Learn Music Theory for Guitar Beginners
We all love guitar solos, but not everyone enjoys spending time figuring out the notes that make them up. Fortunately, there’s a pattern to most of them. Solos are built upon scales that help us break down even the most complicated riffs into simpler components. This article will guide you through the fundamentals of music theory tailored for guitar, helping you understand scales, intervals, and how they relate to the fretboard.
After reading this article you’ll be able to:
- Understand what intervals are, and their role in building scales
- How to identify the C major and A minor scales on the fretboard
- Use “box patterns” to easily play major and minor scales in any key
What is Music Theory?
Generally speaking, music theory is the study of music, its elements, and its workings. It’s the way you analyze, classify, and compose music and the elements of music. In the traditional sense, music theory also relates to the way that music is notated, the way music is performed, and the interrelationship between the two. You could say that music theory is the mechanics of music both written and played.
What is Guitar Theory?
While music theory pertains to music in general, guitar theory pertains to the guitar specifically. Typically, this includes only those aspects of music that enable guitarists to find their way around the fretboard, play music, and compose.
You won’t get far on guitar without learning chord shapes, scale patterns, chord progressions, note positions, and intervals. You won’t accomplish much if you don’t understand keys, modes, harmony, chord relationships, and scale applications. Without some understanding of rhythm and without developing technique your playing will never take shape.
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Many players who don’t understand the inter-workings of music are limited in their ability to apply what they know. For example, a student might learn a new scale pattern from a scale book or a new chord chart but have no idea where it fits into songs. Without knowledge of how something functions it’s pretty much useless.
So, what does guitar theory do? Guitar theory will explain what musical elements are, what they do, and how they fit together. For example, a new chord shape might be seen as an extension of a common barre chord. Wherever this common barre chord is played the new shape can be substituted for a new sound. A scale pattern might fit together with a specific chord progression. Each time this progression is used the scale tones can add melody and harmony.
In music, knowing how the pieces fit together makes all the difference. The benefits of guitar theory include equipping yourself to play songs, compose your own music, and improvise.
Guitar Scale Theory
In music, a scale is a series of notes played in ascending and descending fashion. Scales are used to play melodies, riffs, solos, and bass lines. Scale notes make patterns on the fretboard, which guitarists finger and pick position to position. Successfully using scales requires more than simply memorizing their patterns, and this is where music theory, or in this case, scale theory, comes into play. Have you ever seen a guitarist learn the basic chord changes to a piece of music and then instantly begin improvising using scales? A skilled guitarist knows how scales relate to chords and can combine the two on-the-fly. Different types of scales produce different types of sounds from major to minor, from pop to blues. A versatile guitarist understands how scale modes work and knows what’s appropriate in any situation.
Pentatonic scale pattern one is perhaps the most widely known and used scale pattern on guitar. It can produce a major, minor, or blues sound depending on how it’s applied. Try playing through these notes one at a time from lowest pitched note to highest pitched note, then reverse your direction.
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Guitar Chord Theory
In music, a chord is a group of notes that ring together in harmony. One of the first things that beginning guitarists learn is how to finger a basic chord shape and strum across a group of strings. Chords are usually at the base of every song and help to establish the tonality of a piece of music. Chord theory is the study of how chords are built and how different chords relate to one another. This includes knowing basic chord structure, the difference between major and minor, the use of added chord tones and extensions, and the concept of voice leading. Guitarists make use of fragmented chord shapes, chord inversions, and chord voicings, and it all stems from their knowledge of chord construction. While simply memorizing chord fingerings is a suitable way to initially get started with playing guitar, getting to know chord theory is how you develop a working knowledge of music and become proficient as a player. One of the best ways to learn how chords are formed on the fretboard is to study the guitar-specific CAGED system. Chord theory also involves the study of chord progressions, which are the ways chords are put together to form a series of chord changes. As chords change they determine the music’s movement and a song’s structure. Composing a chord progression requires you to understand relationships between chords and concepts involving the way chords lead to and pass from one another. How is it that some guitar players seem to know what’s coming next in a song even when it’s their first time through it? Because chord progressions typically follow predictable patterns with their movements based on familiar scale structures and simple number systems.
Intervals: The Building Blocks of Scales
An interval is the distance between two notes. There are two types of intervals: whole steps (also called a “tone”), and half steps (or a “semitone”). To put it in guitar terms, a half step is equivalent to a one-fret movement. A whole step, on the other hand, is akin to moving up (or down) the fretboard by two frets. And when you play a string of notes in certain intervals, you get a scale. Like this one:
These are the notes of the C major scale, with the intervals between them denoted with either a “W” (whole step) or an “H” (half step). Notice that the intervals between E and F, and B and C, are both half steps, while all other notes are whole steps apart from one another.
Intervals on the Fretboard
Here’s how that diagram of intervals looks on the E string of the fretboard.
In this diagram, the notes E, F, G, A, B and C have been highlighted. Since the F is a half step up from the E, the two notes are one fret apart-in this case the open E string and the first fret. And since the G is a whole step up from the F, they’re two frets apart, with the G on the third fret.
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What about the A, B and C? As the A note falls on the fifth fret of the E string, the B has to be one step (or two frets) up, hence the seventh fret. The C, on the other hand, is only a half step (or one fret) from the B: the eighth fret.
So where would you find the D note? Knowing that the interval between a C and D is one step, you’ll need to move up two frets from the C to arrive at the D, on the tenth fret.
Introducing the C Major Scale
What happens if you play all seven notes of the first diagram in that exact sequence? You’d end up with the C major scale. That’s a seven-note scale comprising only natural notes, meaning no sharps and flats.
The C major scale is highly memorable, and can be hummed even by the terminally tone-deaf. And there’s a good reason for this: It boasts a distinctively ‘happy’ vibe that sets it apart from other scales. Go ahead and whistle the melody to “Do-Re-Mi”-that’s the C major scale.
The diagram below depicts one of the many ways the scale is arranged on the fretboard.
This particular C major scale shape can be broken down into two equal parts: Both quartets of notes, on the A and D strings, are spaced out according to a “whole-whole-half step” pattern.
This means that you start with the C, then go up a whole step to the D, then another whole step to the E, before finishing with a half step to the F. Broken down, you’d have gone five frets up the board. And this “whole-whole-half step” pattern repeats itself from the G note on the next, thinner string.
The A Minor Scale
Minor scales are more melancholic, yet they share a few characteristics with their upbeat major cousins. For example, both scales comprise seven notes. And if you look at their intervals, you’ll find five whole steps and two half steps, just like in a major scale. What differs, however, is the sequence of the whole and half steps.
For example, here’s an A minor scale and the intervals between the notes.
Yes, you’ll notice that the notes are exactly the same as those in the C major scale. But the A minor is considered a different scale because its sequence of intervals doesn’t tally with that of the C major.
And here’s one way the A minor scale can be arranged on the fretboard.
Box Shapes to Remember
But there’s an easier way to play those major and minor scales, and they’re called “box shapes.” With these, you won’t have to move your entire hand up and down the fretboard when you’re running scales. Here’s the box shape for the C major.
Compared to the earlier diagram, this shape is spread across three strings. Which means you only need to move your fingers-and not your entire arm-to play it.
And here’s the box shape for the A minor:
The best part about these boxes is that you can shift them around to yield different major or minor scales. For instance, moving the C major scale box shape up a whole step, to the D, gives you the D major scale. Try taking the C major scale box shape to the G note on the E string, starting on the third fret.
Now that the pattern begins on a G, you’ll get a G major scale. Notice that although the pattern remains the same, the notes have changed. And there’s a new type of note in the F sharp, or F#.
Sharps and Flats
When most people think of music theory, they imagine something dry and boring. Struggling to read the black dots on paper, learning how to draw a treble clef, wondering what a Neapolitan Sixth is and what on earth you’re meant to do with it. Eventually, most people give up. It’s more fun to grab your instrument and make some noise. That’s why you started learning music, anyway. The real problem isn’t the music theory. The problem is that most people are forced to learn the wrong music theory. You’re a contemporary musician. You play in a band. Learning the C clef is probably not going to help you achieve your musical goals.
It’s All in Your Head
I’ve always been way too interested in music theory. I was one of those students who wouldn’t accept a new musical concept or idea unless I knew exactly how it worked. This meant I got really good at music theory, and when I ended up studying music at university, I found the theory papers easy. I’d do a class test in 20 minutes knowing I’d aced it, and leave my classmates for another hour, drawing piano keyboards and charts on their test paper, struggling to finish in time. The advantage I had was that I could do it all in my head. I didn’t have to work out the answers to the questions by using a chart or drawing a piano keyboard on the page. I’d been doing music for over 10 years, and during that time I’d become familiar with the language to the point where I didn’t have to think about it. Aside from passing tests at uni, the other advantage of knowing music theory this thoroughly is that you can actually begin to use it in your playing. When you’re performing on your instrument, you don’t have any time to think through the theory of what you’re playing. If you want to mix up the chords, launch into a solo, or play some sweet substitutions that you haven’t prepared earlier, you need to know what’s going on from a theoretical perspective at any point during the song.
Context is Key
For the last two years, I’ve tutored an introductory theory paper at the University of Otago. This is a paper students take when they want to do a music degree but haven’t had enough music theory training to cope with the requirements of the first-year theory papers. Right at the beginning of the semester, I remember noticing that the students were pretty disinterested, and most of them still didn’t understand why doing music theory was actually going to help them in their career as a musician. I decided to spend an entire lesson simply putting everything in context. I explained how having a thorough knowledge of keys, chords and intervals not only helps you understand music and learn songs faster, but it also allows you to transpose a song instantly in your head. It allows you to create altered chords that sound awesome by playing an entirely different chord to what the rest of the band is playing. It allows you to write better music, and analyse the key of a song instantly because you look at a seemingly random collection of notes and can see how they relate to each other. When you can do this, you find that you have so much more musical freedom, both in your playing and your songwriting. It allows you to understand what you hear and gives you a vocabulary for explaining it. This is applicable music theory. This is essential knowledge for any musician. Once I’d finished putting everything in context, the class was pretty eager to start learning some music theory. I told them about how I had breezed through the papers at uni and gave them a simple exercise that would allow them to quickly get to the same level of fluency with their music theory that took me 10 years to develop.
Applicable Music Theory
There are three essential elements of what I consider applicable music theory, and they are all related.
- Memorize all key signatures
- Understand how chords are constructed and where they fit in a key
- Be able to instantly name any interval from any root note
Memorize All Key Signatures
We build a major scale by taking the tone/semitone structure of a major scale (TTSTTTS) and playing if from a root note. The particular combination of accidentals (sharps or flats) we get when we play this structure from a particular root note is what is called a key signature. The circle of fifths starts at the top with C major and moves around the interval of a fifth each step clockwise, hence its name. A step clockwise around the circle from C adds a sharp, and a step anti-clockwise around the circle from C adds a flat. We add sharps and flats in a particular order. Memorizing the order of sharps and flats means you only need to remember the number of sharps or flats are in each key. This saves you having to try to remember a sequence of eight different notes every time you want to learn a new scale! The order for adding flats is the same as the order for adding sharps, only in reverse. Create a sentence using the letters to help you remember the order. A common one is:
Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle
for the order of sharps, and:
Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles’ Father
for the flats.
Once you have memorised the order of sharps and flats, you need to learn the number of sharps or flats in each key. You want to learn these randomly, not in a sequence. Aim to look over the chart for 30 seconds a day, and start by naming two or three keys and saying how many sharps or flats they have: C, no sharps. D, two sharps. G, one sharp. The next day, add another key and repeat the process. Remember, there’s no rush. The goal is that you know them well, so the key is consistency. If you do this for 30 seconds every day, adding a new key each time, it should take you two weeks to memorize them all. But do it at your own pace. If it takes you a month, that’s no problem.
Another helpful tool I’ve found in learning the number of sharps in a key signature is to look at the number of lines it takes to draw the letter of the key. I pretend you use five lines to draw a B. For the key of F#, I pretend the sharp symbol is a small x2, so it takes three lines to draw it x2 (six lines for six sharps).
Understand How Chords Are Constructed and Where They Fit in a Key
A standard triad or seventh chord is created by stacking thirds from a root note. The particular quality of each of these stacked thirds defines whether the chord has a major, minor or dominant tonality.
We can stack thirds by counting through the C major scale to form a C major chord:
C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
We end up using the 1st, 3rd and 5th scale degrees of the C major scale, so we can say that a major chord has the formula 1 3 5.
The formulas for all the other chords you will come across in this exercise are written below:
- Major 1 3 5
- Minor 1 b3 5
- Diminished 1 b3 b5
- Major 7 1 3 5 7
- Minor 7 1 b3 5 b7
- Dominant 7 1 3 5 b7
- Minor 7b5 1 b3 b5 b7
These formulas all relate back to the major scale of the root note of the chord. See this example using an A minor chord, which has the notes A C E. Each scale degree of the major scale has a particular chord quality associated with it.
Be Able to Instantly Name Any Interval from Any Root Note
Every scale must have one of each letter of the musical alphabet represented somehow (A B C D E F G). These letters can be either be sharp, flat, or natural (A#, Ab, or A), as determined by the key signature of the scale.
If you know the key signatures for each scale off by heart, you don’t have to try to memorize if a fifth away from B is an F or an F#. You just know that the distance from any kind of B to any kind of F is some kind of fifth. Then you use your knowledge of key signatures to realise that the key of B has an F#, therefore the distance of a fifth from B is F#.
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