Table of Contents
1 Introduction
This series of blog posts is intended for complete guitar beginners, and also for people who may have played the guitar for a bit with tablatures, but who do not really understand how harmony works. It is also suitable for more advanced players who would like to try a different approach.
This series aims to propose an alternative to traditional teaching, by using:
- an alternative guitar tuning: The Major Third (M3) tuning
- an alternative music notation: Clairnote
- a non-conventional terminology for notes and intervals: integer numbers
I strongly believe that these three items are easier to understand compared to the traditional ones. They allow to play music more naturally by having fewer things to remember. I think that playing an instrument should be as natural and straightforward as singing.
1.1 My Background
I have been playing the guitar for 10 years, but as I have not played very regularly, I would think my level is intermediate. I learned to play the guitar using tablatures for many years, concentrating on the technique rather than the theory.
More recently, I learned a bit about music theory and harmonization and how it translates to the guitar. However, with my Maths/Computer science background, I found it striking that many concepts could be explained much more succinctly and logically using numbers and arithmetics rather than letters and roman numerals !
My musical inclination is towards blues / rock / heavy metal, but I also fancy a bit of pop and classical music from time to time.
1.2 My first student
My 14-years old daughter had taken guitar lessons for a few years and then stopped. She is now keen on playing again, and I proposed to teach her using the non-conventional items outlined above. She is not a true beginner, therefore some of the lessons might be too fast paced for complete beginners. I will try to keep this in mind and maybe add additional lessons depending on your feedback.
1.3 Links
- Music for geeks and nerds is a very interesting short book. Highly recommended if you like programming
- M3 Guitar describes how to tune your guitar in Major Thirds, and provides useful chords and scales diagrams
- Clairnote is an alternative music notation which works very well with the Major Third tuning.
- Wikipedia: pitch class describes the theoretical background behind the integer notation that I will use in the lessons.
1.4 Feedback
If you like this blog, if you do not understand something, if you think I should explain things differently, or if you think my approach is completely wrong, I would welcome your feedback ! Please leave a comment below.
2 Integer notation
In all the lessons, I will use integer numbers from 0 to 11 for the names of the notes, instead of the traditional C, D, E, F, G, A, B or Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si.
The reason for this unorthodox choice is that I find it much easier to do arithmetics with numbers rather than with letters !
| Integer | English | Latin |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | C | Do |
| 1 | C# / Db | Do# / Reb |
| 2 | D | Re |
| 3 | D# / Eb | Re# / Mib |
| 4 | E | Mi |
| 5 | F | Fa |
| 6 | F# / Gb | Fa# / Solb |
| 7 | G | Sol |
| 8 | G# / Ab | Sol# / Lab |
| 9 | A | La |
| 10 | A# / Bb | La# / Sib |
| 11 | B | Si |
In this notation, there is one semitone between 2 consecutive notes. 12 seminotes constitute an octave. Two notes separated by 12 semitones (or one octave) have the same name.
3 Tune your guitar
We are going to use a special tuning, called "Major third tuning". It means that there is a "Major Third" interval = 4 semitones, between two strings. But we will come back later to these terms in more details.
You do not need a special device for this, these days a phone or tablet does the job very well. I would recommend PitchLab lite (here for Android, here for iPhone), but you can use any tuner as long as you can change the default notes for each string.
You need to tune the strings with the following notes, from the highest pitched string to the lowest :
4 / C |-------------| 6th string (highest pitch) 8 / Ab |-------------| 5th string 4 / E |-------------| 4th string 0 / C |-------------| 3rd string 8 / Ab |-------------| 2nd string 4 / E |-------------| 1st string (lowest pitch)
You can check that the guitar is well tuned by playing one string on the 4th fret and the following string open. The two pitches must be exactly the same. Then do the the same for the 5th and 4th string, 4th and 3rd, …
0 / C |----------0--| 8 / Ab |-------0--4--| 4 / E |-------4-----| 0 / C |----0--------| 8 / Ab |-0--4--------| 2nd string: open, do not press any fret 4 / E |-4-----------| 1st string: 4th fret with left index
It is important to always play with a guitar in tune. I would recommend to always tune your guitar before a practice session. At this stage of your learning, you are creating connections between your different senses. Your ears, fingers, and eyes are all learning the guitar. If you get used to the guitar sounding out of tune, then you will take longer to overcome that.
OK, now that our guitar is in tune, we are going to use Clairnote to play some scales.
4 Clairnote
Clairnote music notation is an alternative music notation system designed and introduced by Paul Morris in December 2013. If you are already familiar with the Traditional Notation (TN), you can go to the Clairnote website to understand the differences in more details.
But given that this blog is intended for beginners, I will give you just enough information to get started. The clairnote music sheet below is a 0 / C chromatic scale, it starts with the note 0 / C and has 12 notes. In this scale, each note is one "semitone" above the preceding one.
4.1 Chromatic scale
4.2 Features
- Hollow and solid note heads alternate to help indicate a note’s pitch and to make interval patterns easy to see.
- The staff line are regularly spaced by 4 semitones.
- The 0 / C staff line is invisible to make the staff less cluttered.
4.3 On the guitar neck
When we tuned our guitar earlier, we tuned it so that two consecutive strings are also separated by 4 semitones. This correspondance means that you can almost treat the clairnote notation as a tablature, each staff line representing one string.
Let's play the chromatic scale on the guitar. We must start with a 0 / C, and add one semitone each time. On the guitar neck, one semitone = one fret. Here is the corresponding tablature:
0 / C |--------------------------------------| 8 / Ab |-------------------------0--1--2--3---| 4 / E |-------------0--1--2--3---------------| 0 / C |-0--1--2--3---------------------------| 8 / Ab |--------------------------------------| 4 / E |--------------------------------------|
You can appreciate how close the tablature matches the clairnote staff, and how you can play the entire scale without moving your left arm.
One of the great features of the guitar is that you can play the same notes at different places on the neck. Let's play the same scale starting on the 4 / E string. Here is a trick to instantly find any note on a given string:
- take the open string's note s = 4 / E
- take the target note n = 0
- calculate f = n - s = 0 - 4 = -4
- if the resulting number f is negative, add 12 to it => fret = -4 + 12 = 8
- that means that if we play the 8th fret on the 4 / E string, we will get a 0 / C note !
0 / C |--------------------------------------| 8 / Ab |--------------------------------------| 4 / E |--------------------------------------| 0 / C |-------------------------8--9--10-11--| 8 / Ab |-------------8--9--10-11--------------| 4 / E |-8--9--10-11--------------------------|
5 The major scale
The major scale or Ionian scale is one of the most commonly used musical scales, especially in Western music. Like many musical scales it is made up of seven notes.
Here is a 0 / C major scale. Its name comes from the first note on the scale.
You should be able to play it on the guitar without a tablature. Observe the number of semitones between two notes:
- when there is only +1 semitone, the note head changes from black to white, or from white to black.
- on the guitar, play +1 fret. If you played a note n with your index, play n+1 with your middle finger. If you played n with your pinkie, play n+1 on the following string with your index.
- when there are +2 semitones, the note head is the same, but it slightly higher on the staff
- on the guitar, play +2 frets. Use the same rules w.r.t fingering: your left arm should not move.
Here is the tablature for reference, but try to play by just looking at the clairnote staff.
0 / C |---------------------------| 8 / Ab |---------------------------| 4 / E |---------------------------| 0 / C |----------------9--11------| 8 / Ab |-------8--9--11------------| 4 / E |-8--10---------------------|
6 Exercise 1
Play the 9 / A major scale, starting on the 4 / E string, and then starting on the 8 / Ab string.
7 Exercise 2
Play a simple song that you already know which only uses the major scale. For instance you can try "Happy Birthday", "Jingle Bells", "Au clair de la lune", …
Start playing it in the 0 / C Key, which means that you will use only the notes of the 0 / C major scale. Once your have found the right notes and the right rythm, try playing it in another key, and/or try playing it in the same key, but start from a different string.
