A BASIC GUIDE TO MUSIC THEORY
For all dem bitches who don't knowz it
For all dem bitches who don't knowz it
Let us begin the lesson! s**t havoc and let loose the logs of war!
Music theory says that music has a structure to it, so every element of music theory is particularly structued. For example, the notes are in a particular order and have particular names: A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, which is pretty ******** simple to remember. I'm pretty sure you already know that because I told you this. If you don't, then there it is. I like to repeat myself and sound like a droning a*****e while doing it, so again: A B C D E F and G.
But what's that you're thinking? “What about those step things, Fagblow?” Well, ********! You've got me there. The notes move from one another in what we call steps. There are two kinds: half and whole. A whole step would be from A to B, D to E, F to G, G to A, etc. When it comes to half steps there are two kinds of these jackasses: natural half steps and regular “good ole boy” half steps. There are only two occurences of natural half steps in all of music theory and these are when you move from a B to a C or an E to a F. In advanced music theory that only applies to piano and jazz (because jazz musicians are ******** elitsts “oooh-ho! Look at my comprehensive knowledge of music theory! I'll completely ******** a good melody by constructing my music entirely out of so much s**t your head explodes!”) there exists a B#, a Cb, an E#, and an Fb. But these don't apply to guitar unless Doc asks us to write something in the key of C#major or CbMajor, but if he does, then he gains epic douchehole points. Seriously mang.
Anyway, the little # and b after the notes I mentioned earlier? We use those to make the regular half-steps. The # is the symbol for a sharp note and the b is the symbol for a flat note. With these, we can now move notes in half-steps, or chromatically if you want to get all sonorous and s**t. So a regular half step would be A to A# or A to Bb. Mentioning that, you may notice that when you play that note on the guitar (1st fret A string, 6th fret E strings, etc), they are both on the exact same fret. That is because A# and Bb are the exact same note with different names. Its called an enharmonic and it may sound stupid, but it makes sense when we get into keys. By the way, speaking of keys (which will be defined in a moment), it is useful to know that there is no such thing as a flat note AND a sharp note in the same piece of music unless you want to get into really, really advanced music theory and all I know about that is jack s**t and jack left town.
Keys. Not the s**t you use to open doors with, but a key is what range of notes a piece of music is in. If you go out of key when playing a piece with someone else or even alone, it sounds horrible usually – but some singers, and generally only singers can do this, manage to do it and sound 'flavorful' (Bobby Whitlock from Derek & The Dominos for instance). So its good to know your keys and they're easy to memorize. But before you know keys, you have to know the order that sharps and flats come in because sharps and flats have a very particular order that they are written in individually and when determining a key... though there is one key that does not have any flats or sharps. That key is C. Speaking of C, the key that has all 7 sharps is C#major and the key that has all 7 flats is Cb Major, which is really easy to remember. Anyway!
The sharps in order:
F# C# G# D# A# E# B#
How do you remember that, you ask?
Fuzzy Cats Get Dirty After Every Bath
It sounds ******** retarded, but its how I remember them. Its not worth it to memorize it straight when you can put a smile on your face by thinking of fuzzy cats during a music theory test. But anyway! This is the strange part about keys: they aren't named after the sharp or flats that are in them. Flats have a different way of being named than sharps do, but both ways are incredibly easy. When it comes to figuring out what key you're dealing with when you have sharps, you take the last sharp in that key and raise it by a half step. For exaple, a key with 3 sharps has F#, C#, and G#, so you would see that G# and raise it a half step to an A and you know you are in the key of A.
When it comes to flats:
Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Cb Fb
Before Eating A Donut Get Coffee First
So! When it comes to naming flats, flats are easy, except for the first key. Anyway! You go to the second to last flat in the key and that is your key. With the exception of the key with 1 flat, this is easy. You have to straight memorize that the key with 1 flat is F, however. The key with 2 flats is Bb, the key with 3 flats is Eb, etc, though. Easy peasey, yo. Just remember that major keys have a construction of having a half step interval between their third and fourth notes and seventh and eighth notes if you get confused when constructing them.
And now onto something different yet the same. Those were all major keys I just told you about. There is another type of key: minor keys. Major and minor. But don't worry! Not a whole lot of other s**t to memorize when it comes to figuring out minors since every minor is relative to its major key. A minor chord has a raised sixth that makes it minor and a minor key is just a major key where you count back two notes (because an octave is eight notes) from the start and use that note to start writing out the notes in a particular key. For example!
C Major (0 sharps, 0 flats)
C D E F G A B C
You count back two from the last C and you get to A and I dub thee the key of A minor. “Stairway to Heaven” was written in A minor.
A minor
A B C D E F G A
When it comes to minor keys, the half steps are between the second and third and fifth and sixth notes.
Anyway, those lines of notes I just constructed is what we call a scale. A scale is a linear progression of notes within a key. There are several types of them, but you just saw a major and a minor scale. There is also the chromatic scale, which is a scale that moves entirely in half steps. So no matter what key you are in, you have either sharps or flats. You have enough of them to make 13 notes.
C Chromatic
C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C
There are no major or minors in chromatics. Just sharped or flat.
C Chromatic using flats
C Db D Eb E F Gb G Ab A Bb B C
Right. Easy enough? I hope so, because music theory is ******** harder than a gay nymphomaniac at a eunuch convention.
