Free Guitar Lessons

Sound as a physical phenomenon: scale, octave, name of sounds, tone, semi-tone, keyboard, enharmonic, octave names.

Sound is a natural phenomenon caused by oscillatory movements of air elements or other surroundings. These fluctuations in the air form sound waves, which are captured by ear. As a result, a certain feeling arises - sound audibility.

In our lifes we hear different sounds: the noise of rain, wind, the machine engines, birds singing, the sound of musical instruments, etc. All of them fall into noise and musical. Music sounds, in contrast to the noise, has certain definite characteristics: height, duration, timbre, the volume.

The height of the sound depends on the frequency of vibration, in other words on the number of oscillations per second. The more of them, the sound is thinner, faster, lighter, in other words - higher. The less oscillations, the heavier the sound is - lower. The number of fluctuations, in its turn, depends on the elasticity of a sounding body, such as the string tension (the more the string, is taut the higher the sound is), as well as its length and thickness (the longer and thicker the string is, the lower the sound it produces).

The length of sound depends on the length of fluctuations of sounding body. Timbre (sound coloring) depends on the number of overtones, accompanying each sound. The volume depends on the amplitude of fluctuations (the greater the amplitude the louder the sound).

All music sounds are located in a sequential ascending or descending order form the scale. If we compare with each other all sounds of the scales, we can make sure that each and every one of them at some distance higher or lower has a corresponding sound. These fusing sounds share the same names. The minimum distance between them is called octave.

Octave is divided into 12 sounds within an equal distance - semi-tone. Of the 12 sounds only 7 have names: C, D, E, F, G, A, B (Latin letters are used for the notation of chords and music). These seven sounds are the major steps of a scale. The distance between them is not the same between E and F, and C and D – semi-tone. The other main sounds are intermediate, and the distance between them is two semi-tone known as the whole tone, or simply - tone.

The keyboard is vividly demonstrates this system: white keys are the basic sounds, black keys are supported.

As we can see the keys are the same in each octave.

To raise or lower the sound the alteration symbols are used:

(sharp) - semi-tone rise.
(flat) - Loss of semi-tone.
(natural) – canceling of sharp or flat.

Thus, the same sound may be called differently. For instance the sound between of the C and D: C sharp or D flat. This phenomenon is called enharmonic.

At the beginning we’ll answer a question: why do we need to study music theory? Many great musicians do not know theory and play the guitar great.” Well and why do I need to know those notes while learning basic guitar?” - Self-educated guitar player will ask me.

Actually, as for the above example, it’s not as simple as it seems at first:

1) Those musicians are very talented guitar players and much was given by nature to them. If you consider yourselves as talented as Paul McCartney (by the way, he say he does not know notes), you may not read this section

2) The majority of those guitarists were involved right at the beginning of development of modern rock music in 1960 years, created it and studied all the necessary stuff simultaneously.

3) Sometimes guitar players just lie, saying they do not know notes, thus producing the effect of “being closer to people”.

4) Many young musicians are being promoted due to appearance and other reasons which have no connection with music itself, as a rule, fans totally forget about them 2 or 3 years later.

5) There’re always brilliant self-taught players who resist learning.

Now let us look at the benefits of studying music theory:

- While studying guitar theory you become more educated musician.

- Unsystematic information you owned before becoming to be a part of helpful system.

- You’ll be able to understand other musicians and “speak the same language”.

- Learning basic guitar improvisation, scales, progressions, etc., it will be much easier for you to transcribe other guitarists (and not only them). You will know exactly “what is happening” while you’re playing and which way to go when improvising themselves.

- Possibly, it’ll be easier to write music.

So, decide for yourself, whether to learn theory or not. It can deprive one person of his individuality but help the other to find his musical style.