave? without them music would be very boring. an octave is the same note at a higher pitch. If you had a scale (more on that in a tick) you could repeat the scale over and over again using the same notes.
For example. The C major scale consists of the notes

C D E F G A B C which is a one octave scale...if you simply repeat the notes, you will have a two octace scale, example:

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

there are three C notes here, which means the difference between the first C and the last C is Two octaves.

For a more audible idea, try this.. grab your guitar and play a note on the third fret on the 6th string... listen to it. Now try playing a note on the fifth fret on the 4th string... You will notice that it sounds the same except higher in pitch. In this case the octave is G.

The chromatic scale

Another important concept is the Chromatic scale. Firstly what is a scale? A scale is a series of notes played one after the other through certain tones and semitones. There are many MANY scales you can learn.. but there is trick to that as well ;)

A chromatic scale moves up through one semitone at a time, it uses sharps and flats. A sharp note is depicted by a # symbol and a flat note is depicted by a b symbol. Sharps and flats are known as accidentals. When you sharpen a note you raise it by one semitone, if you flatten a note you lower it by one semitone.

Every note has an accidental associated with it aside from a couple of exceptions.
The notes B and E cannot be sharpened to an accidental note, and the notes C and F cannot be flattened to an accidental.

Confused? so am i..but i will carry on anyway... keep reading, it will all make sense soon.

Here is an example of the ascending A chromatic scale

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

And a descending A chromatic scale

A Ab G Gb F E Eb D Db C B Bb A

as you can see, if you are moving up in increments of semitones you get a chromatic scale, A to A# is a semitone, A# to B is a semitone B to C is a semitone etc...

going the other way (descending) Ab to A is semitone, G to Ab is a semitone, and on it goes.

To summarize:

-You cant have an accidental note sharpened for B and E, nor can you have a flattened note for C and F.
- Sharpening a note moves it up a semitone.
-Flattening a note moves it down a semitone.

What this means is that every note can really have two names depending on the direction you are traveling.
This is called enharmonic notes. Lets try a few examples.

A# = Bb
C# = Db
D# = Eb
F# = Gb
G# = Ab

7 natural note (a through g) + 5 enharmonic notes = 12 notes.

Take a look at the diagram below, to help you understand this concept.

Now we come once again to scales.
The major scale is the mother of all scales. You will need to learn this, or at the very least how to construct them to further your musical goals.
Everything you learn from this point onwards will probably almost fall back to the major scale itself. It is used by many as a starting point for learning many different concepts of music theory.

A Major scale is what is known as a diatonic scale. This means the scale has 7 notes, 8 if you include the octave.

A major scale is produce by the following formula:

Tone, Tone, Semitone, Tone, Tone, Tone, Semitone.

Lets take a C Chromatic ascending scale and a c major scale and compare them both, I have chosen C because C is the only scale that does not use any accidental notes.

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

C Major
C D E F G A B C

Counting up from c using the above formula of tones and semitones you will get the C major scale, lets break it down.

C to D (tone) D to E (tone) E to F (semitone) F to G (tone) G to A (tone) A to B (tone) B to C (semitone)

using this formula you can construct any major scale from any note...
lets try another more example. this time we will will try the key of A

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

A major scale.
A B C# D E F# G# A

A to B (tone) B to C# (tone) C# to D (semitone) D to E (tone) E to F# (tone) F# to G # (tone) G# to A (semitone)

Try working out the following major scales and try to follow the formula.
Major scale of D
major scale of G

it may help to write out the CHROMATIC scale first if you have difficulty.

Below is a diagram of a C major scale fingering pattern. Play one finger for each note. This pattern is MOVEABLE. which means that you can play this exact same pattern anywhere on the fretboard, and you will play in different keys.
For example, playing on the 8th fret will play c major. playing the pattern on the 3rd fret will play the G major scale, on the 4th the G# (or the Ab) major scale..