The Basic Music Alphabet

By convention, we use seven letters - A,B,C,D,E,F,G - to identify all of the discreet pitches in our musical alphabet. Note that continuous pitches, such as those created with a music synthesizer, will not be discussed here; that topic is beyond the scope of these lessons. In order to notate the entire range of pitches we require, each of the pitches represented by the seven letters are qualified by their placement on the musical staff, and, possibly, by the use of some number of "sharp", "flat", or "natural" (see lesson 6) modifiers. There is a fixed relationship between all of the letter pitches in the musical alphabet. Those relationships are independent of the scale, or even of the musical "key - or tonal center" that we chose to use. The relationship between letter names are based on the distance in half steps between each succeeding letter, and are ALWAYS as follows:

The Natural Music Alphabet - A,B,C,D,E,F,G

The distance in half steps between succeeding letter names in the natural music alphabet:

A to B -> two half steps

B to C -> one half step

C to D -> two half steps

D to E -> two half steps

E to F -> one half step

F to G -> two half steps

G to A -> Two half steps

COMMIT THESE RELATIONSHIPS TO MEMORY!!!

Notice that the transition between letter names varies between either one or two half steps. The distance between B and C, and the distance between E and F, are the ONLY letter names that have one half step. All other transitions require two half steps. Also note that there are a total of 12 half steps before we start again at the initial letter name. Let's clarify this by writing the twelve notes that take us from A to the next A:

A, (A# or Bb), B, C, (C# or Db), D, (D# or Eb), E, F, (F# or Gb), G, (G# or Ab), A

If you examine the twelve notes given above, you will see that five of the notes can have two names, depending on whether you label the note relative to the preceding, or proceeding letter. For completeness, you should know that it is possible to label any of the notes, even pure letter notes, with some number of sharps or flats. For example, the letter note "B", could, under certain circumstances, be labeled "A##", or A "double sharp." This is usually done when it is necessary to use altered forms of the same letter note in a single measure of music. We will ignore this notational technique for the time being because it is encountered infrequently in beginning and intermediate music. By the time you're playing advanced music, this will all be second nature to you.

Review lesson 6 if you don't remember some of the following terminology.

Written music is placed on either a line or a space on the staff, and the clef defines the actual letter name of each note's position on that staff. For example, the letter name of the note on the top line of the staff, using the "G" clef, is "F". A note in that same position on the staff using the "F" clef is "A". Once a reference letter name is defined by the clef, all subsequent letters and spaces on that staff are automatically defined relative to the reference letter. A letter name changes each time you move up or down from a line to a space or from a space to a line. That means that there are two letter transitions between adjacent lines or between adjacent spaces of the staff. If you refer to the first example in the paragraph, the letter name of the note one line below the "F" note on the top line of the staff would be two letters before "F" in the music alphabet: i.e., "D". The space immediately below the "F" would be one letter name before "F", i.e., "E". The important thing to remember here is that the staff always has a transition of one letter name as you move from a space, to a line, to the next space, to the next line, etc. The letter name of the note on the staff has no bearing on the number of half steps that exist naturally between subsequent letters of the musical alphabet.

Locating notes on the guitar.

Every musical instrument we use to play classical music has a well defined technique, or method, to produce each note in its own musical range. The guitar is fairly simple. It has "frets" on the neck of the guitar, and the musical distance between each fret is exactly one half step. Let's examine the guitar to discover how to locate any note. The thickest string is usually tuned to an "E". Let's assume for this discussion that we are using standard guitar tuning, and lets identify every note on the low "E" string. Refer to the natural music alphabet given above to see the number of half steps between letter transitions.

>-- The notes on both the Low and high "E" Strings --

- Open String-> "E", by definition of standard tuning

- 1st fret -> 1 half step above "E" = "F" (there is only one half step between "E" and "F")

- 2nd fret -> 1 half step above "F" = (F# or Gb) -> there are 2 half steps between letter "F" and "G"

- 3rd fret -> 1 half step above "F#"= G - the second half step between letters "F" and "G"

- 4th fret -> 1 half step above "G" = (G# or Ab)

... continuing one fret, i.e., one half step at a time:

- 5th fret -> "A"

- 6th fret -> "(A# or Bb)"

- 7th fret -> "B"

- 8th fret -> "C" - (only one half step between letter names "B" and "C")

- 9th fret -> "(C# or Db)"

- 10th fret -> "D"

- 11th fret -> "(D# or Eb)"

- 12th fret -> "E"

We see that the name of the note on the 12th fret is identical to the name of the open string! If you measure the length of the string with a tape measure, you will find that the 12th fret is positioned below the point in the string that is exactly one half of the string length. Referring to "The Acoustics of Music", you will see that we have reached the Octave - the note that vibrates at twice the frequency of the original note, and does so because it is produced by a string that is half the length of the original string.

Let's continue this process for the rest of the strings on the guitar.

-- The notes on the "A" String --

- Open String-> "A", by definition of standard tuning

- 1st fret -> 1 half step above "A" = (A# or Bb)

- 2nd fret -> 1 half step above "A#" = "B"

- 3rd fret -> 1 half step above "B"= C - (only one half step between letter names "B" and "C")

- 4th fret -> 1 half step above "C" = (C# or Db)

- 5th fret -> "D"

- 6th fret -> "(D# or Eb)"

- 7th fret -> "E"

- 8th fret -> "F" - (only one half step between letter names "E" and "F")

- 9th fret -> "(F# or Bb)"

- 10th fret -> "G"

- 11th fret -> "(G# or Ab)"

- 12th fret -> "A"

-- The notes on the "D" String --

- Open String-> "D", by definition of standard tuning

- 1st fret -> "(D# or Eb)"

- 2nd fret -> "E"

- 3rd fret -> "F"

- 4th fret -> "(F# or Gb)

- 5th fret -> "G"

- 6th fret -> "(G# or Ab)"

- 7th fret -> "A"

- 8th fret -> "(A# or Bb)"

- 9th fret -> "B"

- 10th fret -> "C"

- 11th fret -> "(C# or Db)"

- 12th fret -> "D"

-- The notes on the "G" String --

- Open String-> "G", by definition of standard tuning

- 1st fret -> "(G# or Ab)"

- 2nd fret -> "A"

- 3rd fret -> "(A# or Bb)"

- 4th fret -> "B"

- 5th fret -> "C"

- 6th fret -> "(C# or Db)"

- 7th fret -> "D"

- 8th fret -> "(D# or Eb)"

- 9th fret -> "E"

- 10th fret -> "F"

- 11th fret -> "(F# or Gb)"

- 12th fret -> "G"

-- The notes on the "B" String --

- Open String-> "B", by definition of standard tuning

- 1st fret -> "C"

- 2nd fret -> "(C# or Db)"

- 3rd fret -> "D"

- 4th fret -> "(D# or Eb)"

- 5th fret -> "E"

- 6th fret -> "F"

- 7th fret -> "(F# or Gb)"

- 8th fret -> "G

- 9th fret -> "(G# or Ab)"

- 10th fret -> "A

- 11th fret -> "(A# or Bb)"

- 12th fret -> "B"

I have only identified the notes between the open strings and the 12th fret, but the pattern repeats itself from the 12th fret all the way up the neck of the guitar to the last fret. You now know all of the notes on the guitar, and, even more importantly, how to identify any note without rote memorization. Just apply the basic rules of the music alphabet to the physical layout of the notes on the guitar. You should take some time to discover interesting and useful patterns of notes on the neck. For example, see how the 5th fret of each string (except the "G" string) has the identical pitch as that of the next higher string. Discover how many places on the neck you can find each note. You'll see that the notes on them first 4 frets of the low "E" string only exist in one place, but that every other note (until you reach the highest 4 frets of the high "E" string) exists in at least one other location on the neck. It really doesn't take much effort to become comfortably familiar with all of the notes on the guitar neck - don't let it overwhelm you! The relationship between notes on adjacent string or on strings separated by only one other string will give you reference points that will allow you to quickly find any note you need. Learn how to take advantage of the symmetry of the layout of all the notes on the guitar. You'll see more of what I mean once we start talking about some of the common scales and about the harmonic relationships between the notes of each scale.

Common Scales Used in Classical Music

--General rules used in the definition of scales--

We will discuss two basic scales in this lesson: the Major scale and the natural minor scale. The intention here is not to provide a definitive text on all of the scales used in our music, that task is already handled very well by numerous texts on the subject. This lesson will make you aware of the "rules" we've invented to define these two common scales. Each rule, when applied in conjunction with the natural music alphabet, will result in the pitch definitions for the scale in question. The process we use here can be applied to any other scale once the rule for the creation of any particular scale is understood. If you are interested in continuing your study of this topic, the information you learn here will be a good background for your future study.

The rules for creation of any scale are very similar to the rules that define the natural music alphabet. Each scale has a predefined order of whole and half steps required to identify each pitch. We start with the pitch upon which we want to build a scale, and then we apply the rules for that scale to define each subsequent note until we reach the octave.

Rules to create the tones of a Major Scale:

1st letter interval (steps between 1st and 2nd scale tones) = two half steps (whole step)

2nd letter interval (steps between 2nd and 3rd scale tones) = two half steps

3rd letter interval (steps between 3rd and 4th scale tones) = one half step

4th letter interval (steps between 4th and 5th scale tones) = two half steps

5th letter interval (steps between 5th and 6th scale tones) = two half steps

6th letter interval (steps between 6th and 7th scale tones) = two half steps

7th letter interval (steps between 7th and 8th scale tones) = one half step

Rules to create the tones for a Natural Minor Scale:

1st letter interval (steps between 1st and 2nd scale tones) = two half steps

2nd letter interval (steps between 2nd and 3rd scale tones) = one half step

3rd letter interval (steps between 3rd and 4th scale tones) = two half steps

4th letter interval (steps between 4th and 5th scale tones) = two half steps

5th letter interval (steps between 5th and 6th scale tones) = one half step

6th letter interval (steps between 6th and 7th scale tones) = two half steps

7th letter interval (steps between 7th and 8th scale tones) = two half steps

COMMIT THESE RULES TO MEMORY, They are basic to the music we will study !!!

Application of the Major Scale rules to the creation of major scales:

-- Creation of the A major scale --

1) write out all the letters of the music alphabet starting with the desired starting pitch, including the octave to duplicate the starting pitch because it will allow us to verify that application of the last rule (the steps between the 7th and 8th scale tones) results in the correct octave note:

- A,B,C,D,E,F,G,A

2) apply the major scale rules to each succeeding note and find the appropriate modifier to the letter pitch based on the major scale rule and the natural music alphabet:

A to B - the major scale rule requires two half steps - checking with music alphabet shows it has two half steps - the "B" is therefore not modified by any sharp or flat, and it becomes the 2nd tone of the A major scale.

B to C - the major scale rule requires two half steps - checking with music alphabet shows there is only one half step existing naturally between B and C, so the "C" must be modified by raising it one half step in order for the proper major scale pitch to be created. "C#" is therefore the third pitch in the A major scale.

C# to D - the major scale rule requires one half step between the 3rd and 4th scale tones. There is only one half step between a "C#" and a "D", so the rule is satisfied without having to modify the "D". D is therefore the 4th note of the A major scale.

D to E - the major scale rule requires two half steps between the 4th and 5th scale tones. Checking with the natural music alphabet shows that there are two half steps existing naturally between "D" and "E". therefore, the "E" does not need to be modified, and "E" is the 5th note in the A major scale.

E to F - the major scale rule requires two half steps between the 5th and the 6th scale tones. The natural music alphabet shows there is only one half step between "E" and "F", so we need to raise the "F" to an "F#" in order to satisfy the major scale rule. "F#" is therefore the 6th tone of the A major scale.

F# to G - the major scale rule requires two half steps between the 6th and 7th scale tones. There is only one half step between "F#" and "G", so we need to raise the "G" to a "G#" in order to satisfy the major scale rule. "G#" is therefore the 7th scale tone of the A major scale.

G# to A - the major scale rule requires one half step between the 7th scale tone and the 8th tone ( octave). There is one half step between a "G#" and an "A", so the check we put in to make sure we reach the octave after following all the scale rules shows that we do, indeed, reach the correct octave "A".

The "A" major scale is shown to have three sharps, and the notes are as follows: A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G#, A

-- Creation of the A natural minor scale --

As an exercise, verify that the A natural minor scale has no sharp or flat modifiers by going through the procedure I just went through for the A major scale, but apply the rules for the natural minor scale instead.

The A natural minor scale is: A,B,C,D,E,F,G,A

Note that the rules for the natural minor scale require one half step between the 2nd and 3rd notes, and between the 5th and 6th notes of the scale. If you look at the letter notes written above for the A natural minor scale, you will see that the required one half step interval between the 2nd and 3rd notes is satisfied by the "B" and the "C", and that the required one half step interval between the 5th and the 6th notes of the scale is satisfied by the natural half step that exists between the letters "E" and "F".

This concludes lesson 9, the last lesson of Book I. You now have enough background knowledge to begin working on pieces of music. Book II of this series will present a detailed study of actual pieces of music from the Classical guitar repertoire.