- First the left hand...
When playing a scale requires you to change strings, the left hand must move across the strings by a motion of the left arm, keeping the angle of the hand constant with respect to the fingerboard. This motion was discussed in an earlier lesson.
The fingers of the left hand must prepare in the same way they prepared for the case of the single string - except that you can now also prepare ahead of time for ascending notes. Use the same type of exercise patterns you used earlier but continue each
repetition of the pattern by moving from the lowest sting to the next higher string until you reach the highest string, and then move back down to the lower string again.
Practice by not lifting any finger until you must do so in order to play the next note. This technique will be applied later on to control the duration of notes which must be held or released to support the harmony, but it is good for the purpose of this lesson to ignore any harmonic disonances that might be created by holding two notes together. You will find that you will be holding a note on one string while you are preparing to play a note on an adjacent string. This same technique will apply when going up or down in pitch.
The pitches aren't that important yet, we are focusing on the sound of the notes in transition, so that is the most important consideration for this lesson. Repeat the same exercise you did at the beginning of this lesson where you first lifted all fingers between each note and then repeated the scale while keeping the fingers down where possible.
You will hear the difference in sound caused by the action of the left hand finger, but it will most likely be occluded by the overwhelming difference in sound caused by the fact that each string has its own characteristic timbre. Try to mentally filter out those timber changes and listen to the differences caused by the left hand motion. We will discuss how to work with the natural timbre differences between strings in the next part of this lesson. Learn to control the sound as you did before.
- now the right hand...
The right hand must also move from the arm so that the angle of the hand at the wrist doesn't change unless you want it to. You will notice the right hand will require more thought, planning and control in order to move smoothly between strings. Be careful not to tighten up your shoulder as you move your right arm. The motion should come from the elbow.
As you practice to control the sound of each note you'll once again find that the variation in sound caused by changing strings will be much more obvious than the changes caused by the actions of the right hand. Don't worry about it. You will be able to hear the changes caused by the right hand by repeating the scales with different fixed right hand positions. Your earlier training from the single string case will be very important because you must trust your ear. You must experiment again to discover what sounds the guitar is capable of producing. It is impossible to change strings without also changing the timbre of the sound because each string has its own characteristic timbre. Learn to appreciate the different timbres of each string and to understand the different sounds you can get by altering your touch. Finally, practice until you are again in control of the sound.
General Case - string changes and left arm motion as needed
By now, you probably are realizing that this general case can be mastered by simply combining the things you learned in each previous case. What you probably don't yet realize is that one of the most beautiful and interesting aspects of the guitar is a result of conscious use of the variety of sound built into the instrument. When you practiced the previous sections you strove to control the sound by experimenting and then understanding the possible sounds. The final part of this lesson will discuss how to use the variety of sounds which exist in the instrument to help you color the sound so it brings out your own musical ideas.
Most notes on the guitar can be played in several different positions on the fingerboard.
Did you ever wonder why the suggested fingerings on some Segovia publications seem a little more difficult than they need to be? Segovia understood how to use the guitar to produce exactly the sound he wanted. He would very often choose to remain on a single string even though it would be physically simpler to continue a scale on an adjacent string. He would also change strings even if the next note of the scale could be played without even moving his hand, but by changing the string he was forced to move
far up the neck of the guitar. Segovia used the characteristics of the guitar itself to highlight his musical ideas. Learning the notes to a piece of music was only the first task involved in learning to play a piece of music. I heard a story about a friend of Segovia's who listened to the Maestro play a new piece of music he was working on. He asked Segovia if the piece was to be played at Segovia's next concert. Segovia laughed and said that it would be at least two years before he performed the piece in public. It's sort of like a diamond in the rough. It may be beautiful even in it's raw form, but it is dazzling after it is polished.
You now have the skills to play any scale in any position on the guitar. You also know what sounds are available, and how to get the sound you want when you want it. At this point you should begin to study some real pieces of music. It isn't too important what pieces you choose to play, only that you are moved by the piece. I personally hate practicing "standalone" scales! They are boring and I lose interest really quickly. I recommend that you find some interesting pieces of music that contain scales, and practice the scale passages using the principles you learned in this lesson. Try changing the fingerings so that you get exactly the sound you want. Be creative and have fun.
I had originally planned for the next lesson to examine some more advanced techniques using simple pieces of music, but there is still one more set of fundamental elements of music that we need to cover. Lesson 9 will expand on this lesson. You will learn about the music alphabet we use, how the notes in that alphabet map to several common scales used in our music, and how to find any note on the guitar.
Book 1 -- Lesson 9 -- Scales Part II.
This lesson will explain the fundamental relationships that exist between the letter names of each of the notes in the basic music alphabet. It will then show you how to locate any note on the guitar by using those fundamental relationships and the physical construction of the guitar. The second half of the lesson will show how to derive any major and natural minor scale. It will demonstrate the application of the general rules for each of the two scales, taking into account the intervals that exist naturally in the music alphabet. This lesson will give you the information you need to create any other scales, once you learn the defining rules for the scales you desire to build.
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 preceeding, 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 "C" 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 halfs 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 beteen 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 beteen 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 beteen 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 symetry 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
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