Music Theory Introduction

October 2, 2018 by DavidJP 0 comments

Music Theory Introduction

This music theory introduction is the first in a series of blog posts I’ve written to educate interested people in music theory. These blog posts will concentrate on theory as applied to the guitar as there is a lack of sufficient reliable material available with this focus. Most theory books seem to insist on the use of the piano, something which is alien to most guitarists.

I have further posts planned which will develop into an ongoing study of music theory.

There are questions at the end. I haven’t supplied the answers, but should you wish, you can answer them and contact me with the answers. I will gladly correct them and email you back.

What is it?

Music theory is, at its most basic, a set of ‘descriptions’ regarding music. During this music theory introduction I will outline some of the basic concepts.

These descriptions offer commonalities between musical concepts and allow us to evolve what we write. It’s not a set of rules. It’s definitely not rules, even though you will hear that a lot in musical discourse.

Music theory needs to do several things all at once. It needs to indicate what is played, when it is played and for how long, and it needs to describe the character of the music.

The first rule of music theory.

If a piece of music sounds good, it IS good.

There will also nearly always be a set of theory observations that will correlate to the piece of music, but there’s no such thing as ‘wrong’ music or universally ‘bad’ music. Sure, there is music that isn’t pleasant to you, that you find noisy or too boring, but these observations don’t apply to everyone.

Let’s get started.

Notes

Western music contains 12 notes and we are primarily concerned with 7. These notes are:

A, B, C, D, E, F, and G.

It’s a little more complicated than that, but this is the foundation of every note and chord you’ve ever heard. Also, these notes are universal on any tonal instrument. Therefore, a C note on a tube has to sound similar to a C note on a guitar; similar, but not the same. Their timbre (more on that later) is different, but their pitch is the same.

There are notes higher than G and lower than A. These are just repeats of previous notes. For example,

…..C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E…..

This is a more accurate representation of music notes.

After G, the next note is A.
Before A, the previous note is G.
The underlined section of notes is called an ‘octave’.
The list of pitches is endless in either direction, and a musical instrument only uses a selection of these, known as it’s ‘range’.

Duration

To examine the duration of a note, you need to play at a certain speed. This is the ‘tempo’.

See the circled mark? This is known as a ‘tempo marking’ and tells us how fast to play.

In this case, it’s telling us to play at 158 beats per minute. To hear this speed, go here and set the metronome to 158, then hit play.

Clap along. You are clapping ‘crotchets’. These are notes that are 1 beat long in this case.

Recap.

Music uses seven primary notes (although more do exist).
These notes are A, B, C, D, E, F, and G.
The ‘range’ of an instrument is the amount of pitches it can play from the lowest to highest.
The ‘tempo’ is the speed of a piece.
Tempo is indicated in ‘beats per minute’ or bpm for short.
A ‘crotchet’ lasts for one beat (generally).

To Sum Up

You need to know all of this information to progress in the theory modules, and to become a fluent and well educated musician that can communicate effectively. This music theory introduction is the first of further modules on chords, intervals, scales, arpeggios, cadances, counterpoint, harmony, staff notation, etc. with a specific focus on the guitar.