Basic Parts of Music Theory

Series Summary

Music has always been a part of all of us as human beings. This being the case, we have devised ways to write it, read it and, of course, play it. We have developed terms for every musical scenario that might occur and ways to teach all of this, as well. Things like minor and major, 7th chords, intervals and chords are all great examples of the way we like to organize music.

In this free video series our expert Pete Pidgeon will show you several steps for understanding the basics of music theory for guitar. You'll learn about sound waves, amplitude, frequency, octaves as well as scales. Pete will show you several methods for understanding the notes you play as well as how to find them on the fret board. In the end you'll understand terms like dyads and chords, which will help you on your way towards integrating music theory into your everyday music life.

Video Transcript

"In this series, I'm going to discuss the basics of music theory, and how to apply that theory to the guitar. I'll go over the basic waveform, which is really the roots of it all. We'll talk a little bit about the different parts of the wave, the amplitude and the frequency. We'll go over the meanings of an octave and the harmonic sequence, which have to do with dividing up a wave into segments. We'll talk about the chromatic scale, and how to play that on the guitar in a couple of different forms. We'll talk about the names of the notes in the chromatic scale. We'll take a look at those both on a piano, and a guitar, just for their application. And we'll also note some things on the guitar, how it's laid out. For example, as you might have seen in tuning, the fifth fret, how that relates to the next string. The twelfth fret which would be the octave and several other aspects to theory."