The Coming of the Toads

A Notebook – Since 2007

Tag: learning guitar

  • Notes and Chords on the Guitar

    Having learned a method of limbering up the fingers, and of finding notes on the guitar, we’ll now take a look at how to make chords.

    We saw that the C Major Scale of notes is useful because it has no sharps or flats. We’ll find that it’s particularly useful in other ways for the guitarist.

    Let’s review the C Major Scale of Notes. C to C gives us an octave. We can number the notes. We’ll use the numbers to build chords:

    Numeric Note12345678
    Letter NoteCDEFGABC

    A major chord is built stacking the 1st, 3rd, and 5th of a scale. We can build a chord that begins with each letter of the C Major Scale. When finished, we’ll have the C Major Harmonized Scale of chords:

    Chord #IiiiiiIVVvivii
    NameCMdmemFMGMamb-dim
    Notes
    5GABCDEF
    3EFGABCD
    1CDEFGAB

    The C Major chord (I, or CM in the table above) contains the notes C, E, and G, the 1st, 3rd, and 5th steps of the C Major scale of notes. The D minor chord (ii, or dm in the table above) contains the notes D, F, and A. Why is it a minor chord? A minor chord is built also using the 1st, 3rd, and 5th steps of a scale, but the 3rd is flatted, moved a half step down, which, on the guitar, is one fret down. I thought you said there were no flats or sharps. Here’s where things get a bit tricky.

    Let’s take a look at the C Chromatic scale of notes. This is a scale that shows all the notes, including the flats and sharps. A sharp is indicated with a # sign, and flats are indicated with a b. Note that a C# and a Db is the same note, called a flat when moving down and a sharp when moving up):

    11#2b22#3b344#5b55#6b66#7b78
    CC#DbDD#EbEFF#GbGG#AbAA#BbBC

    The C Major scale of notes uses just 7 of the notes of the Chromatic scale above. As we have seen, those notes include: C D E F G A and B. What happened to the sharps and flats? We skipped over them. How do we know where to skip? That’s a given. To build a major scale, we skip over the 1#2b and the 2#3b, but notice there is no 3# or 4b, and there is no 7# or 8b. So we have notes that skip like this:

    1 (skip) 2 (skip) 3 4 (skip) 5 (skip) 6 (skip) 7 8
    C (skip) D (skip) E F (skip) G (skip) A (skip) B C

    In other words, there is no 3# or 4b and there is no 7# or 8b. There is no E sharp or F flat and there is no B# or Cb in the C Major scale. If we want to flat the F, we get E. If we want to flat the C, we get B.

    It might be useful now to take a look at the whole guitar fretboard (depending on your device, you should be able to slide right to see all the columns):

    Open Strings1st Fret2nd Fret3rd Fret4th Fret5th Fret6th Fret7th Fret8th Fret9th Fret10th Fret11th Fret12th Fret13th Fret
    efgabcdef
    bcdefgabc
    gabcdefg
    defgabcd
    abcdefga
    efgabcdef

    And here are the same notes using corresponding numbers:

    Open Strings1st Fret2nd Fret3rd Fret4th Fret5th Fret6th Fret7th Fret8th Fret9th Fret10th Fret11th Fret12th Fret13th Fret
    345671234
    712345671
    56712345
    23456712
    67123456
    345671234

    Notice the 1 skips a fret to 2, but the 3 does not skip a fret to 4. Same for 7 to 1. The 1 corresponds to C, the 2 to D, etc.

    If we start a major scale on D and use the skipping method of counting through the Chromatic scale, we get:

    123456789
    12#3b344#5b55#6b66#7b
    DD#EbEFF#GbGG#AbAA#Bb

    If we build the D Major chord using the 1, 3, and 5 of the scale in the table above, we get a chord with the notes D (1), E (3), and F# (5). The D Major chord is built using the notes D, E, and F#. Taking the D Major chord of D, E, and F# but flatting the F#, we get D, E, F. The chord is now a 1, flat 3, 5 chord, or, a minor chord.

    Now, back to the C Major Harmonized scale, which is built with the chords C Major, D Minor, E Minor, F Major, G Major, A Minor, and B Diminished. The chords are shown in the table as

    IiiiiiIVVvivii
    CMdmemFGamb-dim

    It’s a bit tricky to say all of the chords contain no sharps or flats, since we saw that the D minor chord has a flatted third. But the flatted third of a D chord, as we’ve seen, gives us an F note, not an F#. You can work it out for the E minor and A minor, as well as the B diminished (which flats both the 3rd and the 5th notes of a scale). What you’ll find is that the chords as expressed in the C Major Harmonized scale appear to have no sharps or flats. They are built with “natural” notes, meaning not sharped or flatted notes.

    Chord #IiiiiiIVVvivii
    NameCMdmemFMGMamb-dim
    Notes
    5GABCDEF
    3EFGABCD
    1CDEFGAB

    Here are some suggestions for practical application:

    1. Play chord progressions using chords from the C Major Harmonized scale. For example, play ii (dm), V (GM), I (CM), or play I (CM), vi (am), ii (dm), V (GM). Play I, IV, V.
    2. Memorize all of the C notes on the guitar fretboard. Be able to jump from one to the other, in any order.
    3. Play the C Major scale of notes on the fretboard beginning (ascending and descending) with each of the C notes you found in 2 above.
    4. Play all of the chords in the C Major Harmonized scale in the first position of the fretboard (frets 1 thru 3). Play them in order, ascending and descending.
    5. Don’t forget to warm up and cool down using the Guitar finger coordination exercises of Manuel Lopez Ramos.

  • Guitar finger coordination exercises of Manuel Lopez Ramos

    I was given the exercises to practice by my first classical guitar instructor. After many years of carrying them around in my three-ring binder guitar workbook, I’ve taken photos of the two pages, from which I’ve copied below, adding just a few edits and a short glossary of terms. In addition to being useful developmental exercises, the lines can be used for warmup in any setting. While the exercises were written with classical guitar in mind, they work for any guitar genre. The basic idea is that you don’t want your fingers to simply remember riffs, because then they fall into forced habits, often limiting and hard to change, but the exercises encourage a flexible, ambidextrous capability, each finger able to move independent of the others. 

    EXERCISES (1 thru 24 - see Instructions below Line 24):

    1.1234 0234 0134 0124 0123

    2.4123 4023 4013 4012 3012

    3.3412 3402 3401 2401 2301

    4.2341 2340 1340 1240 1230

    5.1243 0243 0143 0142 0132

    6.4132 4032 4031 4021 3021

    7.3421 3420 3410 2410 2310

    8.2314 2304 1304 1204 1203

    9.1423 0423 0413 0412 0312

    10.4312 4302 4301 4201 3201

    11.3241 3240 3140 2140 2130

    12.2134 2034 1034 1024 1023

    13.1432 0432 0431 0421 0321

    14.4321 4320 4310 4210 3210

    15.3214 3204 3104 2104 2103

    16.2143 2043 1043 1042 1032

    17.1342 0342 0341 0241 0231

    18.4231 4230 4130 4120 3120

    19.3124 3024 3014 2014 2013

    20.2413 2403 1403 1402 1302

    21.1324 0324 0314 0214 0213

    22.4213 4203 4103 4102 3102

    23.3142 3042 3041 2041 2031

    24.2431 2430 1430 1420 1320

    Instructions

    Numbers refer to left hand fingers (index is 1, middle 2, ring 3, little 4). The exercises can be played on any string in any position (i. e. beginning at any fret). An “0” in lines above, e.g. 1320, means play string open (un-fretted).

    Do each individual exercise (four notes) eight times, except as noted below, and proceed to the next without interruption. Fingers “i”, “m”, and “a” use rest strokes1 throughout except when playing chords in 7, 8, 9 below. After first learning all exercises with right hand fingering i m a m, practice daily in the following manner:

    Begin on the first string changing every four notes to the second string, and in turn to the third, etc. as far as the sixth string and back again each exercise. Each exercise is then actually repeated 10 times. The “Lines” below refer to the rows or exercises in the section above.

    Line 1: i m a m
    Line 2: m a m i
    Line 3: a m i m

    Thumb (indicated with p) every eight notes. Each day use a different combination of strings, i. e. fingers on 1st string, thumb on 6th, next day fingers 2nd, thumb 6th, next fingers 2nd, thumb 5th, then 3rd and 5th.

    Line 4: i&p m a m i m a m
    Line 5: i m&p a m i m a m
    Line 6: i m a&p m i m a m

    Chord (a&m&i&p) every eight notes. Each day use a different combination of strings, e.g. chord on 1st, 2nd, 3rd, & 5th, other notes on 1st, or chord same, other notes on 2nd, etc.

    Line 7: a&m&i&p i m a m i m a
    Line 8: a&m&i&p m a m i m a m
    Line 9: a&m&i&p a m i m a m i

    Line 10: Shifting position one fret each exercise to the end of the finger-board and return.

    Line 11: The same, shifting two frets each exercise.

    Line 12: The same, three frets.

    Line 13: i m a m – With slurs2. Example: 1~2 3~4
    Line 14: i m a m – With slurs. Example: 1~3 2~4
    Line 15: i m a m – With slurs. Example: 1~4 2~3

    Lines 16, 17, 18: m i m i m a m a i a i a m i m a

    Lines 19, 20, 21: Eight notes as legato3 as possible, eight notes as staccato as possible.

    Lines 22, 23, 24: Eight notes dolce4, eight notes metalico.

    Lines 1, 2, 3: Crescendo5 – diminuendo.

    Lines 4, 5, 6: Accelerando, rallentando.

    Rotate exercises weekly. That is, the second week play lines 4, 5, & 6 changing strings, 7, 8, & 9 with thumb, etc.

    1. The finger of a rest stroke, or apoyando, after plucking a string, comes to rest on the string above it, thus allowing for a more controlled stroke that can produce more volume. While the instructions call for all rest strokes, the player may prefer also practicing with free strokes (where the finger does not come to rest but plays through). ↩︎
    2. There are two kinds of slurs, the hammer-on and the pull-off. In each, the note is sounded with the left hand finger by hitting a higher fret on the same string after a stroke (ascending slur) or pulling quickly off a string to an lower fret of the same string (descending slur). ↩︎
    3. Legato is playing smoothly and continuously from one note to another; staccato is playing each note with a stop between notes. ↩︎
    4. Dolce is soft or hollow; metalico is bright or electric. To play dolce, move the right hand forward of the sound hole; to play metalico, move the right hand back toward the bridge. ↩︎
    5. Crescendo gradually increases loudness; diminuendo decreases loudness. Accelerando speeds up, while rallentando slows down. ↩︎