This is absolutely awesome. Leo Kottke is a true master of accoustic guitar. He draws upon techiques using 6 and 12 string guitars and a variety of standard, open and custom tunings. Enjoy!
Tags: acoustic, leo kottke, video
Question: What is the Difference between the circle of fifths and the circle of fourths?
Answer: Nothing.
It is the same circle, but if you go clockwise around the circle, you are going up to the fifth degree of the major scale from the first note to the second. And if you go anti-clockwise round the circle you will be going up to the fourth degree.
For example, starting at C and going clockwise the next stop is G:
1 2 3 4 5
C D E F G
And if you continue on from G going clockwise you end up on D:
1 2 3 4 5
G A B C D
As mentioned before, if you go anti-clockwise from C, your next stop is F:
1 2 3 4
C D E F
And from F ant-iclockwise your next stop is A# / Bb:
1 2 3 4
F G A Bb
Check out Stages of Mastering the Guitar and The Interactive Circle of Fifths for more useful tips.
The Guitar Master
Tags: circle of fifths, theory
To avoid some confusion for beginner musicians, let’s clear up a few things:
- The Major Scale is all important, but you don’t necessarily have to spend hours practicing it, because that’s just boring
- When someone uses the term “fourth” or “fifth” or “third”, these terms do not refer to any kind of fraction. They are referring to the first, second, third, fourth, fifth etc… steps of the major scale
- A major third is the third note of a major scale.
- A minor third is the third note of a minor scale, which is the major third flattened
- Flat means down by one semitone (or fret) – The symbol is similar to “b”
- Sharp means up by one semitone (or one fret) – The symbol is similar to “#”
- A major seventh chord is simply a major chord (1st, 3rd and 5th) with the seventh note included, so simply play the following notes of your major scale together: 1, 3, 5, 7
- In guitar chord notation, C means play a C major chord. Cm means play a C minor chord. C/G means play a C major chord, but use a G as the lowest note.
- Tempo is the speed of a song, normally define in BPM – beats per minute
- Common time = 4/4 = 4 beats per bar. 3/4 = a waltz. The first number means the number of beats per bar. The second number is the length of the note compared to a semibreve
- A semibreve is one whole bar in common time. A breve would be two whole bars. Two whole bars could well be a sensible definition of a phrase, but this is not by any means strict or necessary or actually defined anywhere else as far as I know.
- There are seven musical modes, also called “church modes”, but that are named after ancient Greek regions or tribes. There is an excellent wikipedia article on this subject
- Each mode can be figured out and played using a particular major scale as demonstrated in the interactive circle of fifths
- To be continued…..
Back to Stages of Mastering the Guitar
Tags: definitions, lesson, theory
OK, I’m not writing an article on the hypothetical theory trying to unite quantum mechanics and general relativity.
What I am going to try and explain to you, and for my own benefit, is how the length of a string is related to the note it produces when plucked, as well as the importance of it’s harmonic overtones
- A string of a particular length and a particular tension will vibrate at a particular frequency. This is the frequency of the note produced
- Dividing the length of this string exactly in half will halve the wavelength. This means that it also doubles the frequency.
- Doubling the frequency (or halving the wavelength) will give you the same note one octave up
- This string will also produce a number of “overtones”, that can be isolated by playing the harmonics
- The harmonics are located at particular points of the string: 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5 etc… of the way up. Check out this really useful reference poster and article from wikipedia: Table of Harmonics – Harmonic Series
- The strongest harmonics are at 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4 up the string. These are on the 12th fret (double dot on a guitar), 7th Fret and 5th fret respectively
- These harmonics produce notes one octave up, and octave plus a perfect fifth, and then two octaves up from the fundamental note of the open string
- Fretting these positions give you one octave up, a perfect fifth and a perfect fourth
- Playing the chords on these frets that are appropriate for the key in question (i.e. the major key of the fundamental note of the open string) will give you the three most popular chords in music. So if we’re looking at the E string of a guitar, this will generate an Emajor, an Amajor and a Bmajor. For the A string, it will give you A, D and E.
Anyway, enough rabbiting on for now. I’ll write some more when I get the time / inspiration.
Keep practicing.
Stages of Mastering the Guitar
Tags: harmonics, lesson, theory
I just had to post this on my website for all of you to read! Through a friend of mine who works at a highly regarded golf club nearby, I received a message of best wishes from a guitar legend for my wedding, coming up in July. The legend in question also said he would try and visit my website to cast a critical eye over some of my writing and to see what the site is all about.
So if you’re reading this, Scott Gorham of Thin Lizzy, welcome to my website, The Guitar Master!
Take your time, look around and see if anything interests you. I’m dying for expert opinion on all of this so please feel free to sign up and leave comments or drop me an email via the contacts page.
Thanks for dropping by!
The Guitar Master
Tags: notice, Scott Gorham, Thin Lizzy, VIP
Please note, this post needs some clarification… It refers to a “Diminished” chord, where in actual fact it is talking about a “Diminished Flat 5” chord. A standard diminished chord would be a triad consisting of the notes 7, 2 and 4 (or 7, 9 and 11). Read on, but bare this fact in mind as you read. Apologies for any confusion.
(P.S. the diminished flat 5 chord is awesome.)
Diminished chords are made up of four notes and are a “mysterious” sounding result of the major scale in chords. The diminished chord is the 7th step of the major scale, so for instance:
C major scale: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C
Chords in the key of Cmajor: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim, C
That diminished b chord is made up of the notes B, D, G# and F. It can be shifted up or down by three frets, and you will have the same notes but in a different order, i.e. with a different note as the root, but all of the same notes in total. Going through this process, sliding up or down three frets continuously produces an eerie kind of sound as in a scooby-doo cartoon.
You will find that you can move up four times and then you will be back to the first shape you played, but one octave up. This is because you are moving up by 3 frets, and there are twelve chromatic tones in an octave. (12/3 =4).
Furthermore, that diminished shape can take on any one of 4 names (typically but not necessarily you would name it after the lowest note). So a diminished b could also be called a G# diminished, a D diminished or an F diminished.
This implies that the same chord can be used in four different major keys, and therefore 4 different minor keys. Remember that:
1.) every major scale has a relative minor scale that uses (nearly) all the same notes
2.) every major chord has a relative minor chord that uses (nearly) all the same notes
3.) every major key has a relative minor key that uses all the same chords
So, does this diminished chord somehow tie together it’s “keys-in-common”? Why don’t you find out? Try switching between chords that you would normally not play together, because they are in different keys. So switch between an E and a C#. You get a kind of an “enlightening” feel or one of revelation. Useful for setting the mood or perhaps switching between keys perhaps?
Have fun and see what kind of effects you can get. Ideas to play with might include switching in an alternating fashion between a diminished chord and any of it’s parent major and minor keys.
This article has been updated with the information below:
Drawing a cross in your circle of fifths will connect up four notes. These four notes constitute a diminished chord. This diminished chord is part of four major and minor keys. The keys that this chord is a part of are found by simply rotating your cross one place clockwise. Likewise, if you want to know how to form the diminished chord for a key, simply draw a cross with one arm pointing to that key, rotate one place anti-clockwise and the cross will point to the correct four notes.
Furthermore, the phrygian mode for a key is at a right angle to the diminished chord for that key. This implies that there is some relationship between relative major and minor scales or keys and the phrygian scale and diminished chords. It seems to be that a diminished scale in a particular key shares all the same notes as a phrygian scale. Likewise, it would seem to be that somehow the second degree of a major scale in chords (so for instance Dminor in the key of C major) has some relationship to the C myxolydian scale, as they too are at right angles to one another.
This is gong to be clarified and expanded upon over time. But feel free to experiment with these relationships for yourself and see what you can find.
Back to Stages of Mastering the Guitar
Tags: chord, circle of fifths, diminished, theory
Phrygian mode appears to be a little bit special. Apart from being a very mysterious and far-eastern sounding scale, it has a strange property when compared to it’s parent major key.
Lets begin by taking a look at the modes for the key of C. If we assume that each mode is merely a major scale pinched from another key, and then play the major chord for the corresponding major scale, we get a really nice sounding chord progression, which is instantly Spanish in it’s appeal:
(Forwads:) C, C#, D#, F, G, G#, A#, C
(Backwards:) C, A#, G# G, F, D#. C#, C.
Before you try to figure out what scale this might be, I can tell you that it is simply a G# major scale (or an F minor, as they are relative). And if you look again at the circle, you will see that a G# major scale is the phrygian mode in the key of C. So, Phrygian mode is a kind of “anti” major scale, easily found by playing the major scale at 8 ‘o’ clock in relation to the key in question, or by mirroring the mode names for your key as in the previous article on the circle of fifths and modes.
So the scale of G# contains all of the root notes from the different modes for the key of C. And if you switch between C and G# major chords, you get a nice enlightening sound, similar to that when you switch between keys that share the same diminished chord.
Speaking of which, do you want to know which keys share the same diminished chord? Well that’s easy. Just draw a cross shape in your circle. That will point to four different notes. Those are the keys that share a particular diminished chord, which can be named after any of the four chords you are pointing to!
And how do you find out what the notes are that diminished chord? Simply rotate your cross one place anti-clockwise. Likewise, you can draw a cross in your circle to identify the notes of a diminished chord and then rotate one place clockwise to identify the four keys that use that diminished chord. See the page on diminished chords for more info.
Wow!
I wonder if there will ever be an end to these little peculiarities.
Tags: circle of fifths, modes, phrygian
This is the Circle of Fifths. The note at the top is the key that we will be concentrating on. Labeled are the major minor and diminished chords used in that key. So the chords in the key of C major are: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim, C.
Remember that relative major and minor scales have the same notes. Likewise, relative major and minor keys have the same chords. So these chords can be used in the key of C major or A minor. (The relative minor chord or key for any major key will be at 3′o’ clock, if the major key in question is at 12.) Notice how the circle of fifths neatly arranges our major, minor and diminished chords from the major scale in chords and places them all together.
Another point to note is that the circle of fifths arranges keys so that the closer they are, the more chords those keys have in common. So C major and G major share almost all the same chords, with the exception of F and F# (Db).
You can also use The Guitar Master’s Interactive Circle of Fifths to help find out what chords are in any key. Simply click on the name of the major key you are interested in. When it is at the top of the page, all chords to the right of the dividing line are notes in that major key. Remember that the relative major key will use all the same chords.
Back to the circle of fifths
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Tags: chord, circle of fifths, theory
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