Hey Friend,
Coming back to Michelle's question from yesterday about the Circle of Fifths and determining notes in scales:
Hi Dave, are these instructions only applicable to reading music? Or do they also apply to tablature?
I talked about learning and knowing the pattern of intervals for the major scale (W W H W W W H). That doesn't really help you reading music or tabs, but it does help you in learning your music fundamentals.
I mentioned that knowing the pattern and how it relates to the Circle of Fifths helps you determine which notes belong within a key and scale. That in turn gives you all the notes you need for the basic chords that coincide with the key.
The Circle of Fifths can help you decipher a sheet music if you don't read music. If the key signature is correct, you can count the number of sharps/flats and reference the Circle. It'll tell you which key the sheet music is written in (unless you like memorizing key signatures).
The point I'm trying to get to is this: I introduce these tools and concepts to try and help you get a deeper understanding of how music works and making it work on guitar.
Do you need to know this stuff to play guitar? No, not at all. You can take the chords I teach, learn them and do just fine playing the music you enjoy. You don't have to learn the notes, the theory behind them, how to read sheet music or any of that stuff.
Shapes and patterns are all you need to take you to any level in Rock music you want to achieve. The Beatles couldn't read music, and it didn't hold them back in the least.
I like to teach this theory stuff because when you begin to see how things come together, your knowledge of the shapes and patterns start to take on a new level of understanding. For me, I have light bulb moments all the time, making connections between the practical application of concepts and the theoretical material.
So overall, what I'm teaching doesn't necessarily help in reading sheet music or tabs. But they help you understand what's happening from an application standpoint. Sheet music and tabs came about to allow us to write out music so we could share it with other musicians in a way that everyone can understand.
With written music, it's a set of instructions for how to play a song. It's the "what," but not the "how to." The stuff I've been teaching is more about musical application - the"how to" of music - and making it all work on a guitar.
Does that make sense?
Peace~
Dave | 
