Hey Friend,
Sounds like a cool band name, huh?
We talked a little about the Tonic note yesterday. That is the root note of the key, the first note in the line up. In the future when we talk about chord construction, I'm going to call it the "one" note.
We also talked some about intervals. I'd like to formally introduce you to them:
"Intervals, this is Friend. Friend, these are the Intervals!"
What you see below is a chart of all the intervals in a key. In the first column I've listed the note number that we'll use in chord construction. The second column shows the name of the interval.
Familiarize yourself with them because they will come up in future conversations. Of course, I will always try to remind you of what a word or concept means, but you should make it a point to understand these moving forward - for your own knowledge.
1 Tonic (Perfect Unison) m2 Minor Second 2 Major Second m3 Minor Third 3 Major Third 4 Perfect Fourth d5 Diminished Fifth/Augmented Fourth 5 Perfect Fifth m6 Minor Sixth 6 Major Sixth m7 Minor Seventh 7 Major Seventh 8 Octave (Perfect Octave)
Remember I said an interval is the space between two notes? I want to make a distinction here. Each of these intervals is a semitone (or half step) between each other. That means as you play a tonic note and then a minor second, you have moved one semitone. That's basically playing two notes on two consecutive frets.
The same is true if you play the perfect fourth and then play a major third - again, one semitone. You're just moving in the opposite direction.
Put in guitar terms, that's one fret, up or down in movement. A semitone equals a half-step equals one fret on guitar.
If you were to play the tonic note and then a major second, you've now moved a tone apart (or a whole step). This would be two frets on your guitar. Let's lay this out for each interval so you can see them:
The tonic (1) is the root, so it's your base starting point. The minor second (m2) is one semitone from the tonic, so one fret. This would be like plucking one of the open strings, then pressing that string before the first fret and plucking it. The major second (2) is two semitones (one tone), or two frets. The minor third (m3) is three semitones, three frets on guitar. The major third (3) is 4 semitones (two tones), or four frets. This is where the interval name and the number of frets quit lining up pretty. The perfect fourth (4) is 5 semitones from the root. So it's five frets away. This is also the note used for standard tuning. The diminished fifth (d5) is six semitones (3 tones), or six frets up from the root. The perfect fifth (5) is seven semitones, or seven frets up from the root. The minor sixth (m6) is eight semitones (4 tones) and eight frets up. The major sixth (6) is nine semitones. Yup, nine frets, too. The minor seventh (m7) is ten semitones (five tones), ten frets away from root. The major seventh (7) is eleven frets up - that's eleven semitones. The octave completes the cycle. It is the same note as the tonic, just a higher pitch. It is twelve frets above the root, and the twelfth semitone (six tones).
You've come full circle. Believe it or not, we've covered a lot of ground. We still haven't worked on any chords, but this information will be helpful to you in the long run. I'm putting together a summary sheet of what we looked at this week, so if some of it is fuzzy, you'll have a visual reference to help clear up the concepts. Have a great Friday!
Peace~
Dave | 
