Beboy's Easy Theory Week 1 - discussions and extra resources

[beboy]

Link to: Easy Theory - Main Page

Tones, the Major Scale and Sharps & Flats

Please use this thread for anything related to Week 1 of Easy Theory. In Week 1 we covered Tones, the Major Scale and Sharps & Flats.

If you have any questions, or anything you want to add or discuss, or links, etc, please post here.


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Here are some additional resources to help round out the lessons in Week 1:

NOTE: You must Login to the TrueFire website to access the free lessons below.
If you don’t have an account you can create one for free.

Let’s start with a video of Stu Hamm playing Bass. Stu will teach us the names of the notes on each string. Bass is tuned just like guitar. The 4 strings on a bass are tuned (low to high) E-A-D-G. The 4 lowest strings on guitar are an Octave higher but tuned to the same notes E-A-D-G. This means it doesn’t matter that Stu is playing bass. They notes still have the same name on guitar.
Stu Hamm - Bass Basics - Chromatic Scales and Accidentals

These Guitar Player magazine articles teach us how the Major Scale is laid out on the fretboard. We can listen to audio of the lesson and download the PDF and PowerTab (when available) but we will need to login to the website. Logging in will make these lessons free. Creating an account is free.
Steve Morse – Major Breakthroughs

Andy Ellis – Six Essential Major Scale Forms

Here is a video about the Major Scale by Brad Carlton
Brad Carlton – Improv ala Mode - Ionian (don’t get scared Ionian is just another name for the Major Scale).

[gadlaw]

With you all the way up until page 16 with the double flats and sharps there. Then my eyes glazed over, well the 'one' eye - it's allergy season so I get one eye at a time with the other one closed shut.
Anyways,
I got the 12 tones thing,
I got the C Major Scale has the Root of C,
I've got that B and C (Brad Carlton) and EF (Eggplant Farming) don't have sharps or flats between them.
I've got the WWHWWWH thing in the Major Scale - Whole Tones being W and Half Tones being H
I'm not getting the Fancy Talk on page 16 -- 'Sometimes a Double-Sharp (##) will be used to tell us to Raise the Tone Two Half-Steps (same as a Whole-Step).
Sometimes a Double-Flat (bb) will be used to tell us to Lowe the Tone Two Half-Steps (Same as a Whole-Step)

Okay, I know two half steps is the same as a Whole Step. The first part makes no sense. 'Sometimes a double sharp will be used to tell us to Raise the Tone Two Half Steps' - Why? Raise what and in doing what will be changed? There's no context for that statement for beginner me to understand what you're talking about there. I kind of hate to go beyond that in case this is like Algebra where if you miss a concept that's unclear you are permanently lost and spending the rest of eighth grade practicing your Ninja skills of invisibility. Any clue as to what I'm lost on here?

[Leedelta]

Hi Gadlaw,

Sometimes musical spelling can be confusing.

Some notes are enharnomic (2 names for same note).

Watch this

Here are our major chords (Root, Major Third, Fifth)

C: C E G

C#: C# E# G#

D: D F# A#

D#: D# F## A##

E: E G# B

F: F A C

F#: F# A# C#

G: G B D

G#: G# B# D#

A: A C# E

A#: A# C## E#

B: B D# F#

C: C E G

Now lets tackle flats

C: C E G

Cb: Cb Eb Gb

Bb: Bb D F

Bbb: Bbb Db Fb

Ab: Ab C Eb

G: G B D

Gb: Gb Bb Db

F: F A C

Fb: Fb Ab Cb

Eb: Eb G Bb

Ebb: Ebb Gb Bbb

Db: Db F Ab

C: C E G

Notice that everything is either going up or down chromatically. There are no flats when i am using sharps and likewise there is no sharps when I am using flats.

For example I use Bbb as opposed to A because an A Major triad has a C# in it.

I recommend getting David Lucas Burges Ear Training courses especially the Relative pitch one because you learn theory both from an intellectual and an musical perpective.

[beboy]

Thanks Gadlaw. That is exactly the type of confusion I want to know about so I can try to make the document less confusing.

[gadlaw]

Always happy to display the depths of my ignorance for the common good.
I'm looking at what you've provided there LeeDelta with the major chords and what you just wrote was something I didn't even know that I didn't know. I glazed right over that where Beboy mentions it at the top of that chart. I'm looking at page 12 of Beboy's Easy Theory and seeing exactly what you just went through to explain how (I think it's by convention) - for instance, the Ab Major scale is written with only b's (flats)

That's cool, but I'm still not getting what I wasn't getting before. I'm still stuck at those words The first part makes no sense. 'Sometimes a double sharp will be used to tell us to Raise the Tone Two Half Steps' - Why? Raise what and in doing what will be changed? There's no context for that statement for beginner me to understand what you're talking about there.

[Jestme]

...I recommend getting David Lucas Burges Ear Training courses especially the Relative pitch one because you learn theory both from an intellectual and an musical perpective.

Hve we discussed this course here before. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it but don't want to hijack the thread so ... I'll start a new one and hope you can chime in.

Thanks

[Leedelta]

Hve we discussed this course here before. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it but don't want to hijack the thread so ... I'll start a new one and hope you can chime in.

Thanks

Yep we did, where would be a good place to start the thread, beginners hang or theory section?

[Skyhigh]

Always happy to display the depths of my ignorance for the common good.
I'm looking at what you've provided there LeeDelta with the major chords and what you just wrote was something I didn't even know that I didn't know. I glazed right over that where Beboy mentions it at the top of that chart. I'm looking at page 12 of Beboy's Easy Theory and seeing exactly what you just went through to explain how (I think it's by convention) - for instance, the Ab Major scale is written with only b's (flats)

That's cool, but I'm still not getting what I wasn't getting before. I'm still stuck at those words The first part makes no sense. 'Sometimes a double sharp will be used to tell us to Raise the Tone Two Half Steps' - Why? Raise what and in doing what will be changed? There's no context for that statement for beginner me to understand what you're talking about there.

Hi guys,
OK, I know this is old.. but does music ever get old???
So my question.. what is the difference between music and physics?
Once people understand that, they will advance in their quest to become better...

[JoaoPazGuitar]

(...)
I'm not getting the Fancy Talk on page 16 -- 'Sometimes a Double-Sharp (##) will be used to tell us to Raise the Tone Two Half-Steps (same as a Whole-Step).
Sometimes a Double-Flat (bb) will be used to tell us to Lowe the Tone Two Half-Steps (Same as a Whole-Step)

Okay, I know two half steps is the same as a Whole Step. The first part makes no sense. 'Sometimes a double sharp will be used to tell us to Raise the Tone Two Half Steps' - Why? Raise what and in doing what will be changed? There's no context for that statement for beginner me to understand what you're talking about there. I kind of hate to go beyond that in case this is like Algebra where if you miss a concept that's unclear you are permanently lost and spending the rest of eighth grade practicing your Ninja skills of invisibility. Any clue as to what I'm lost on here?

Hi Gadlaw,
let me help!

1)
Any major (and minor, etc) scale must have the 7 notes - so any major scale will always have to have a C, D, E, F, G, A and a B.

2)
Any major scale must respect its 'DNA' or its 'barcode' (as I usually explain to my students - and that is W W H W W W T - the whole/half tones sequence


So lets check a practical case: G# major
G# major has all the sharps plus a double sharp on the F
This is so both principles named above are met:

G# to A# - whole tone
A# to B# - whole tone
B# to C# - half tone (*)
C# to D# - whole tone
D# to E# - whole tone
E# to F## - whole tone (**)
F## to G# - half tone (***)

(*) the same thing as Cnat to C#, since B# is a Cnat

(**) you need to have a whole tone in this place, but E to F is a half tone; so E# to F# is also a half tone... so you need to make it a doube sharp on the F!

(***) also, the double sharp on the F corrected the next step of the scale, making it a half step! F## is the same as Gnat, so Gnat to G# is now a half step


You could simply put a G nat on the scale.... but then it would have two G's - the Gnat and the G# - and it would have no F.

The same principle applies to doube flats.



++++

...and responding to SkyHigh now

You have to think of it as countries in a map! You have the frontiers very well outlined and colored ... but in real world, as seen from SkyHigh! you don't see those frontiers, because they do not exist in nature! Everything is connected.

So you have music and physics, yes - so many stuff, here, like the notes frequencies, the lenght or thickness of a vibrating string, the air temperature - but you have mathematics, and medicine, if you suffer from ear conditions of some kind and can't get some frequencies, etc, and you history, analysing the past to understand the present ... and you could add philosophy and psychology - why certain beats and chords make you sad? - ... and of course, art

So, to me, you need to have an open mind all the time - you don't have to get it all - no one does, but it's good to know it exists.



Hope it helps!
Joao

[jauen]

Joao,

Nicely described!

To (maybe) reinforce what you said:

Double sharps and double flats (and even B# in the key of G# or E# in the key of F#) are a necessary result of applying 3 rules to major scale creation:

1. Use only sharps or only flats (never mixed)
2. Don't use the same letter twice (A,B,C,D,E,F,G)
3. Start on any letter and follow the formula (W,W,H,W,W,W,H)

Here's a great resource page that describes it well. The confusion only occurs as the circle of fifths overlaps sharps and flats at the bottom.

http://www.zentao.com/guitar/theory/circle.html

[murrayatuptown]

http://www.zentao.com/guitar/theory/circle.html[/URL]

Bookmarked.

Thanks

[rogermack50]

OK I believe I'm still confused with the same thing that Gad was way back in 2006.
The explanations in this post didn't help straighten me out. In fact it confused me more.
In reality how often does the double ## or bb even come up? Am I wasting my time being concerned about it at this time, as it is labeled as "Fancy Talk".
Can someone make a chart like BeBoy did in the course, showing it.

When I look at it, I see a F## would be a G or "G#". So does the second # mean that you go a whole step from the F# or just a half step?

Great work so far Beboy; I am a true knucklehead so if you kept me involved this far, that's a @#$% Hell of a accomplishment.
I'm moving on to your 2nd PDF.

Mac

[Rgalvez]

When I look at it, I see a F## would be a G or "G#". So does the second # mean that you go a whole step from the F# or just a half step?

F## means G (It is notated as Fx and it means double sharp) . Gbb means F. You will use double flat for instance when you have diminished seventh chords (the last tone is a bb7, which is actually a sixth). The same goes with the diminished scale. Youy will use double sharps when you meet therotecially a key such as G#, which has eight sharps, but it is more convenient and less confusing to use the enarmonic name, Ab.
The other posters have explained quite well this subject.

[jaya]

Looks like this will help!