Hey Friend,
As I said yesterday, without notes, you can't really make chords. Without a key, you don't know what notes you can use for chords.
Now you can go far without knowing anything about keys and scales. Truthfully, all you really need to know are the basic chord shapes (or patterns - see, what did I say about patterns??). And if all you care about is goofing around a little, strumming a few songs, your time is probably better spent doing something besides reading this newsletter.
But I know that's not you. Clearly you're here to learn something...
A scale is the base element derived from the key. The key defines what notes belong in a scale.
Here's a simple question for you: how many note possibilities are there?
There are only twelve possible notes that you can use in a scale. Think about that for a second... Twelve notes, and from those twelve notes there have been millions of songs written!
In case you haven't made the connection, each fret on the guitar neck represents one of those twelve notes. If you pluck any of the open strings, you've established a starting point (one of twelve). You can consider that the root note. Place your index finger on the first fret of that string and that is the second of twelve possible notes.
As you move your finger up the neck one fret at a time and finally reach the twelfth fret, you have successfully played each note. That twelfth fret is the same note as when you played the open string - it's just a higher pitch of the same note.
Congrats, you've just played a Chromatic scale! The chromatic scale is great for exercises like finger strengthening and control, but it doesn't help us much with chord creation. But it has demonstrated every note you will use to create guitar chords.
The notes within the chromatic scale can one of two things - natural or accidental. A natural note is one that is neither sharp nor flat. These are the natural notes we use in music:
A B C D E F G
Seven of them. That leaves us with five notes of the twelve we can use - which are called accidental notes. Which are either sharp or flat. These notes are:
A# C# D# F# G# (sharps, using the pound sign or hashtag)
Or...
Ab Bb Db Eb Gb (flats, which we use a lower case 'b' to notate)
Notice how there's some overlap? Here's how to know when you use a sharp or flat in a scale. When you are playing notes and going up in pitch, the accidentals are sharps. When you are descending in a scale, the accidentals are flats. Like this:
A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# (A, A sharp, B, etc.)
Or...
A Ab G Gb F E Eb D Db C B Bb (A, A flat, G, etc.)
It's rare that you'll need to worry much about flat notes when you see chords. But now you are at least familiar with them, so when you do see one, you won't be like "What the heck is that?!"
Alright, that's a good place to stop for today. Practice playing the chromatic scale so your ears start getting familiar with how the notes all sound. Start on the open A string (fifth string) and work your way up to the twelfth fret.
See ya tomorrow!
Peace~
Dave | 
