Originally written April 2016

The SCALE:

Eight notes starting with a note from “A”. To. “G”. And ending with the same note.

Not equally spaced.  A specific combination of whole steps and half steps.

If  “A”. Is  440 CPS (Cycles per second). The next higher tone  “A”. Is 880. CPS.  While the next. “A” below 440 CPS will sound at 220 CPS.

The NATURAL scale is twelve equal divisions.  Western music does NOT use this.  Instead there are eight divisions.  Any one of the twelve steps in the natural scale is for our purposes called a half step.  Any two is a whole step.

In western music the eight note major scale (The most important in study of theory) uses a half step {ONE FRET ON A GUITAR} between the third and fourth note and the seventh and eighth note of the scale.

In music notes “A”. “B”. “C”.  “D”  “E”. “F” and  “G”. Are not equal.  “B”. To. “C”  and. “E”. To. “F” are half steps.  The others are whole steps {Two frets on a guitar}

Ummm. ……. We care about this because:

  • That’s how the old Italians did it.
  • That’s how I learned music theory.
  • That’s how modern music is written for EVERYTHING except for guitar.
  • That’s the easiest way to communicate verbally about music.
  • That’s in, in fact, how most music is written, learned, and taught.
  • That’s why guitar players are crippled when playing with others. Guitars use TAB.

The reality is that TAB standards vary from book to book, area to area, personal understanding to personal understanding.  TAB looks easy.  TAB is easy for beginners.  TAB is unmanageable for advanced players and leaves even the best guitarist illiterate among other musicians.

NOTE: Chet Atkins, Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry were NOT music readers. True genius outperforms all. For me; I had to study theory.