Alright…I’m back from my hiatus!!! So lets get to this and let’s start talking about Intervals. From our last lesson, we talked about moving up and down “semitones” and getting to know what “sharps” and “flats” were. We talked that your guitar has frets and each fret you move, you move a “semitones’.
Now, here is where intervals comes into play. Let’s start with the full musical notes scale I talked about from our last lesson:
A – A# – B – C – C# – D – D# – E – F – F# – G – G# – A
It is normally called the “Chromatic Scale”. Simple, right!! All the notes are chromatically in order. No need to memorize it right now for this lesson, since you eventually will learn it over time…..but don’t deny it.
Intervals are defined as the distance between two pitches. I’ll try to simplify Intervals and avoid all the theory behind it, because it can get confusing (which I will show you at the end of this lesson just for shit’s and giggles). Here is what a standard guitarist needs to learn:
Move one semitone = Half-Step
Move two semitones – Whole-Step
Applies when moving up or down the neck of the guitar from fret to fret. So, looking at the scale above, if you play an “A” note and move a half-step up, you are playing “A#”. If you play an “A” note and move a whole-step up, you are playing a “B” note. In music theory, you will see whole-steps labeled as an “W” and half-steps as a “H”. See image below to see what a “W” and “H” are on the chromatic scale.
So, Intervals are the distance between two pitches….Half-step is the distance from one note to a second note that is 1 fret higher or lower than the first on the guitar. Whole-steps is the distance of 2 frets on the guitar from the original fret.
There….That it!!….Intervals!!! So why do we care about Intervals. Well, first off, you have to learn them and second, this is how you better understand how scales and chords are created.
In our next lesson, I will use Intervals to create the scales every guitarist should know…The Major and Minor scales. So keep coming back and comments on the pages.
—–FOR THOSE THAT LIKE TORTURE——
Here is the reason why learning theory is so tough for people that just want to play and learn theory to better themselves. Google this stuff if you are into it…because I’m not. Here are the names of the steps if you like to memorize them:
- 0 Half-step = 0 frets = Unison
- 1 Half-step = 1 fret = Minor Second
- 2 Half-steps = 2 frets = Major Second
- 3 Half-steps = 3 frets = Minor Third
- 4 Half-steps = 4 frets = Major Third
- 5 Half-steps = 5 frets = Perfect Fourth
- 6 Half-steps = 6 frets = Diminished Fifth/Augmented Fourth
- 7 Half-steps = 7 fret = Perfect Fifth/Augmented Fifth
- and so on…and so one…and so on!!