Some of you had yesterday off, and, for the most part, I did too. My younger brother flew into the state after being gone most of last year in Afghanistan, so I spent some time catching up.
Instead of doing the normal thing of talking about new songs, how cool Lafayette Live was last week, or shows in the works, I’m going to take a few minutes to do some legit blogging & actually share some useful info…
Several of my music buddies have asked me some music theory-related questions (a lot of my songs are sounding the same, I need to branch out, any pointers?)...
So I’ll touch on some ‘keys’ with you.
My guitars are tuned to ‘Drop C’: all strings tuned a whole step down, with the 6th string tuned another whole step down (CGCFAD).
Side note: I refer to notes as if they’re in standard tuning with a *, the * meaning relative to a step down. For example, if you’re a whole step down & I said, “Play a C Major,” you’re likely to play a C Major chord shape, not a D Major Chord shape. The C shape you’re playing would be a Bb in reality, the D would be C Major. See how this could get confusing?
Since having the open low string to chug on is important to meaner music and/or drop-D tuning, there are 7 traditional major keys (plus their relative minors) that’ll give you a D note (open 6th string). For the most part, I start in these & go beyond them as necessary.
D Major*: D E F# G A B C# D
C Major*: C D E F G A B C
Bb Major*: Bb C D Eb F G A Bb
A Major*: A B C# D E F# G# A
G Major*: G A B C D E F# G
F Major*: F G A Bb C D E F
Eb Major*: Eb F G Ab Bb C D Eb
Here's a .jpg diagram of what the first 7 frets of your guitar neck will look like in these keys. You should be able to right-click it, save, print, etc.
Remember, you can build any major key following the interval formula: Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half.
Eb Major*: Eb F G Ab Bb C D Eb
Remember, you can build any major key following the interval formula: Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half.
Start with the root note & add notes up in that order. (B to C & E to F are half step changes).
If it helps, here’s an octave of all 12 notes from A to A. The bold notes are the white keys on a piano, the normal print would be the black keys.
A - A#/Bb - B - C - C#/Db - D - D#/Eb - E - F - F#/Gb - G - G#/Ab - A
While I’m at it, don’t scoop your mids or turn your amp’s gain all the way up! :-)
I hope this helps!
That does it for this week. Thanks for stopping in!
Since Facebook decided to be a pain last week & prevented me from posting links for the 2011 Recap, you can find it HERE.
Over and out
