What's up, everybody? I'm Tony, and I'm so
happy to have you here today because
you're about to watch the video I wish I
would've had when I didn't know
anything about music when I was just
first starting to get into music and
even a couple of months ago I would've
found this to be insanely helpful just
to have all of the information easy to
understand and all in one place
I am going to tell you exactly everything you
need to know first about music theory
and everything you need to understand.
What notes, chords, scales, and keys are
And most importantly we'll talk about how to
fit all of this together in a way that
the music that we listen to often will
start to make a lot more sense and we'll
be able to see that each song is not
this individual thing but just the part
of an underlying concept and everything
connects together by the end of this
you'll even be able to start writing
your own songs or composing your own
song if you wanted to give it a try. So
this concept that I'm talking about that
helps us tie everything together and
make sense of a lot of things is the
major scale. The major scale is a concept
that's really important to understand
because it's the backbone of the music
that we listen to the most and we'll
talk about everything you need to know
about it. But first, let's play a song!
You might or might not know this already but
a lot of the songs that we listen to
often are just a sequence of chords
played in a loop and that repeated over
and over again and that's the entire
song and if you're wondering what a
chord is it's just a group of notes
played together and it's usually three
or more notes. For example, here's a C
chord
An important thing to know about chords though
Is that they have what's
called the root note this is the note
This is the note that names the chord
And the rest of the
notes are just notes that are tied
strongly together to this root note and
when they're played along with the root note
they make it stand out so if we're
playing that C chord
we're just playing C and the
other notes that make it stand out
So now let's try it with the guitar okay so
if I'm telling you that a song is just a
sequence of chords and a chord is just
a main note played along with other
notes that make it stand out the
simplest way to play a song would be to
just play that main note instead of the
chords. So I'm going to play Here I Am by SOJA
And I'm not gonna play the chords I'm just
gonna play the root notes of each chord
and this is what it would sound like
Now, that sounds a little boring let's
just try adding in some rhythm
And now a melody
Okay, so that's now starting to sound a little better. And it would sound
even better if we were to add the
full chords to that song. But how
exactly do we know what chords to add
and how do we know that they fit well together?
Well that's exactly what we're
going to talk about today and we're
going to finish by playing the song with
the full chords. That takes us to the
first thing we need to talk about and
that is notes
The first thing we need to know is that
there are only 12 notes, that's it
that's all there is to the music that
we're used to listening to and that's
music that we can play with a piano or
anything you can play with a guitar from
classical music to popular music it's
all within 12 notes. Okay, so what are
those tough notes exactly? They go from A
to G and in music things tend to revolve
around C so we'll start with C these are
called natural notes and then there are
also some notes that are between the
natural notes and their names depend on
the notes they have right next to them
if they're named by raising the lower
note they're called sharps and if
they're named by lowering the higher
note
they're called flats but these two are
exactly the same note and using one name
or the other will just depend on the
context and in this video we'll mostly
refer to them as sharps it's really easy
to visualize this in a piano where the
twelve notes just repeat over and over
again and all white notes are natural
notes and the black notes are the
accidentals as you can see if we go up
one note from C we get to C sharp but we
could also call this D flat if we wanted
to we can also see easily in a piano how
notes start over every 12 keys it's just
that whenever you start over you're at
what's called an octave higher what
happens here is that if you had a string
tuned to a certain note say C if you
played that string you would be playing
that note and then if you split that
string exactly in half and you played it
it would produce the same exact note but
exactly an octave higher and the
frequency would be exactly double this
is basically how a guitar works
you press frets to change the length of
the string you're playing if you grab
the sixth string for example which is
tuned to E and press the twelfth fret
this would split the string exactly in
half and we would be playing an E the
same exact note that's the open string
just that an octave higher and then all
of the frets in between would be the
rest of the notes and after this middle
E notes
just repeat over and over again just
like with a piano a great way to
remember all the notes is just by
picturing a piano all of the white notes
are naturals and all the black notes are
accidentals probably the most important
thing to remember here apart from the
actual notes is that these are exactly
the same distance away from each other
even though it doesn't look like it in a
piano so when we start at one note and
go up by one we get to the next one if
we go up by three you would get here and
if we go up by two we would get here and
so on they're exactly the same distance
away from each other okay so now we have
all of these notes but how do we use
them to create music we need to find a
way to group these notes together in a
way that makes sense and then these
groups of notes we can suddenly start
to use to create music
that's where scales come in and probably
the most important one to learn first
because then the rest and pretty much
everything else starts to build on top
of this is the major scale mastering the
major scale is like having a superpower
when it comes to music because it's the
backbone of the music that we usually
listen to and by that I mean Western
music in general and once you know how
the major scale works so many other
things are just variations from what we
get when we learn the major scale and
you might be thinking okay but what is a
scale in the first place we can think of
a scale as some sort of map or set of
directions that tells you exactly where
to go based on where you are and in the
same way that if you had a map but you
don't know where you are in the map you
can't use it and if you know where you
are but you don't have a map or set of
directions you don't know where to go
and that you need both the map and the
reference point when using a scale you
also need the scale and the reference
point to be able to use it and this
reference point is what ties strongly
together to the concept of what a key is
in music okay so let me start by telling
you that the major scale of the note C
is all of the white notes in the piano
this means that the C major scale has
the notes C D E
F G A and B and then back to C again
this one's the easiest one to remember
because it's just the white notes in the
piano okay so now I ask you what set of
directions do we need to get all of
these notes if we started at the note C
well we see that to get from C to D we
need to go from C and add two and that
would take us to D then from D to E
we need to go from D and add two then we
add one then two then two then two and
finally one again to get back to C so we
could say that the major scale is
defined by this set of directions plus
two plus two plus one plus two plus two
plus two plus one in music we call the
difference between two notes and
interval and the two smallest intervals
are plus ones and plus twos which are
called semi-tones or half steps and
tones or whole steps so with this we can
see that the major scale can be defined
by this set of directions where W
represents a whole step and H
represents a half step we can see that
when we apply this to C we get the C
major scale an easier way to visualize
this is with a line that looks like this
where you have the longer and shorter
distances representing whole steps and
half steps and an even easier way to
look at it is by turning this line into
a circle since we know that the pattern
just repeats over and over again and now
this is where things start to click
because now we could create this sort of
tool that would help us to get every
single major scale for every single note
that we wanted so we see that when we
use C as a reference we get the C
major scale okay so all this for what
why is this useful and why do we want to
get the major scale for every single
note well now we can start to create our
own melodies with those scales
see and now if you start to pay
attention to the songs that you listen
to they most likely use the major scale
great so now we know that we can use the
major scale to get notes but maybe an
even more practical way to use that is
to get the major chords because getting
a major chord is as easy as getting the
first the third and the fifth note from
the major scale and playing these notes
together so if we grab our major scale
and just added a mark for the first
third and fifth note we can just get all
our major chords for any note that we
wanted to an easier way to get the
major chords without having to write out
the scale is by looking at the spaces
that you leave between the notes that
you need to play and what do I mean by
this when you play a major chord you
want to make sure that you're leaving
three notes in between the first two
notes that you play and then leave two
notes in between the second and the
third note that you play when we play a
C major chord we see that we leave those
spaces in between and if you wanted to
play a D chord for example the same
would happen
and the same for an E chord and so on
the same way that we called the plus one
a semi tone or a half-step and we call
the plus two a tone or a whole step we
call the plus four a major third because
it takes you to the third note of the
major scale and we call a plus three a
minor third because it takes you to the
third note of the minor scale which is
just a major scale looked at from a
different angle and I'll explain that in
just a second another useful interval to
know is the plus seven which is called
the perfect fifth so a major chord is
built with the root note its major third
and a minor third from the second note
which we can also call a perfect fifth
from the root note or the root note plus
seven and by the way to write major
chords we just write the note of the
chord by itself so if you see a note by
itself that refers to a chord you just
assume is referring to a major chord so
if you see a C that's the C major chord
an A that's an A major chord an F
sharp that's an F sharp major chord and
so on so now we understand the major
scale a little better there's another
scale that's really important to
understand too and that's the minor
scale but don't worry the minor scale is
literally the same as the major scale
just that you start from a different
reference point you what exactly do I
mean by this if we take the major scale
and start it from here we get the minor
scale and looking at our major scale
here to get the minor scale we just use
this different reference point
and that's it we now have a minor scale
for every single note that we want and
the same way that we use the major scale
to build major chords to build a minor
chord you just do the same thing with
the minor scale so pick the first third
and fifth note of the minor scale so if
we compare the two scales to each other
we see that if we take the first third
and fifth note of each scale the only
difference between the chords is that to
get the minor chord we just slide the
major third down by a note which turns
it into a minor third from the root in
other words to build a minor chord we
take the root note its minor third and
it's perfect fifth and in a piano we
would visualize this like this we just
take our major chord and move the middle
note down by one and get the minor chord
and now we see how the notes in between
switch over leaving now two notes
between the first two notes and three
notes between the second and third to
write minor chords we write the note of
the chord with a lowercase M right next
to it this the notes was called the
quality of the chord if it's major or
minor and if you don't see anything
right next to the note again just assume
it's a major chord okay by this point
you probably noticed that if we're using
the same sort of map to map out each
scale we're actually getting the same
exact notes for two different scales
because if we look at the C major scale
we're also looking at the a minor scale
and that's exactly right
every major scale has its relative minor
and the other way around and these
scales share exactly the same notes and
you might be thinking okay but if they
use exactly the same notes wouldn't they
result in exactly the same songs well
that's not necessarily the case because
when you use each scale you would
emphasize or tend towards some notes
that are different between each other
for example the note that sounds the
most like home and that resolves any
tension in the songs that you write is
going to be the first note in each scale
which is different for the two and this
along with many other distinctions would
make the songs sound a lot differently
okay but now you should give yourself a
pat on the back for coming this far and
now you know how to build twenty-four
different chords all
major courts and no minor chords and
that's actually a lot because it is with
these chords that we can play the
simplified version of pretty much every
single song out there and what do I mean
by this that whenever you look up the
chords of a song that you want to play
and all of a sudden you find yourself
with slightly more complicated chords
under ones that you already know the
major in the minor chords say that you
find yourself with this chord or this
chord well if this happens you can just
simplify these chords to their core
version of the chord which would be A
minor or D major as long as you're
playing the right quality of the chord
or the right tonality of the chord which
is major a minor you should be good and
maybe focus on learning these more
complicated versions of chords
after you master major and minor chords
in a lot of cases they just involve
playing an additional note or slightly
changing the chords that you already
know wow you've made it this far past
the most complicated stuff for today the
last thing that's left is getting that
final piece of the puzzle that makes
this all fit together and gets you to
actually start creating music well let's
start by saying that we wanted to write
a song that's in the key of C major that
means that we can use the notes that are
in the C major scale but what about the
chords you might be thinking let's just
get every single note in the major scale
and just get the major chord for each
note and that's actually a great
assumption so let's say we get a C major
chord this chord fits perfectly in the
notes of the scale but what if we get to
D major for example that chord is made
with D F sharp and A and F sharp is
not in this scale so to write a song we
would actually want to create the chords
out of the scale that we get so we want
the chords to be a result of the scale
that we're looking at so what we do to
get the chords is that we pick the first
the third and the fifth note from the
scale as if we started from each note in
that scale so to show you what I mean by
this it's way easier to see it in the
piano so we have all of these notes in
the C major scale
and then back to C we want to pick
three consecutive notes from the note in
the scale while leaving one note of
separation like this okay so what do we
get when we look at C that's right we
just get a C major chord but what
happens when we look at D from the
spaces between the notes we see that we
actually get a D minor chord and if we
do this for the rest of the notes we
would get E minor F major G major
A minor
and when we get to B something
interesting happens we no longer have
the difference of three notes in between
and then two or two notes in between and
then three as would happen for a major
and minor chord instead we have a
separation of two notes and then also
two notes we call this type of chord a
diminished chord because it involves a
minor third from the root note in the
diminished fifth which is just a perfect
fifth moved down by a semitone or a +6
instead of a +7 don't worry about this
type of chord right now because it's not
used that often and you can learn it
later on so then if you see the scale in
terms of chords these are the ones we
could use to write a song and the
general version of this is that when
we're using the major scale you know
that the one chord will always be a
major the two chord will always be a
minor then the three a minor four major
five major six minor and seven
diminished which you won't find that
much so any song that you wanted to
write a major tonality you could use
these chords and what if you wanted to
use a minor tonality well since we know
they're exactly the same but looked at
from a different angle we would just
rearrange the chords and would get that
the first chord is minor the second
diminished and so on and that's it and
that's all you need to start
understanding how songs are built and
you could even start composing your own
just pick a key pick a tonality and now
you know what notes you can use you know
what chords you can use and just get
creative start finding chord
progressions that you like and start
writing your own melodies on top of it
or start singing on top of it and see
where it takes you
for now let's do an example let's say
that we want to write a song in the key
of A minor
remember A minor is as if we picked C
major but here we'll treat A minor as a
home chord as opposed to C major so I
messed around with the chords in the key
and the chords I liked ended up being
a one seven five six progression and it
sounds something like this
so there you go
that's an example of a chord progression
in A minor if we wanted we could start
creating melodies and not any things on
top of it
but that's already essentially a song if
you start to get familiarized with all
these concepts that we talked about
it'll feel like the superpower if you're
playing with someone and they suddenly
say like hey let's play a song it's in
the key of B minor and it's going to be
a one six three seven progression and
then you would just pick those chords
out of the chords that you could use
with the B minor scale and guess what
it's one of the thousands of songs that
uses that progression Here I Am by SOJA
so let's give it a try
so that's it for today you guys thank
you all so much for watching and staying
with me till the end I really hope you
enjoyed this video and you could learn
anything from it I certainly would have
appreciated this a lot back then when I
was trying to get some valuable
information out there because I
certainly learned a lot of things in the
wrong order and I just hope you find
this valuable and you can see that if
you break things down step by step but
they're easier to understand so I truly
hope you found this helpful
and if that's the case please smash that
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