Warming up

Well, today was warmer than the past few days. So much for autumn temps. I hope the temp drops in time for Halloween. For some reason, Halloween needs to be chilly for it to be Halloween ^_^ Halloween is special this year because it's a particular someone's birthday ^_^ Do you realize how awesome it would be to have your birthday on Halloween??? Way too awesome to even imagine LOL ^_^ I need to learn a song on my guitar. No, not the "Notice Me" song, I think that I've been noticed ^_^ I'll give that to him as present for his birthday and something else too ^_^

I'm learning simple music theory with his help. The more I learn, the more interesting it becomes. Music is patterns upon patterns upon patterns. By changing a single pattern, you can change an entire piece, but usually not for the better. That's where the theory part comes into play. Some fundamentals: Music uses an alphabet of seven letters: A B C D E F G It then repeats itself. Each letter represents a whole note. On the guitar, each fret represents one half step. It takes two half steps, one whole step, to go from one whole note to the next whole note, except to go from a B to a C and an E to an F. Each of those takes only a half step. The extra half step between each of the remain notes is be called either a flat or a sharp. I haven't figured out when to call that note a sharp or a flat yet. Anyway, in between the A and B is the A sharp (A#) or the B flat (Bb). It's the same note A# = Bb. In between C and D, C# or Db. D and E, D# and Eb. And so on, except between B and C and E and F. There's no half steps in between them, so there's no sharps or flats. The collection of whole notes and half notes is called a scale. One of the more common scales is the Chromatic Scale. It is a collection of 12 notes each half a step apart. The one that is used most often as an example is the C Chromatic Scale. Going for low pitch to high pitch: C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C and going back down: C B Bb A Ab G Gb F E Eb D Db C. Notice, no E#, Fb, B#, or Cb? Okay, that's one pattern.

The next pattern is called a major scale and it consists of seven notes separated by whole steps (W) and half steps (h) in this pattern: W-W-h-W-W-W-h. The C major scale is a common example of this: C D E F G A B. There is a whole step between C and D, and D and E. There is a half step between E and F. Whole steps between F and G, G and A, and A and B. And finally, there's a half step between B and C. It's called the C major scale because it starts on C. This was a simple scale, not much thinking was required to generate it. An example of a more complicated scale would be the E major scale. It's not just EFGABCD. Nope. That doesn't follow the WWhWWWh pattern. The easiest way to generate the E major scale is to apply the WWhWWWh pattern to the C Chromatic scale listed above. Since each of those notes is half a step, you just count off the steps starting with F. A whole step from F is G. A whole step from G is A. A half step from A is A# (or Bb). A whole step, two half steps, from A# is C. A whole step from C is D. From D is E. Finally, a half step from E is F. Why did we go from A# to C? Because we need to go to half steps. A half step from A# is B and a half step from B is C. Remember the exception in the previous paragraph? Patterns applied to patterns. Now toss into this mix chords and minor scales and such, each having a pattern to create them.

Anyway, enough of my babbling. Taytay, this is an example of how to teach what you don't know very well ^_^