Music theory for beginner guitarists

Most beginner guitarists start by learning the same fifteen chords, usually called the “standard fifteen.” I’ve also heard them called the open chords because they make use of open strings and are thus easy to play.

Major Seventh Minor
A A7 Am
— B7 —
C C7 —
D D7 Dm
E E7 Em
F — —
G G7 —

For fingerings, have a look at Wikipedia or any book on beginner guitar. You can also see this handy web site, which plays audio of each chord along with the fingerings.

It’s not much good to just memorize the standard fifteen chords without musical context. It’s better to learn them grouped together into keys, so you can hear how they relate to each other. Here are the standard fifteen grouped into various useful major, blues and minor keys. Pick a row and try the chords within it. They’ll sound good together in any order and in any combination. The first chord in each row is the tonic chord, which feels like “home base”.

Major keys

I ii iii IV V7 vi V7/V V7/ii V7/vi
C major: C Dm Em F G7 Am D7 A7 E7
G major: G Am — C D7 Em A7 E7 B7
D major: D Em — G A7 — E7 B7 —
A major: A — — D E7 — B7 B7 —
E major: E — — A B7 — — — —

Blues keys

I7 bIII IV7 V7 bVII
C blues: C7 — — G7 —
G blues: G7 — C7 D7 F
D blues: D7 F G7 A7 C
A blues: A7 C D7 E7 G
E blues: E7 G A7 B7 D

Minor keys

I V7/V bIII iv IV7 v V7 bVI bVI7 bVII
D minor: Dm E7 F — G7 Am A7 — — C
A minor: Am B7 C Dm D7 Em E7 F — G
E minor: Em — G Am A7 — B7 C C7 D

For more adventurous sounds, try mixing chords from different keys together. Trust your ears and have fun! And once you’ve mastered these chords, maybe you’d like to tackle the pentatonic scale.

Dig the big bang

In Annie Hall, young Woody Allen explains to his doctor that he won’t do his homework because the universe is expanding, so what’s the point? His mother exasperatedly tells him, “You’re here in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is not expanding!”

I post this because I’ve been reading Coming Of Age In The Milky Way by Tim Ferris, as good a summary of the state of cosmology between two covers as a person could ask for. Thinking about the horrifying enormousness and ancientness of the universe might have depressed Woody Allen, but it has a paradoxically calming effect on me. Reading books like Ferris’ is my favorite form of meditation.

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Muppet Silly Songs

For my 35th birthday, my sister gave me a CD of Muppet Silly Songs, a favorite of ours when we were kids. It’s been out of print for years and last time I checked wasn’t even available on the web, legally or not. We unearthed the vinyl at our mom and stepfather’s place when we were there over Mother’s Day, and Molly converted it to digital with the help of our friend Leo.

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Hey! Wait!

Let Us In

[audio:http://ethanhein.com/music/revival_revival_let_us_in.mp3]

Revival Revival vs Nirvana

mp3 download, ipod format download

Vocals and guitar by Barbara. Additional guitar, controller synth, 808 programming and sampling by me. Contains some salty language.

This continues our recent push into mostly original rock material about Barbara’s complex romantic life. The sample comes from one of my favorite Nirvana songs.

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WordPress is why I love the internet

If anyone comes to me wanting a personal web site, I try to convince them they should have a blog, specifically, a WordPress blog. I’m doing several web sites for clients that use WordPress. The more I work with this platform, the more I come to love it. WordPress is free, hacker-friendly and supported by an enthusiastic community. It represents everything good about the web right now.

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Drum machine programming

This post has been superseded by my giant collection of rhythm patterns, which you can see here.

I wrote a general post about what makes a hot beat hot. As a followup, here’s how to program some generic patterns and a few famous breakbeats. The basic unit of dance music is a sequence of sixteen eighth notes, two measures of four-four time. Drum machines like the Roland TR-808 represent the sixteen eighth notes as an ice cube tray with sixteen slots, with a row for each percussion sound. Software like Reason and Fruityloops have drum machine emulators that follow the look and feel of the 808. The loop cycles from slot number one across to the right. When it gets to slot sixteen it jumps back to one.

Here’s how you’d count the basic loop. Above is the standard music notation method of counting two bars of four-four time. Below is the drum machine representation, with the eighth notes numbered one through sixteen.

|  1  +  2  +  3  +  4  +  1  +  2  +  3  +  4  + |
| 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 |

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Blue notes and other microtones

Update: here’s a deeper and better-informed explanation of blue notes.

Blue notes are a big part of what makes the blues sound like the blues. Most other American vernacular music uses blue notes too: jazz, funk, rock, country, gospel, folk and so on. In the video below, John Lee Hooker hits a blue note in just about every single guitar phrase.

For such a foundational element of America’s music, there’s a surprising amount of confusion as to what a blue note is exactly. So allow me to clear it up: a blue note is a microtonal pitch in between a note from the blues scale and a neighboring note from the major scale.

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Bach to the future

I’m not a big classical music guy for the most part, but I never get tired of Bach.

This stodgy eighteenth century Lutheran doesn’t seem a likely inspiration for a hipster electronica producer like me. There aren’t too many other wearers of powdered wigs in my record collection, and Bach is the only one in the regular rotation. Why? When I studied jazz guitar I was encouraged to learn some Bach violin and cello music. I learned a lot about music theory that way but I had a surprising amount of fun too. Those pieces are complex and technical, but they’re easy to memorize – it’s one catchy hook after another after another.

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Do that stuff, aw do that stuff

One of the funkiest albums ever recorded is The Clones Of Dr Funkenstein by Parliament. Even if you never listen to it, you’ll get funkier just by looking at the cover.

There’s much to love about this album beyond its joyously ridiculous science fiction theme. There are the deft, bebop-flavored horn charts by James Brown’s trombonist Fred Wesley. There are the irresistible beats by Jerome Brailey, who laid the rhythmic foundation of hip-hop (along with Clyde Stubblefield and the Incredible Bongo Band.) And there are the squiggly Moog synths by Bernie Worrell.

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Life in one day

Our creation myths start with the assumption that we’re the most important thing in the world, the reason for everything else’s being. The story that science tells relegates us to the periphery. Life has mostly been smaller and simpler than us. I think it’s important to recognize that we might very easily wipe ourselves out, and the microbes will barely have noticed we were even here.

Life appeared very early in the planet’s history, earlier than you might have naively guessed. But then for billions of years, it existed only as simple single cells floating in the ocean or sitting in cracks in the rocks. Big complex creatures visible to the naked eye didn’t appear until the planet was two-thirds of the way to its present age. The first insects didn’t appear until nine-tenths of the way to the present, and humans didn’t show up until ninety-nine percent of the way.

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