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Theory Primer

The purpouse of this theory primer is to take you through the basic intervals, triads ( 3 notechords and basic scales.

Intervals Primer

An interval is the musical distance between one musical note and another. There are 5 maincategories of interval; Major, Minor, Perfect, Augmented and Diminished.

So Why Do I Need Intervals?

Intervals are the building blocks for chords, arpeggios and scales. In the same way that abricklayer needs bricks and mortar or a carpenter needs, wood, nails, glue, etc, a guitarist (indeed any musician ) needs to know intervals. If you were asked to play an A minor chordinstead of an A Major chord or wanted to learn the Lydian scale, a basic understanding ofintervals, not to mention some time spent finding it on the guitar, will help you no end.

Interval Chart

For this chart I will start from the root and go through every interval up to an octave. Yes, thereare more intervals, but as this is a primer I want to keep it as simple as possible.I will be using the key of C for this and have produced a tab example so you can listen to eachof the intervals for yourself. There is also an MP3 file, containing all the intervals tabbed andshown here. In case it is not entirely clear, a lower case m ( m ) is used to denote a minorinterval and an uppercase m ( M ) is used to denote a Major interval. Throughout my otherlessons I shall be using m and M to show major and minor tonalities.

Interval Abbreviation Note

Unison ( Root ) Unis ( Root ) C - C

Minor 2nd m2 C - Db

Major 2nd M2 C - DMinor 3rd m3 C - Eb

Major 3rd M3 C - E

Perfect 4th P4 C - F

Perfect 5th P5 C - G

Minor 6th m6 C - Ab

Major 6th M6 C - A

Minor 7th m7 C - Bb

Major 7th M7 C - B

Perfect Octave P8 C - C

Example 1 shows the tab for these intervals.

Major Scale Construction

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As you will probably remember from the Intervals lesson, the distance between one note andanother is known as a musical interval. In the major scale, the intervals between each noteare either Major ( M ) or Perfect ( P ).

The major scale is probably one of the most important scales in Western music. It can be

used to help create chords, make modes and find pentatonic scales. That part will come laterbut first we need to construct a major scale.

There are 7 notes in the major scale, which are, surprisingly, numbered from 1 to 7. 1 refers tothe tonic, or root note. This will be the note the scale starts on and also tells you which key youare playing in. You will also come across the number 8, which is the same note as 1, only anoctave higher.

The intervals in a major scale are as follows......

Root ( 1 ), Major 2nd ( 2 ), Major 3rd ( 3 ), Perfect 4th ( 4 ), Perfect 5th ( 5 ), Major 6th ( 6), Major 7th ( 7 ), Perfect Octave ( 8 ).

This can be abbreviated to....

R1, M2, M3, P4, P5, M6, M7, P8

The second way of writing it is just shorthand and a little tidier.

Basic Chord Primer

A basic chord contains 3 notes, which is also known as a triad. On a guitar though the notesof the chord are sometimes doubled up. For now I will deal with the main 3 notes needed.There are 5 main chord families......Major, Minor, Dominant, Augmented and Diminished.For now I will deal with the Major and Minor families, as they lend themselves quite well totriads as well as big chords.

The Major Family

A Major chord ( or triad ) contains 3 notes; the Root, or Tonic, which tells you which key thechord is in, the MajorThird and the PerfectFifth. There are 2 ways of finding these notes;one is to refer to the Interval Chart in the Interval Primer lesson, the other is to use what I liketo call the 'leapfrog' method. For both examples I am going to use the note C as the Root.

Using The Interval Chart

To start with you need the Root note, which in this case is C. The next note you need is theMajor 3rd ( a major chord always contains a Major 3rd ). Look down the chart and you will findhow many steps away from the root the Major Third is. Next you need the Perfect Fifth. Again

look down the interval chart and you will find out how many steps away from the Root note thePerfect Fifth is.

The Leapfrog Method

For this method you will need to write out the notes of the key that you will be playing thechord in. As the key is C major the notes will be.....

C D E F G A B

You already know that the Root note is C, so to find the other 2 notes ( Third and Fifth ) simplymiss a note then use the next note like this....

C D E F G A B

The notes in bold ( C, E and G ) form the basic triad for the C Major chord.

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The Minor Family

A Minor Chord ( or triad ) contains 3 notes; the Root, or Tonic, which tells you what key youare in, the Minor Third and the Perfect Fifth.

You will notice one important difference between a Major and Minor chord; Major contains aMajor third, Minor contains a minor third.