Music theory – Page 2

Interval Inversions

Quick, what’s the interval between A and C?

Ok, it’s a trick question. The answer is it depends on which octaves the notes are in, and specifically which note is higher. That’s the concept of interval inversions that I will talk about here. I suggest reviewing my lessons on The Musical Alphabet and Intervals.

9th, 11th, and 13th Chords

Oooh, look at all those high numbers. Those must be really complicated, difficult chords! Probably sound craaaazy!

Ok, so maybe not.

These chord names may sound impressive, but they’re really just continuations of the same patterns we’ve already been using. A ninth chord is just a seventh chord with the added interval of the major ninth. An eleventh chord is just a ninth chord with the added interval of the perfect eleventh, and a thirteenth chord has the added interval of the major thirteenth.

Suspended Chords

I covered major and minor chords in a previous lesson. A suspended chord is what you get when you take a major or minor chord and replace the interval of the third with another interval.

To review, here are the interval formulas for major and minor chords.

Major	Minor
root, major third, perfect fifth	root, minor third, perfect fifth

(You can refer back to my intervals lesson if you don’t remember what the interval names mean.)

You’ll notice that the two chord formulas only differ in the second note added, which is an interval of either a major third or a minor third. So if you take that out there is nothing to distinguish a major chord from a minor chord. In fact Continue reading Suspended Chords

Pentatonic scales

This will be a fun lesson. Pentatonic scales are easy to learn, easy to play, and they sound like rock ‘n’ roll. If you want to start improvising or creating solos on guitar, chances are you’ll want to learn at least one or two pentatonic scale shapes. Most blues guitar parts are based around the pentatonic minor scale, or a close variation of it.

The best part about pentatonic scales is that if you know the major scale, you already know how to play the pentatonic major scale and the pentatonic minor scale. (If you don’t, don’t worry. I’ll teach you here, or you can read about major scales.)

Seventh Chords

Previously, I talked about the basic three-note chord types, the triads. To review, there are four basic types that are commonly used. Here they are with their interval formulas:

Major	Minor	Augmented	Diminished
root, major third, perfect fifth	root, minor third, perfect fifth	root, major third, augmented fifth	root, minor third, diminished fifth

To each of these chord types, we can add more notes to create more complicated chords. There is no limit to what we can add, but the most common type of note to add is a seventh, either a minor seventh, major seventh, or diminished seventh. As you can imagine, when combined with the four chord types we have to start with, this leads to, like, a million different chords (ok, actually 12, but you get the idea). Fortunately, some are used more frequently than others, and some are almost never used, so I’ll present the most common ones first.