Hey Friend,
Yesterday I mentioned that there are a total of 12 pitches that we use in music, but I also mentioned that we really only need to start off learning seven of those twelve.
Seven is an important number because it tells us how many notes there are in a key. It’s also the same number of pitches you’ll find in most scales.
Now I know the thought of scales might make your eyes glaze over (or any talk of musical mechanics), but I want you to pay attention.
A scale gives us the building blocks for melody. It tells us exactly which notes we can use to make sure our melody doesn’t sound off.
Fortunately, our ears are pretty smart. They can tell when a note doesn’t belong in the melody.
I know you’ve felt this before. You almost tense up when an “out of place” note rings out. You know instinctively when a pitch is played that doesn’t fit within the sequence of notes you’re playing.
So part of understanding how to create melodies is not learning the notes, it’s learning how to find and play the notes on your chosen instrument.
Lucky for us stringed instrument makers (luthiers) build guitars so that they’re ready to go with the proper neck length and fret spacing measured out.
So all we have to do is tune up and put our fingers in the right places to play the proper notes.
Back to the seven notes…
We use the Latin alphabet to give each note a name. The Latin alphabet is A, B, C… all the way to Z.
For music, we only need seven of these letters to give us the note names.
Starting with A, the names of notes are A, B, C, D, E, F and G.
I can hear the gears in your head turning… I told you there are twelve notes we use, so why do we only need seven letter names?
We’ll get to that tomorrow...
Peace~
Dave
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