Hey Friend,

In western music, we like the key of C major. A lot.

Our guitars use it for standard tuning, but more importantly, it's the easiest key to learn. 

This is because each note in the key of C major is natural. There are no sharp or flat notes in the key of C. What's also cool about C major is it sets up scale patterns perfectly for us to learn them quickly. Once we know the pattern, we can use it in any key and it just works.

Alright, I can tell I'm losing some of you already. Let me break it down for you even further (it's not too difficult, really!).

Remember I said the notes we use in western music are named after the first seven letters of the alphabet? But then I said there are a total of twelve notes within a scale? Things don't seem to add up, if you get my drift...

How do seven notes become twelve notes?

It all comes down to the spacing between each natural note. Some natural note pitches (pitch is the specific sound wave frequency assigned to each note) land right next to each other. Others have a pitch that falls between them. Let's look at them...

The natural notes are (and I'll start with C in this example):

Pretty clean and straightforward, right? But we're only showing seven notes, so let's flesh this out some more. 

As I said, some pitches sit nicely next to their neighbor while others need a note in between keeping them separate - kinda like when your mom had to sit between you and your little sister to keep the two of you behaved.

Here's how they fall:

C - D - E F - G - A - B 

So you see, the dashes represent pitches that separate two natural notes. For example, C and D are natural notes, and they have a pitch sitting between them. E and F are good buddies, so they don't need someone between them. B and C are good buddies, too. If you move into the next octave, these two pitches sit next to each other nicely.

So who are these "separators?" These are your sharp (#) or flat (b) notes. They're also called "accidentals." This is what a full complement of pitches looks like:

Count 'em up - you'll see there are twelve notes represented. And as soon as you reach be, you move into the next octave and back to the C note.

With the notes laid out like this, we have a scale pattern I haven't talked about. It's called the Chromatic Scale.

What we have are notes that are almost equally spaced in pitch. Think of it like walking up stairs. If you walk on each step, there's an equal rise in elevation for each step - this would be like playing the Chromatic scale. If you skip some steps and go up two instead, you're leaving out some of those notes.

On your guitar, play a chromatic scale. On the second string (B), start with a C note (first fret). Then move up the neck one fret. This is C# (C sharp). Move again to the next fret and you have D. Keep going up one fret at a time until you've reached the twelfth fret. You have now played a Chromatic Scale.

Tomorrow I will give you the pattern for the major scale in C major. 

Believe it or not, I've shown you all the notes you need right here for any power chord you'll play in the key of C. When you can write out a major scale (not the chromatic scale), you have all the information in front of you to construct the chords for that key. That's another cool benefit to learning about scales. They give you the ingredients to make up chords.

Once you have the major scale written out, it's just a matter of counting. Power chords are made up with the tonic note and the fifth note from the major scale. The tonic is the same note as the chord name. If you want to play a C5 power chord, look at the major scale above. The C note is number one. Starting there, count each note until you get to number five. Then use those two notes to play the power chord.

So for the C5 power chord, what is the fifth note?

Peace~

Dave 

P.S. It's the G note. C and G make the C power chord.