Hey Friend,
As you may have surmised, we are starting to look at the most common minor keys you'll see in Rock music. I've been using C major and its relative minor A minor as the initial study because they are the easiest to learn.
This is because of the fact that they are constructed entirely from natural notes. By natural, I mean there are no sharp or flat notes in their scales. A sharp or flat note is known as an accidental. So in essence, we can think of C and A minor as the purest keys.
But the real beauty of these keys is not that they have no accidental notes, it's that they define the patterns we use for all the other keys.
For each note, there is a specific interval between the note before it and the one after. Once you memorize this very simple pattern, it works for every key in the same way.
Yes, the notes change, but with the same pattern, they always interact with each other so that a major scale will always sound like a major scale. The same for the natural minor scale.
I showed you the patterns on Monday, but we can review it again.
A major key and its resulting major scale will follow this interval pattern to define the notes of that key:
W W H W W W H
Each W is a whole step (or two frets) and each H is a half step (one fret). What it means is, between the first note and second in a major key (and scale) is a whole step. Between the second and third note is a whole step. Between the third and fourth note is a half step. These "steps" (or spaces) between each note are also know as intervals.
For C major, this is what it looks like:
C w D w E h F w G w A w B h (C)
Or if you think of the pattern in terms of fret spaces, it's:
C 2 D 2 E 1 F 2 G 2 A 2 B 1 (C)
For minor keys, the intervals still follow the same patterns between the notes
A w B h C w D w E h F w G w (A)
A 2 B 1 C 2 D 2 E 1 F 2 G 2 (A)
Notice the intervals did not change between the notes in either relative major or minor key. We just shifted our starting point from C to A.
So the Key of C major is the linchpin in modern music. Its notes and intervals are like the Rosetta Stone for music because you will always follow the pattern defined by C major to create every other major and minor key.
Learn and memorize the pattern - it will have a profound effect on your understanding of music!
With the weekend starting, I'm not sure how much I will be online, so there may or may not be a message tomorrow. The bathroom renovation has kicked into full gear, and I expect I'll be elbow deep in it for the most of my days. Now that my wife has tasted blood, she wants it done!
If I don't talk with you before Monday, have a great weekend!
Peace~
Dave | 
