If you live in New York and want to take guitar lessons, it’s probably to learn how to play your favorite songs. Right? But did you know that there are other benefits to guitar lessons? Learning about tonics, quarter notes, rhythm draw on different parts of the brain. A musical instrument can make you an overall better person, giving you and those around you greater happiness. Don’t believe me? Read on.
Like most studies, music has its own specific vocabulary. For example, a scale is made up of individual notes, or degrees. The first degree is the tonic, also known as the tonal resolution. In a C scale for example, the tonic is C. Based on a note’s distance from its tonic, it will sound good or bad. The fifth note is known as a dominant, and is second in importance to the tonic. When you move from any tonic to that tonic’s dominant note, it will always sound good. In a C scale, the dominant note is G. In a D scale, the dominant note is A. On guitar, a C chord is composed of a tonic note, dominant note, and mediant note, the third note in a scale, in this case an E. Therefore, in relation to any tonic, the third and fifth notes will always sound good. Figuring out which notes work for which tonic is an exercise in math.
A quarter note is one quarter of a whole note. While some musicians refer to a quarter note as a beat, this isn’t always the case, since a beat depends on the time signature. For example, any time the signature is other than 4/4, a quarter note is not a beat. There are also eighth notes, sixteenth notes, even 32nd notes, if you’re playing a gnarly guitar solo.
Get rhythm, when you get the blues. I.e., dance. According to Wikipedia, rhythm is a “movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions.” In terms of guitar lessons, I think of rhythm when I think of strum pattern. Up down down up, down up down up, up up down, the variations are many.
When I took guitar lessons in NYC, my teacher would tell me to open up every practice session with five minutes on chord changes, five minutes on scales, and five minutes on strum patterns before moving into the meat of my practice. With that in mind, I would try to focus on strum rhythm by playing with a metronome. This can also help the timing of scales and chord changes and will make you feel more comfortable playing in front of people and with others if you want to join a band one day.
Music may not make you smarter, but it definitely doesn’t make you dumber. If you’ve ever felt tears in your eyes or gotten chills while listening to music, you know its power. Feeling down and being able to play your favorite song is a sure-fire way to forget your problems. When it comes down to it, learning how to play an instrument is part of what makes someone well-rounded, no matter if you’re covering music theory or trying to dance to a beat.