We’ve used ledger lines for the notes low E through fifth string C… we can also add ledger lines on the other side, above the staff. Just like the lower ledger lines, these will extend the musical alphabet:

We’ll be needing those ledger lines as we move into higher positions – for right now, you just need to know it can be done at either end of the staff.

Standard notation isn’t just about notes, though – it conveys all sorts of other information through special symbols. In the last lesson, I mentioned that the end of a section is often marked with a double bar:

The end of a piece is also marked with a double bar, but the second bar is thicker:

There’s also a sign where an end-of-piece double bar has two dots in front of it – that’s called a repeat sign:

That’s sort of a traffic signal in standard notation – it’s going to send you on a detour to some other place in the music. If that’s the only repeat sign you’ve come across, it means at that point you’ll go back to the very beginning, and play all those measures a second time. The second time you get to the repeat sign, you ignore it and keep going.

Sometimes the composer won’t want you to go all the way back to the beginning. In that case, repeat signs come in pairs, like in this example:

Here you’d play measure 1, then measures 2 and 3… and then repeat measures 2 and 3… and finally play measure 4. It’s a nice, compact way to write music – 6 bars of sound take up only 4 bars on the page.

You’ll also notice the time signature is 2/4. There’s no real limit on the number of beats that can be in one measure – the minimum is just one; some time signatures will call for 15 or more per measure.

Sometimes you’ll see repeat signs with numbers and brackets over them, like this:

This one’s a little different. At the repeat sign, you return to the beginning (since there’s no repeat in the opposite direction)… but the next time through, you skip any measures under the ‘1′ bracket, and go right to the ‘2′ bracket. In this case, you’d play measures 1, 2, 1 again, and then 3. There’s no limit to the number of different endings you can have – I’ve seen music with five different repeat endings, and there are probably pieces written with even more.

There are a few other directional signals you’ll see often in standard notation. The first is D.C.:

In this example, you’ve got a measure, then two measures repeated once, then one more measure with a repeat sign – and the symbol D.C. written above it. The D.C. is an abbreviation for an Italian term, ‘da capo’, which means ‘from the head’. When you see that, you go back to the beginning of the piece.

Many guitarists mispronounce da capo, because it looks so much like capo. The D.C. term is dah-KAH-po; the thing you use to change keys is a KAY-po.

You’ll often see D.C. combined with the term ‘al fine’, which means ‘to the end’. When you see that, there will be the word ‘fine’ (pronounced fee-NAY or fih-NAY-ee, meaning end) somewhere above the staff, usually over a double bar. You’d then go from the instruction ‘D.C. al fine’ to the beginning (D.C.) and play until you reach the double bar marked ‘fine’.

By the way, Italian is the standard language of music. By the end of these lessons, you’ll know a whole bunch of Italian words!

A closely related symbol is D.S., which is an abbreviation for ‘dal segno’ (doll SAYN-yo, from the sign). That’s always combined with this symbol somewhere in the music:

When you see D.S. over a repeat sign, you find the symbol, and play from that point in the music.

You can actually have a double segno sign too – and the instruction for finding that would be D.S.S. – but it’s really rare.

Finally, there’s the coda (KO-duh), which is used pretty often. Coda is Italian for ‘tail’, so it’s a piece of music that will come at the tail end of a song. Somewhere in the music will be a coda symbol,

and somewhere else will be an instruction above a repeat sign – it’ll say “D.C. al coda” or “D.S. al coda”. When you reach that instruction, you’ll go back to the beginning (D.C.) or back to the sign (D.S.), and you’ll play until you reach the coda symbol – at that point, you’ll jump to the coda section, which is written at the end of the music. Most publishers will place a second coda sign over the beginning of the coda section to help you find it quickly, and most will separate it slightly from the main body of the music, or begin the coda on a new line.

Here’s the same music I used for the numbered ending example re-written to use the coda instead:

Like the segno, you can have a second coda – noted with

but like the double segno it’s extremely rare.

Now that you know some of the navigational symbols used, let’s get back to reading!

The letter-named notes leave some gaps in the fretboard. To fill those gaps, we use the symbols # (sharp) and b (flat). If you see a sharp, the note will be played one fret higher, and if you see a flat, the note will be played one fret lower.

The bar line between measures serves as a ‘reset’ button for sharps and flats. So when you see this:

The first measure is E-F-F#-G, played open-1-2-3 on the first string. In the second measure, the notes are E-F-G… because we’ve had a bar line, the F# note has been ‘reset’ to F.

At times, we’ll want to use a note like F#, and then use F without the sharp – which is called F natural – before we get to a bar line. To change a sharp or flat back to a natural before a measure is over, we use a natural sign, which looks like this:

Here’s a measure with F-F#-F#-F, and a second measure with B-Bb-B-Bb:

A couple things about this measure… in the first measure, the third note doesn’t have an accidental. It’s still an F# note, because the sharp for the second note keeps on working until the bar line – unless we use a natural sign, which doesn’t happen until beat four.

Next, the second measure… the B note is the open second string. Bb has to be one fret lower than that, so you’ll need to move to the third string, third fret to play it.

We usually use sharps going up and flats going down… that keeps the music clear by minimizing the number of naturals we might need. Here’s the entire chromatic scale in the first position going up:

And going down:

Accidentals are used often in minor keys, because the harmonic and melodic minor scales use notes ‘outside’ the key. Here’s the C major scale:

The A natural minor scale uses the same notes, but with A as the root:

The other two minor scales alter tones… the harmonic minor raises the seventh note:

And the melodic minor scale raises the sixth and seventh notes going up, but not going down (the natural signs aren’t required because the bar lines cancel the sharps, but I’ve included them as a reminder):

So far we’ve only done one note at a time. That’s fine for noting many solos, but it doesn’t do much for rhythm parts. The solution is to put more than one note head on a stem, like this:

The first beat includes a C note (first fret, second string) and an E note (open first string), so you’d play those two strings together. The next beat has the open B and E strings played together, and the third beat has a five-string open C major chord.

So notes can have one head for a single note, two for a double stop, or three to six for a chord. Beginning readers find it rather hard to navigate chords… but that’s because they try to read one note at a time. You don’t actually have to read each note in a chord – the real trick is to recognize what chords go with each key.

You’ll notice that C major chord doesn’t have any accidentals, so all of the notes must be in C. Working with just basic chords, each major key will have one 7th chord, two major chords, and three minor chords – here are the chords in the key of C major:

Now I’ll show you a trick for instantly (or at least quickly) recognizing the basic chords without accidentals. See how most of those chords have three notes grouped closely together – one in every space or line? Those three notes form a triad – the basis for the chord. When you see that, the lowest note of the three is the root of the triad. So when you see this:

You’re dealing with a C chord type – that’s the lowest note in the set of three. Now, if you know the basic chords in C, you can pretty quickly pick out the triads. The one to be careful of is the G/G7 chords – the top note will tell you the difference:

That means you’ve got most of the basic chords in C down ‘at sight’ – spend a little time working at remembering the Dm chord and you’re all set for this key in open position. I’ll show you more tricks as we get into higher positions and more complicated chords.

The key of A minor is really just as easy – chords in A minor, at least in simple songs, usually use only the G# accidental, and usually only in the E rooted chord. If you’re in Am, and you see a chord with a sharp and an E root, it’s usually E7.:

Chords are often combined with bass notes. The result is music with two voices – one is the melody created by the bass line, the other is the rhythmic accompaniment of the chord strums. To keep things clear, the music is written as two separate lines, typically with stems in opposite directions – when there is a bass note, there’s a rest in the chord strum, like this:

You’re probably wondering why the bass notes wouldn’t simply be written as quarter notes… if they were written that way, they’d only get one beat, so you’d need to dampen them at the second beat in each measure. Here we’re letting the bass notes ring, and if we didn’t use the rest to show it’s two separate lines, you’d end up with five beats worth of notes in each measure.

One last thing for this lesson – key signatures. If you’re going to apply a sharp or a flat to the same note throughout an entire piece of music, and that note will rarely appear without the accidental, it’s easiest to just write it once, in the beginning.

Let’s say you’re working in the key of G. The G major scale is G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G, so you’ll probably have almost all of the F notes in the piece raised to F#. In the very beginning – after the clef, but before the time signature – you write F# on the top line:

This sharp (or sharps, or flat or flats) is called a key signature. The advantage to using a key signature is that you won’t clutter up the music with a lot of accidentals – instead of writing this:

You’d have this:

Since all the F notes are now F#, some of the chords you’ve learned will be a little different… the main chords in the key of G are:

The really tricky one here is the D major – it’s written identically to the D minor chord in the key of C! With a bit of practice, though, you’ll recognize these odd chords right away, and the triad rule still holds for the open position key of G:

Reading in key signatures takes some practice, because you have to remember to sharp or flat all the indicated notes. We’ll take the keys one at a time, and I’ll put a practice piece at the end of each lesson for you to work on.

Since the holidays are drawing near, have fun with my little arrangement of Jingle Bells:

Also check out… Standard Notation Part 1

We’ll start with some basics:

What is a chord substitution?

It’s using one chord in place of another (or part of another) in a chord progression.

Why would you want to substitute a chord?

Well, you might have a progression that sounds good, but you want to see if it can sound better. Substituting chords can dress things up a bit. Or if you’re playing in a highly improvisational format, changing a chord to something close is one way to throw ideas at the soloist.

How does chord substitution work?

In two major ways: first, the chord might be close to the original – so it sounds ‘mostly’ right. If the chord called for is C major (made of C-E-G notes), you might try A minor (A-C-E) or E minor (E-G-B), which each have two of the same notes… it’s the one note that’s different which makes it a substitution. This is easiest to see in standard notation:

In the second way, the chord is different from the original, but leads naturally into it. These substitutions are usually for just part of the duration. In the following example, F major is played for two bars in the original progression. You might try C7 for the first bar, and F major for the second bar. The C7 naturally resolves to F, so even if the C7 is a bit of a leap from where you ’should’ be in the progression, it leads you right back to the path you were originally on.

Original:

Substitution:

Now that we’ve covered the basics, I’ll go through fourteen different substitution ideas, and why each one works.

#1: Chord extensions . You can always add things to the core notes of a chord – playing C6 instead of C, or G9 instead of G7. Since all of the notes of the original chord are also in the substitution, they retain the original idea of the harmony. The one thing to pay attention to is the seventh note of the chord – if it’s a dominant chord to begin with (having a b7 note), you’ll want to keep a b7 tone in the substitution. If it’s a major chord to begin with, you’ll want to add a major (natural) seventh if you use one. Minor chords are the switch hitters – you can extend them either way… choose the one that places the seventh (7 or b7) in key.

Original:

Substitution:

#2 – Chord simplifications . These are the opposite of extensions – you can use a diminished triad, like Bº (B-D-F) in place of a 7 th chord a major third lower – in this case, G7 (G-B-D-F). That works because the notes of the diminished triad are completely contained in the seventh chord:

Other simplifications can snag just a portion of the original chord – if D9 (D-F#-A-C-E) is called for, a D triad works… as does Am or F#º. Each of those has three tones out of the original chord’s five:

#3 – Chord suspensions . Suspended chords replace the third with a fourth, and that creates tension that wants to resolve – the fourth wants to move down a half step to the third. Use these for the first half of a chord – use Fsus-F-C or F-Csus-C in place of F-C.

Original:

Substitution:

#4 – Secondary Dominants . You can always use the dominant chord of your target for just part of the original chord’s duration. We did this with C7 and F just a little while ago, using a measure of each instead of playing two measures of F. This is called a secondary dominant, which I covered in an earlier article. Secondary dominants actually work for any chord in a progression, not just a dominant chord.

Original:

Substitution:

#5 – Relative majors and minors . If the original chord is minor, the major chord built on the third (C for an Am chord) will work as a chord substitution; if the original is major, the minor based on the sixth will work. In both cases, the substituted chord will have two of the original chord’s three tones:

#6 – Minor chords a third above a major . Like the relative minor (the sixth above a major), this chord will share two tones with the original:

#7 – Back and fourths (a term I invented to explain this one to students!) We’ve all seen how a blues progression moves I-IV-I before the V7-I cadence; you can use a chord of the same type, a fourth higher, for any chord – as long as you make a chord ’sandwich’ (original-substitution-original). If the progression goes C-F-G7, you can play C-F-Bb-F-G7.

Original:

Substitution:

#8 – Diminished 7 th chords a third above a dominant chord . Since the simplification of a seventh chord into a diminished triad (substituting B-D-F for G-B-D-F) works, you can combine the simplification and extension to create a new substitution – using Bº7 (1-3-5-bb7, or B-D-F-Ab). The new chord will share three tones with the original.

#9 – Dominant 7 th chords a minor third above a dominant chord . This one will share two tones – instead of G7 (G-B-D-F), you’d play Bb7 (Bb-D-F-Ab). You still have two tones in common. I’m showing this chord inverted, so you can more easily see how close they are:

#10 – The tritone substitution . A tritone is three whole steps from the original chord. If the original is dominant – a 7 th , 9 th , 11 th , or 13 th chord – you can use any dominant chord that’s three whole steps up from the root of the original.

For example, if the original is G7 (G-B-D-F), a tritone up from G is C# – so you could use C#7, or the enharmonic Db7 instead (Db-F-Ab-C). This works for a couple of reasons… first, the new chord shares two tones with the old one; second (and really cool – one reason this substitution is used so often in jazz!), the new chord will almost always blend into the chords on either side by half steps.

Let’s say the original change is Dm-G7-C. We plug in Db7 instead of G7… and now the roots move chromatically, D-Db-C. You’ve got one tone in Db that’s ‘connected’ to the chord on each side – F is in the Dm chord, and C is in the C chord – and even the Ab makes for chromatic steps A-Ab-G moving from the Dm chord to the C!

I’ll show the G7 and Db7 chords inverted, so you can more easily see the chromatic movement:

#11 – m7b5 chords a fifth above in place of a dominant chord . Instead of using G7 (G-B-D-F), you can use Dm7b5 (D-F-Ab-C). Again, you have two common tones from the original chord – the Dm7b5 is shown inverted to highlight the similarity:

#12 – m7 ai fifth higher than a dominant (for part of a change) . This actually turns a V-I progression into ii-V-I, a very common jazz progression. Instead of using G7-C, you can use Dm7-G7-C.

Original:

Substitution:

#13 – Dominant alterations . These start getting tricky… when you have a dominant chord in the chart, you can place b5, #5, b9, or #9 in the chord. It’s best to establish the original chord first , then do your substitution. C7-F can become C7-C7b5-F, or C7-C7+-F, or C7-C7b9-F, etc. These work best when the dominant chord is going to resolve down a fifth. For more on altered chords, see my article “Altered States”.

#14 – Stepping . Most chords can be ’stepped into’ chromatically – you can substitute C-Ab7-G7 or A-F#7-G7 for a C-G7 change. You can actually over/under shoot your chord by quite a ways and still step into it, if you treat the change carefully… C-B7-Bb7-A7-Ab7-G7 can be made to work under the right circumstances.

Although stepping chromatically is the most common of this fairly rare type of substitution, it’s not the only choice – altered dominants work well when stepped into by whole steps, as in C-A7#9-G7#9-G7 for a C-G7 change. Unaltered dominants will even work when stepped into by minor thirds – you can use C-Bb7-G7 instead of C-G7.

You can even combine stepping with other substitutions – if you substitute an altered dominant, you can step into it by a whole step, like this:

Original:

Substitution:

Chord substitutions don’t come easily, and they don’t come naturally to most players. Don’t be afraid to experiment in your practice sessions – eventually you’ll be taking chords in unexpected directions, and resolving them to the original progression.

Also in this Series

• Untangling Chord Progressions
• Extended Chords
• Altered States
  

Oh yeah – the illustrations are copyright 2002 by NoteBoat Inc. (my publishing company) because I’m basically just cropping artwork that appeared in my theory book… the ones labeled “Exercise #…” are created for this article, and are copyright Tom Serb 2005.

First a few preliminaries for those of you unfamiliar with standard notation…

Standard notation is written on a set of five horizontal lines called the staff:

Guitar music is usually written using a treble clef, which looks like this:

The purpose of a clef is to identify the names of the lines and spaces. Each line or space will represent one letter of the musical alphabet, which is the letters A through G. Using the treble clef, the lines are (from the bottom up): E-G-B-D-F, which you can remember using the mnemonic Every Good Boy Does Fine. The spaces, from the bottom up, spell out the word F-A-C-E. Combining these two, we can write the notes from E through F on the staff:

Standard notation is very visual: the higher a note is on the staff, the higher it will sound.

Notes are symbols that indicate how long a sound lasts. Notes are made up of one or more of three basic parts: a head, a stem, and flags or beams.

The head of a note is a roughly circular shape:

If a note has ONLY a head, the head is always hollow (as shown), and the note is called a whole note.

A stem can be added to a note. When a stem is used, the head can be either hollow or solid:

Notes with stems and hollow heads are called half notes; notes with stems and solid heads are called quarter notes.

Notes with solid heads can have flags:

Notes with one flag are called eighth notes.

We can keep adding flags to a note, getting sixteenth notes, thirty-second notes, and so on:

The shapes of notes tell us how long the sounds last. A half note lasts for half the time of a whole note, a quarter note lasts for half the time of a half note, and so on.

Music isn’t just made up of sounds, though – it’s also made up of the silences between sounds. We need rhythmic symbols to indicate how long to NOT play, and we call these symbols rests.

Each note has a corresponding rest… the ones at the far left are double-whole note/rest, which is pretty rare in notation; at the far right is the 128^th note, which is also rare:

Since the shape of the notes tell us how long they last – at least relative to each other – we can now start worrying about pitch. We can put notes on, immediately above, or immediately below the staff:

But that only gives us notes from D (below the bottom E line) through G (above the top F line). That’s eleven notes… and we can play a lot more than eleven different notes on the guitar.

To handle the ‘extra’ notes, we’ll use temporary extensions of the staff called ledger lines, and keep going higher or lower as needed:

Ledger lines are identified as if the staff just kept going:

We’re almost done with the preliminaries… just a few more things…

We know that a half note is half as long as a whole note, and twice as long as a quarter note – but we need to know what note represents one beat in order to count time. That’s shown by two numbers called a time signature that appears right after the clef. It looks sort of like a fraction, and it can come in a lot of different varieties:

To begin with, we’ll use only these three time signatures:

In each case, the bottom number is 4 – that tells us that a quarter note will get one beat. The top number tells us how many beats will be in each measure.

Measures in music are the space between ‘one’ counts. We set vertical lines called bar lines between measures in music to help us keep our place:

Since the time signature here is 4/4, there are four beats in each measure, and a quarter note represents one beat. There are four sixteenth notes to a quarter note… here the sixteenth note flags are joined together into beams, with each beamed set being one beat. After every fourth set of beamed notes is a vertical bar line, which helps us keep track of the ‘one’ count.

It’s common to use a double bar to indicate the end of a section or piece of music:

One last thing and we’ll start to play… the time signature 4/4 is so common in music that it’s sometimes indicated by the letter C. Musicians refer to this as ‘common time’… it’s not really a letter C, but that’s a music history lesson for another article. If you see C instead of a time signature, count it as 4/4.

Ok, so we’re done with the basic tools – you know the note shapes, the letter names of staff positions, what note gets one beat, and how many beats are in a measure. Time to pick up your guitar!

We’ll start with the first position, and take one string at a time. The notes on the first string, first position are E (open), F (first fret), and G (third fret). These correspond to the top space of the staff, E; the top line of the staff, F, and the note immediately above the top line, G:

Get comfortable with the idea that these notes represent the sounds of the open, first, and third frets of the first string… then play this:

Exercise 1

Make sure you’re getting the count right – the first note takes four beats, the next two notes two beats each, etc. Go slow – this takes time to read ‘at sight’.

Now let’s look at the second string. The open second string is the B note on the middle line of the staff; the first fret is the C note on the second space from the top; and the third fret D is the second line from the top:

Ready to read? Let’s go!

Exercise 2

And now let’s try both strings:

Exercise 3

Now let’s try another time signature… in 3/4 time we have notes that represent two beats or four beats, but we don’t have a note for three beats (one full measure of 3/4 time). The solution is to put a dot after a half note:

Dots after notes mean the original note value is extended by one half – a dotted half note is a half note (two beats in 3/4) plus half the value of the original note (one more beat in 3/4) for a total of three beats.

Ready for a stab at waltz time?

Exercise 4

There’s one other way we can extend note values, by using another rhythmic symbol called the tie. Ties are curved lines that connect two notes of the same pitch (we’ll have other names for curved lines that connect different pitches later on). This is a way we can write a note that lasts for an odd amount of time, like five beats. When you encounter a tie, you play the first note, and hold it for the value of both. In this example, the last note of the third measure is held until the third beat of the last measure:

Exercise 5

If we’d used a whole note to represent this sound – a whole note is also four beats – the third measure would have ended up with six beats… two too many. The solution is to split the note into two parts and connect them with a tie.

Now let’s add the third string. It’s only got two first position notes, the open G (second line from the bottom) and second fret A (second space from the bottom):

And let’s introduce another concept, partial measures… sometimes you’ll see a piece of music that doesn’t start on the ‘one’ count. To save space, publishers will often have an incomplete measure (less than the required number of beats) at the start of a piece or section. It used to be convention that the last measure of a piece like that would also be a partial measure – the first and last measures would add up to one full measure – but lately I’ve been seeing pieces that don’t end in a partial measure, so some publishers are discarding that convention. When you see a partial measure, start from the appropriate count; the next example will start on beat ‘three’.

At any rate, we’ve now got a full octave to play with, so let’s play!

Exercise 6

On to the fourth string; we’ve got three notes: the open string D is the first note below the staff; the second fret E is the bottom line of the staff; and the third fret F is the bottom space of the staff:

Let’s put together everything so far:

Exercise 7

Of course, we can divide beats… in 4/4 time, an eighth note represents one half beat (two notes to the beat). Publishers usually beam notes in beats or sets of beats – two beats in 4/4 time – to keep it easy to read. Count these notes “one-and-two-and-” etc.:

Exercise 8

Now we’ve reached the note below the staff… to go any lower we need to start using ledger lines. All the open position notes on the fifth and sixth strings will need these temporary extensions to the staff.

On the fifth string, we have the open A note (two ledger lines below the staff), the second fret B note (the space below the first ledger line beneath the staff) and the third fret C note (the first ledger line below the staff):

Exercise 9

The sixth string has three more notes in first position: the open E (the note beneath the third ledger line under the staff), the first fret F (on the third ledger line beneath the staff), and the third fret G (under the second ledger line below the staff):

Now we’ll introduce one more rhythmic twist: if we dot a quarter note in 4/4, we get a note that represents one and one-half beats. The next example includes dotted-quarter/eighth pairs, which are counted ONE-and-two-AND-THREE-and-four-AND. Give this a try:

Exercise 10

Well, that completes the strings in first position. There’s still a lot more to discover about standard notation, though… find some music, practice in this position, and in the next article I’ll explore accidentals, double stops, chords, and key signatures; after that, we’ll start moving up the neck to other positions.

Also check out… Standard Notation Part 2

Any note can be altered in a chord, but not all alterations will lead to an “altered chord.” That’s because we have easier ways of noting certain alterations – let’s look at each scale note in turn:

Roots – if the root is altered, the chord changes names. Chord names have two parts – the root name (given as a letter) and a quality name that describes what’s happening above the root. Since every chord is identified from the root, a C major chord with a raised root (C#-E-G) would be called a C# diminished chord; an F minor chord with a lowered root (Fb-Ab-C) becomes an augmented chord on the new root (E-G#-B#). Changing the root in a complex chord structure can lead to an altered chord, but it’s never the root that ends up as the alteration.

Seconds – in traditional harmony, chords are built in thirds. The second is the same note as the ninth – the note right after the octave – so it’s always called the ninth. Beginners make a common assumption that calling a note a ‘ninth’ means it’s in a different octave, but that’s not the case – it’s called a ninth even if it’s the lowest tone in a chord, and even if the root is in the same octave.

Ninths can be raised (#9) or lowered (b9).

If the ninth is used in a chord, you’ll also know if the chord contains a seventh – chords like C9 or Am9 always include a flatted seventh; chords like Bbmaj9 always include a natural seventh, and if there’s no seventh at all, it’s an ‘add9′ chord. You’ll sometimes see chords noted as ’sus2′, which implies the third has been replaced by a second; although I disagree with this naming, that’s beyond the scope of this article – at least you’ll know what’s implied.

Thirds – if a third is lowered, the chord is called minor; if a third is raised, it’s the same tone as the fourth – a suspended chord. Since we have easier ways to indicate the alteration of a third, you’ll never see it altered.

Fourths – if you lower the fourth of a chord, you end up with the same note as the third. Consequently, you’ll never see a chord with b11 – chords that include both a natural third and a flatted third are written as a major chord with a #9. If the fourth is raised in a chord, it’ll be indicated as #11 or +11.

Fifths – these can lead to altered chords in half the cases. Raising the fifth in a major chord gives us an augmented chord (1-3-#5), and lowering the fifth in a minor chord gives us a diminished chord (1-b3-b5), so fifths can be an altered tone only if they’re raised in a minor chord (example: Cm7#5) or lowered in a major one (example: C7b5). In the past few years, the m7b5 has replaced the half diminished chord in most charts, so that’s the exception to the rule.

Sixths – These are only called sixths if there’s no seventh present. You should never see a ‘Cadd6′ chord – it’s simply C6. If the seventh is present in the chord, the sixth is called a 13th . Raising this note gives the same tone as a flatted seventh – and that’s implied in a 13th chord – so you’ll see b13, but not #13.

Sevenths – if a seventh is lowered, the result is a dominant chord, simply written with a number… lower the seventh of Cmaj7 and you get C7. Raising the seventh gives you the same note as the octave, so Cmaj7 with a raised 7th = C major.

Since that completes our tour of the notes, I’ll recap what can be altered:

• Root – never
• 2nd /9th – you’ll see b9 or #9
• Third – never
• 4th /11th – you’ll only see #11
• Fifth – sometimes; you’ll see b5 or #5
• 6th /13th – you’ll only see b13
• Seventh – never

That gives us a total of six altered notes: b9, #9, #11, b5, #5, and b13. Even better, the #11 and b5 are the same note – and so are the #5 and b13! That means all altered chord fingerings are going to have one or more of the following:

• The root tone raised one fret to make b9
• The third lowered one fret to make #9
• The fifth lowered one fret to make #11 or b5
• The fifth raised one fret to make #5 or b13

That’s it in a nutshell – four possibilities. Doesn’t seem quite so scary now, does it?

In my last article I talked about the importance of knowing where the basic chord tones are in voicings – here’s a quick review – roots are shown as squares:

If you’ve learned how to form extended chords, and you know the root, third, and fifth in each fingering, you can form any altered chord – no matter how complicated!

You’ll need to be careful about one thing, though – some voicings have notes doubled. In the first two diagrams, there are two fifths – if you alter one to make a b5 or #5 chord, you’ll need to get rid of (or change) the other one. Altered 9ths (b9 or #9) can include the natural third, and b13 chords include the fifth, so it’s only doubled fifths you’ll need to worry about, and only when the fifth is an altered tone.

One quick word about chord symbols before we dig into examples: a “+” means the same as a #… unless it’s at the end of a chord name; then it means a raised fifth. In other words, G9+ is 1-3-#5-b7-9; G7+9 is 1-3-5-b7-#9. You’ll see either plusses or sharps in chord names, and sometimes both (as in G7#11+). A minus sign doesn’t mean a flat, though… if you see one of those, it means the same as ‘minor’.

Now we’ll see how this works in practice… I’ll just show one possibility for each voicing – you can refer back to the extended chord article to construct others.

Am7b5

Start with one of the A seventh forms (see the article on extended chords), lower the third to get a minor, and lower the fifth to complete the chord:

E13#9

Lower third by one fret, or raise a root by three to get the #9 – having both the third and #9 in the voicing gives it the tension of that raised ninth. If you’re starting with a 13th chord that includes the ninth, just raise it a fret:

Bb7#9+

From a seventh form, lower a third by one fret (or raise the root by three if you’ve only got one third), then raise the fifth:

Fadd+11

To an F major chord, lower a fifth by one fret. You’ll want to use a voicing that begins with two fifths:

G7b9

Using a seventh form, raise the root by a fret:

(Did you notice that the top four notes of G7b9 form a diminished 7th? More on that in a minute!)

D7#9b5

From a seventh form, lower a third by one fret and lower the fifth by one:

Ok, I already hear some of you screaming that it can’t be – the 7b9 voicing is a diminished 7th, and the 7#9b5 I just showed is identical to the m7b5 fingering I gave earlier!

A couple of things about altered chords: first, they tend to have five or more tones if you played the ‘real’ voicing (many of which are unplayable on the guitar), and some tones are more important than others. It’s common to drop notes from altered chords, just as we did for extended chords. Let’s look at that last pair, the m7b5 and the 7#9b5. You’ve got:

Am7b5 = 1-b3-b5-b7 = A-C-Eb-G

and

A7#9b5 = 1-3-b5-b7-#9 = A-C#-Eb-G-B#

since B# is enharmonic to C, we can re-write that as A - C -C#- Eb - G … see how that actually contains the m7b5 tones?

Ah, but it won’t sound like a #9 without a natural third, will it? Well, you could use a voicing that includes both:

but you’ll be limited in the number of positions you’ll be able to play – and leaping all over the neck to grab the ‘right’ chord doesn’t lead to smooth changes.

The other big factor is context. Since it’s the 9th being altered, the odds are pretty good that the progression is leading your ear towards a major/dominant chord here – playing the minor will give you the #9, creating the effect in the context of the piece most of the time.

There are actually a few ‘cheats’ like this you can use. I find it easier to think about the altered chord tones since there are only four possible notes to alter, but you might prefer thinking of substitutions. Here’s a couple examples:

C7b9 = C-E-G-Bb-Db Gº7 = G-Bb-Db-E

C9#11 = C-E-G-Bb-D-F# Gm/maj7 = G-Bb-D-F#

Certain guitar voicings, because notes are left out, also work – if you look at the highest four notes in the last diagram you might recognize a voicing of Eb13:

A7#9b5 = A-C#-Eb-G-B# Eb13 = Eb - G -Bb-Db( C# )-F-Ab-C( B# )

Even though Eb13 is not really a substitute – the other three notes all clash with the A7#9b5 – the four notes in that particular voicing are a perfect fit!

You can even take simplification to extremes, grabbing the highest note, any altered ones, and whatever else fits…

C13b9 = C-E-G-Bb- Db -F- A Db+ = Db-F-A

but the more you take away, the more you’re trusting other instruments will fill in the blanks. If you’re at the point of knowing the notes in a 13b9 chord well enough to figure out the chords it contains, you didn’t need this article anyway!

In the next article I’ll talk about how altered chords are used as substitutions.

Also in this Series

• Untangling Chord Progressions
• Extended Chords
• Chord Substitution

Altered chords can be scary, because there’s so darn many of them! A major chord has only 3 different notes, so you can pretty well master the major chords by learning just 3-5 different fingerings. A 13th chord can theoretically have dozens of different fingerings – so it’s understandable that many intermediate guitarists figure enough is enough, they’ll just stay intermediate.

But getting to the stage of playing these advanced chords doesn’t really require learning hundreds of new chord shapes – it only demands that you can relate new chords to old ones in a logical way. By the end of this article, you’ll be able to form any chord extension that you want!

Extended chords are the 9th , 11th , and 13th chords. Like 7th chords, each can come in various ‘flavors’ such as dominant, major, and minor. Extended chords are most often in the dominant form, so that’s what I’ll cover in this article – just lower the 3rd for a minor form, and raise the 7th for a major form when you need them.

To begin with, you’ll need to know the seventh chords. There are a lot of different dominant seventh voicings available, but when I play chord changes, I think about what note I’m going to put on top of the chord – keeping the top note close together from one chord to the next gives you the smoothest changes. Since there are four notes in a seventh chord (1-3-5-b7) I normally work with just four voicings. Chord roots are indicated by squares:

The next step is learning which other chord tones fall on each string. Most beginning and intermediate guitarists only worry about where the root falls, and place the rest of the fingers from rote. Take a little bit of time to learn the rest of the chord tones in these voicings (the b7 is shown as just 7 to avoid overcrowding the diagrams):

Starting with these simple chord forms, we can now add – and subtract – notes to make extended chords. Subtracting a note from a chord might be a new idea to you, but it’s useful, and sometimes essential, in forming extended chords – the formula for a 13th chord is 1-3-5-b7-9-11-13, which is seven notes… and we have only six strings to work with. Something’s got to give!

The most common note to sacrifice in any extended chord is the root. You probably haven’t thought about playing chords without a root before, but it’s a very handy note to drop: because it’s only a whole step over the b7, and only a whole step below the 9th , including the root can make a chord sound muddy. The root is often going to be picked up by another instrument anyway, such as bass or keyboards, so chances are good it won’t be missed.

Knowing where the root is on each of the four seventh inversions, and knowing it can move up two frets to the 9th (which is the same note as the 2nd note in the scale), it’s a simple matter to have the 9th chords at your disposal:

(any 1st string note can be doubled on the 6th string for a fuller sound)

Moving on to 11th chords, the 11th (which is the same note as the fourth) and the 3rd are only a half step apart. The third is almost always dropped from 11th chords. Just like 9th chords, the root is optional, but so is the 5th – and the easiest way to form these chords is to drop a 5th by two frets, making it the 11th:

Last, we have the 13th chords. The 11th is almost always omitted from a 13th , and the root, fifth, and ninth are the usual choices for dropping a note. That leaves the 3rd , b7th , and 13th as the notes we truly need.

The 3rd and b7 are already in the basic chord we’re building from; I just raise the 5th by two frets (which may mean moving to the next string) to get the 13th . Then you can include one of the optional tones, the root, fifth, or ninth, and you have a nice 13th voicing:

Pretty painless, huh? In the next article, I’ll explain how these extended chords get altered to make your chord vocabulary even larger.

Also in this Series

• Untangling Chord Progressions
• Altered States
• Chord Substitution

Chords are usually labeled with Roman numerals; capital letters mean major chords, lower-case letters means minor. The other chord symbols (+ for augmented, º for diminished, etc.) get added to the Roman numerals. Roman numerals are handy, because they make easy transposition… I-IV-V can be thought of in any key – it takes less work to go from C-F-G to Eb-Ab-Bb if you think in terms of scale degrees. I’ll use Roman numerals throughout this piece.

Harmonizing Scales To Get Chords

Chords in any key are built on the steps of the scale. To start with, let’s look at a harmonized scale in triads (all the examples will be in C):

And harmonized to seventh chords:

I’ll talk only about major keys here, but all the ideas can be applied to minor keys as well – just use the minor scale notes to create the chords.

Playing through those chords one by one, you’ll see that any chord sounds complete by itself, except the chords built on V (when harmonized as V7) or vii (as either viiº or vii7b5). These two chords have a lot of tension in them, and they want to move, or ‘resolve’ to another chord to sound complete.

Cadences

Chords naturally want to move down by fifths – that is, the root is going to move five steps down the scale. A V7 chord will naturally want to move to a I chord; that’s true of major keys where V7 –> I, and minor keys where V7 –> i. This is the strongest resolution in music, and it’s called the authentic cadence.

G7-C G7-Cm

V7 –> I V7 –> i

Moving down by a fifth (G-C) is the same as moving up by a fourth:

so chord movement by fourths is also very common. The change IV –> I gives almost as strong a sense of closure as V7 –> I, and it’s called the plagal cadence. You probably recognize that sound – it’s sometimes called the ‘Amen’ cadence because of its use in church music.

F-C

IV –> I

Since these cadences sound so complete, they are used at the end of chord progressions. Almost all chord progressions will end up on the I chord.

The Natural Harmonic Series

Because chords want to move down by a fifth, we can line them all up in order to create what’s known as the natural harmonic series. This flow will sound very natural to the ear:

Bº Em Am Dm G7 C

viiº –> iii –> vi –> ii –> V –> I

The IV chord can be tacked on to the end, and it will usually go back to I:

Bº Em Am Dm G7 C F C

viiº –> iii –> vi –> ii –> V –> I?IV

Most jazz music is based on the natural harmonic series, with the ii –> V –> I progression being used frequently.

Dm7 G7 Cmaj7

ii –> V –> I

The Blues Progression

Blues music has developed into a standard 12-bar format. Although you can have blues progressions that use other formats, just about all of them will use the I, IV, and V chords in this pattern:

The V in parenthesis in the last measure is called a ‘turnaround’… if you’re going to do another chorus, the V leads back into the I chord at the start of the progression. The last time through, you stay on the I chord through the final measure.

These two chord progressions, the ii-V-I from jazz, and the I-IV-I-V-IV-I from blues, form the core of most music you hear today. Now let’s start dressing them up…

Chord Extensions

We looked at how chords can be built by harmonizing the major scale in triads and seventh chords – we don’t have to stop there! 9 th , 11 th , and 13 th chords can be substituted as extensions.

Chords get extended by keeping them in the same chord type – for a C chord you can use Cmaj7, Cmaj9; Am can become Am7, Am11… G7 can become G13, G9, etc.

The Secondary Dominant Principle

The V7 chord wants to move down by a fifth, to a I chord. What if we make that a I7 chord instead?

G7 –> C7

V7 –> I7

That change sounds pleasing, because the chord root is moving as an authentic cadence… but it doesn’t sound complete, because the final chord is Domnant. That C7 wants to resolve someplace, and the natural place is a fifth lower:

G7 –> C7 –> F

V7 –> I7 –> IV (in C, or)

II7 –> V7 –> I (in F)

We can string together a whole bunch of 7 th chords, and lead eventually to a final resolution. In the key of C, the D chord is usually minor, but a D7 chord will sound good if we resolve it like this:

C –> D7 –> G7 –> C

I –> II7 –> V7 –> I

The reason this works is that we’ve temporarily moved to the key of G… D7 is the V chord in G. Since G is the V chord in C, we call the D7 the ‘V of V chord’. This temporary key change is called a modulation, and it allows us to use chords outside of the home key:

Substitutions

The principles of extension, natural harmonic series, and secondary dominants can be used to substitute chords and dress up a progression. Let’s say the basic chord progression is C-F-G7-C for one measure each:

C F G7 C
| / / / / | / / / / | / / / / | / / / / |

We can plug in a secondary dominant:

C F D7 G7 C
| / / / / | / / / / | / / / / | / / / / |

or turn that G7 measure into a ii-V-I progression:

C F Dm G7 C
| / / / / | / / / / | / / / / | / / / / |

We can add extensions:

C Cmaj7 F Fmaj7 Dm7 G7 C
| / / / / | / / / / | / / / / | / / / / |

And since the authentic cadence can be either V-I or V-i, we can use a secondary dominant to step into any major or minor chord in the progression:

C Cmaj7 F A7 Dm7 G7 C
| / / / / | / / / / | / / / / | / / / / |

In that last example, the A7 is quite a leap from the F, but it’s the V of D (or D minor), which is the V of G… which is the V of C.

Chromatic Steps

Other chords outside the key can be used effectively. Although the introduction of an ‘outside’ chord will initially jar our ears, it’s what you do with it that matters in the end. Chord can be approached by a chromatic half step, either between to chords a step apart (as a passing chord):

C F F# G7 C
| / / / / | / / / / | / / / / | / / / / |

or this:

C C#m7 Dm7 G7 C
| / / / / | / / / / | / / / / | / / / / |

Or we can ‘overshoot’ a chord change, and step down:

Cmaj7 Fmaj7 Ab9 G9 Cmaj7
| / / / / | / / / / | / / / / | / / / / |

Using these substitutions can bring you hundreds of new progressions. If there’s enough interest in this topic, I’ll write another one on the use of altered chords, like E7#9b5.

Also in this Series

• Extended Chords
• Altered States
• Chord Substitution

What would you like to work on next?

Well, I’d like to use some exotic scales in my solos. I try, but they don’t sound right.

Well, there are a couple of different ways to use them… what do you mean by not sounding right?

They just don’t sound good. When I solo with major scales or pentatonic scales, it sounds ok, but the altered scales don’t.

I see… well, there are really three different ways to use altered scales. The easiest way is to use them as a contrasting element called a variation. Play me a phrase in C major.

Download midi (Right-click and “Save as”)

Good. Now let’s pick a scale that’s got seven notes, just like the major scale does. How about the Zangula scale? That’s one of the scales from Arabic music:

The differences in the scale are the third, fifth, and seventh, which all get flatted. Now here’s how your phrase sounds when you repeat it flatting those notes:

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I understand you so far… but I’m still not sure how to use it.

Most of the time when we build a solo using contrast, the main theme – your phrase in C – we can call the ‘A’ form. The variation would be ‘A1′… so when you structure a longer phrase, we usually make it A-A1, like this:

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I just added a couple notes to your original phrase so it flowed into the variation.

I get it now! But it doesn’t sound Arabic to me…

That’s because we’ve used it as a contrast. It’s like speaking the original phrase a second time with an Arabic accent – that’s not really the same thing as speaking in Arabic.

Ok, so show me how to ’speak’ it in Arabic.

Well, a style of music is about a lot more than just the melody. For example, when we studied the blues scale, you played a lot of triplets and broken triplets, because they’re so important to the blues feel. Every style of music has rhythmic signatures, and when we combine those with melody and harmony, it sounds like that style. Here’s a signature rhythm in Arabic music:

So if I play our A1 riff with that rhythm, it’ll sound more Arabian:

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And if I harmonize the scale, the tonic chord is going to be C-Eb-Gb, or a G diminished chord… the IV chord will be F-A-C, or F major, and the V7 chord will be Gb-Bb-D-F. That’s a pretty awkward chord, since the F and Gb notes are so close together, but we can just take the top three notes as a Bb major chord. So if we throw some of those chords into the mix, we can get something like this:

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So how can I tell what rhythmic signatures to use for a style of music?

By listening to music in that style. When you listen, try to figure out if there’s a rhythm that’s constantly repeated. Then listen to another couple of tunes in the style, and see if they use the same figure. Pay attention to how the melodies and harmonies are shaped, too… if you change just a couple notes in your original melody, you can make it even more Arabic sounding:

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Very cool. But there’s a lot of different scales… show me another one?

Ok. We started with a seven-note scale, which makes it very easy to use alterations against your original phrase. If you use a scale that’s got a different number of notes, you’ll use extra notes as passing tones. If it’s got fewer than seven notes, you have to plan the alterations a little more carefully – you can repeat a note, or use the note above or below the corresponding scale tone. Let’s try the original phrase with the Rwanda scale, which has no fourth, and a flatted third and seventh:

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Sounds a little bit blues-y.

It should! The Rwanda scale is the same as minor pentatonic with a second instead of a fourth.

You said there were three ways to use altered scales – we’ve talked about variations and using signature rhythms… what’s the third?

Well, that’s the one with the most freedom of all: if you learn the scales, and how to work with them, and you do it long enough… you’ll hear them when you want to, and you’ll be able to pick and choose elements from different scales as part of an overall melody. It’s got a lot in common with variation, but you don’t need to start with a simple theme.

Sounds like a lot of work!

More like a lot of fun

Within the last month, two experiences showed me that rhythm isn’t such a natural part of everyone’s playing… the first happened in a performance situation: I was soloing over a set of changes, and anticipating an upcoming key change. The moment arrived, I shifted keys… and the rhythm guitarist didn’t. I asked him about it afterwards, and he’d lost count of the number of measures that had gone by. Two weeks later, I came across a public access TV show giving guitar lessons – since I’m always interested in seeing how others present things, I settled in to watch. It was a bit unnerving as the ‘instructor’ didn’t keep a regular beat – some of his measures were longer than others!

Having come across ‘professionals’ twice in a month who have trouble counting, the problem might be a lot more common, so here’s my basic course in keeping time, from counting beats to syncopated rhythms.

The Beat

The basic element of rhythm in music is called a beat. It’s like a heartbeat – regular, even, setting the pulse of the music. You might not play on every beat of a song, but you absolutely must feel every beat in order to keep a proper rhythm. The first thing we’ll set out to do is develop that feeling for the beat.

Exercise 1: set your metronome on a comfortable speed of 60-80 beats per minute, and play a downstroke on every beat. For the next two minutes, maintain that downstroke – you can change chords if you like, but you must make the downstroke at the same time the metronome clicks. (If you want to make this exercise harder, slow the metronome down to 40 – it’s actually harder to maintain a steady beat at very slow tempos than fast ones!)

Exercise 2: increase the metronome to 120-160 beats per minute. This time you’re going to play every other metronome click with a downstroke, like this:

Exercise 3: mixing it up. Set the metronome back around 80 beats per minute, and play a pattern of strum-strum-rest against the beat, like this:

Counting Beats

Music is organized into groups of beats called measures. In the beginning of a piece of music, you’re likely to see something called a time signature, which looks like this:

or like this:

If the time signature has two numbers, the top one will be usually be the number of beats in each measure or group (more on that ‘usually’ qualifier later), and the bottom number will be the type of note that will represent one beat. It’s the number of beats that’s important for keeping time, so we’ll focus on that for this article.

If the time signature is , it means “common time”, which is the same as 4/4 (4 beats per measure), and if it’s it means “cut time” – the technical term is “alla breve” – and it’s the same as 2/2 with two beats per measure… it’s called ‘cut time’ because the notes will look the same as 4/4, but sound twice as fast.

The next exercises concentrate on counting the beats in a measure…

Exercise 4: with the metronome in the 60-80 range, play downstrokes on every beat, but count the beats 1-2-3-4 as you play them. Accent the ‘number 1′ beat by playing it a little harder than the others.

Exercise 5: repeat exercise 4, but this time, count in groups of three, 1-2-3, accenting the first beat of each group.

Exercise 6: repeat again, but count in groups of two, 1-2, accenting the first beat of each group.

Playing Beat Divisions

Playing only on the beat can make a rhythm seem boring, so we often play divisions of beats. The simplest division is cutting the beat in half, so you play two notes or chords in the space of one beat. The way to count these divisions is by using the syllable ‘and’ in between the numbers, so you count “One-and-two-and-three-and-four-and”, with the syllables being evenly spaced.

This is easiest to achieve on the guitar with alternating strokes – we’ll use a downstroke on the beat, and an upstroke on the ‘and’ that falls between each beat.

Exercise 7: with the metronome in the 50-60 range, play a downstroke on each beat, and an upstroke on each ‘and’:

Exercise 8: once you’re comfortable with playing divisions of the beat, you can combine beats and divisions to make interesting rhythms. Your counting will remain the same, and you’ll continue to use a downstroke on every beat. We’ll play downstrokes on the beats 1 and 3, and down-up on the beat and division for 2 and 4:

This will be easiest to do properly if you keep your picking hand moving in time with the division. Simply pass by the strings, only strumming them when the pattern calls for it.

Exercise 9: This time we’ll play divisions only on the ‘two-and’ in each measure, so the rhythm will be “one-two-and-three-four”:

Beat Subdivisions

We don’t have to stop dividing there – divisions of the beat can be split into subdivisions, each getting one quarter of a beat. In order to count this, we need to add a couple more syllables; we’ll use ‘ee’ for the subdivision before the ‘and’, and ‘ah’ for the subdivision after the ‘and’, so you’ll count this:

One-ee-and-ah-two-ee-and-ah-three-ee-and-ah-four-ee-and-ah

for a complete measure of 4/4 time. We’ll write it a bit more simply, using e and a for the subdivisions: 1 e & a, etc. We’ll need to work into this in stages, because it’s a bit more complicated to count

Exercise 10: Getting used to the count. With the metronome around 50-60 beats per measure, you’ll play downstrokes on the beat, but count the subdivisions:

Exercise 11: since the subdivision is twice as fast, you’ll now need downstrokes on the ‘and’ counts, so you can play upstrokes on the ‘ee’ and ‘ah’ counts. With the metronome around 50 beats per minute, play downstrokes on the beat and ‘and’ division while you count all the subdivisions:

Exercise 12: now you’re ready to play alternating strokes on the subdivision. Start out slow, around 42-48 beats per measure, and increase to about 72 or so:

Exercise 13: just as we did with divisions, you can come up with a more interesting rhythm by mixing up the subdivisions. We’ll start by playing the subdivisions of beats 1 and 3, and the divisions of beats 2 and 4. It’s easiest to do by maintaining the same wrist motion, so the ‘and’ counts will be downstrokes:

Exercise 14: the same as the last exercise, but now we’ll leave out the ‘ee’ stroke on the first beat:

Triplets

Beats don’t always have to divide into two parts – we can divide a beat into three parts called triplets, with three evenly spaced sounds per beat. To count these, we’ll use the syllables ‘trip-let’ in between the beats:

one-trip-let-two-trip-let-three-trip-let-four-trip-let

Exercise 15: the easiest way to play triplet beats is by alternating strokes. This is going to result in downstrokes on beats 1 and 3, and upstrokes on beats 2 and 4. Start out slowly, around 40 beats per minute, and increase to about 60 as you get the hang of it:

Exercise 16: This one will take a bit of practice – to emphasise the count, start each triplet with a downstroke. You won’t have much time to get your pick back into position with two downstrokes in a row, so start slow at about 40 beats per minute.

Broken Triplets

Blues and swing music both make extensive use of ‘broken triplets’, or ’swing eighths’. To play these rhythms, you’re using a triplet pattern, but skipping the middle part of each triplet. If the music says swing feeling, or 12/8 feel, you’ll use broken triplets.

Exercise 17: Broken triplets are almost always played in alternating strokes. With the metronome around 50-60, try to make it swing:

Compound Meters

Early on, I mentioned that the top number in a time signature will ‘usually’ mean the number of beats per measure, and in the last section, I mentioned ‘12/8 feel’. When the top number of a time signature is 6, 9, 12, or 15, there are two different ways you can count beats.

The first way is just like the other time signatures, with the number representing the beats. That’s called simple time, so in 12/8 you’d count:

one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve

for each measure. The other way is called compound time, and it means you’re playing triplets, and counting every third ‘beat’:

It’s easier to count in compound time at fast tempos, and you don’t have to try squeezing in awkward counts like ‘eleven’.

Counting Measures

Sometimes you’ll be playing a tune that has one chord for a number of measures, or a repeating pattern that you have to go through a fixed number of times before changing to a new chord progression. When you’re faced with that, you need to know which measure you’re on, or you won’t change at the right time… the performance situation I mentioned at the start of this piece.

The best way to keep track is to use a different number for the first beat of each measure. If you need to play a C chord for six measures, you’d count:

1-2-3-4-2-2-3-4-3-2-3-4-4-2-3-4-5-2-3-4-6-2-3-4

and you’ll be able to change in the right spot.

If you’re playing a pattern a certain number of times, you can emphasize the number each time you go around – for example, if you’ve got one measure each of Am7, Bm7, Cm7, Bm7 to be played four times, you can mentally call out to yourself each time you start the pattern:

his can be easier to keep track of than trying to count measures 1-16 and remember the chords at the same time.

Syncopation

I promised I’d get to the secrets of syncopation by the end of this, and here we are!

Syncopated rhythms can sound pretty cool, and add a lot to your rhythm playing. You’ll remember how we made rhythms more interesting by using divisions and subdivisions of beats. When we worked at counting them, we counted every subdivision, but we didn’t play them all.

Syncopated rhythms are much the same, but instead of ‘leaving out’ divisions or subdivisions, we’ll leave out actual beats, and play the divisions or subdivisions around them. This ends up shifting the sound we expect to hear on the beat, and provides lots of rhythmic interest. We’ll use a fairly simple syncopation for our example, leaving out beat 3:

To execute syncopation smoothly, keep your hand moving in time to the division… but when you’re not playing on a division, just pass it by the strings without striking them. It’s easier to do than it sounds!

Exercise 18: Start around 60 beats per minute. This example uses divisions, and leaves out playing on beat three. Let the chords ring until the next strum:

Your hand should be moving up and down on each division, like this:

with the letters in parentheses representing the strokes that pass by without strumming.

Until next time, peace and music,

Tom

The modern guitar has a long and rich history. The very first guitar-like instrument appears on a terra cotta plaque in the Baghdad museum. The plaque is estimated to be around 3700 years old!

An instrument that sounded this good just had to be shared, and these early instruments soon spread throughout most of the known world. Egyptian paintings show similar instruments, with two or three strings and a short, fretted neck. Music was apparently “women’s work” in Egypt, as all of the existing paintings show only female musicians… but they were clearly innovators: these paintings also show the first use of plectrums, or picks.

To the north, ancient Greeks improved on the design by lengthening the neck. At this point, the instrument was called a lute, and within another 500 years or so it had spread as far East as India.

As the instrument spread outward from Mesopotamia, local variations came about – the medieval lute, the oud, the Russian balalaika, and others are all descendants of this first instrument. Not every design succeeded, of course, and some instruments like the theorbo came and went without leaving much of a mark on the musical landscape.

The immediate ancestor of the guitar is probably the gittern, a Spanish instrument dating to the late 1200s. Gitterns started out as a four-stringed instrument, but by the 1400s had expanded to seven strings – the lowest three strings were paired in octaves (as in a modern 12-string guitar), with a single E string as the highest note. These instruments were tuned just as we tune the first four strings of the modern guitar: D, G, B, and E.

Eleven string versions came next, with five paired strings and a single high E, and the pairs disappeared shortly after 1800, leaving just six strings. A few years later, the Spanish luthier Antonio Torres Jurado standardized guitar making to a fixed string length, creating the first modern classical guitar.

We don’t know a lot about the earliest musical styles performed on guitar-like instruments; most of the literate people prior to the Renaissance were members of the clergy, and frowned on non-liturgical music. Perhaps this is because some French troubadors are said to have substituted bawdy lyrics for the familiar tunes of church music in the 1200s!

The music that does survive from the early days does give us some fine examples of how music developed from monophonic melodies to the complex arrangements we hear today. Early music, with its simple harmonization, is particularly well suited for beginners, as there isn’t a lot ‘going on’ at one time.

What we think of today as full chords were pretty rare in early performance. Simple melody lines were plucked to accompany a singer, with an occasional interval of a fourth or fifth to ‘fatten up’ the melodic line.

To give you a feeling for how this sounds, I’ve transcribed a short piece from the Dowland Lute manuscript, probably entitled “Jamie has lost his digger”.

This short piece is in AAB form. The only tricky fingering comes five measures from the end, with the B-F#-B; I finger this 1-4 in order to hold the B note while striking the C#.