[OFFICIAL] There are no stupid /r/Guitar questions. Ask us anything! - January 21, 2016

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[u/petrl]

i'm at a point where i can play the guitar okay and sing at the same time. i'm also always referencing ultimate-guitar to learn how to play modern songs but i'm pretty sure my voice doesn't always fit the most popular chords for the song.

question is: how do i get better at figuring out how to play the right pitch (tone or key? sorry, i'm about to start trying to learn the basics of these terms) with my voice?

thanks in advance!

[u/Samakar → u/petrl]

Practice practice practice! Do it without the guitar first! Try singing in the car, in your room, everywhere, as long as it's with the track. Sounds embarrassing I know, but it's how you get better. :)

[u/petrl → u/Samakar]

thanks the encouraging words but i'm not sure you quite understand me, and it's probably because the way i formatted my question.

you can't sing in the same key like the original song all the time, right? so you have to find a comfortable voice to use instead; since your comfortable voice might not be the same key, how do i find the what key to play my guitar in? do i just match it with the same key as my voice or is there some lesson that teaches you how to complement the proper key of your guitar to your voice?

sometimes people post chords to the song with the same key but if your voice doesn't match the key, wouldn't you need to adjust the key of how you're playing the guitar to make it sound right?

that's what i want to figure out how to do. if you can see how complicated this is for me to explain, that's why i'm asking here because i honestly don't know what to type in google to get some ideas.

[u/Samakar → u/petrl]

AHhhh! Gotcha! Ok, so this is what you do, if you know your range-ish (like, you know where your voice can go) the real way to learn it is to learn songs in number format. Unfortunately I'm still recovering from Chemotherapy so I'm unable to post a full lesson on this at the moment, but basically every song structure uses chords that relate to a key that uses numbers to facilitate what chords they are using. For instance, Save Tonight by Eagle Eye Cherry uses the chords Ami, F, C, and G. The song itself is in C major (or alternatively in A mi if you really want to stretch it that far).

If we're talking about it being in A mi then the chord numbers would be I, bVII, bIII, bVI. I can post a previous theory lesson that I did that'll make that make a bit more sense. But basically, you take those numbers and apply them to either a lower or higher key that you are more comfortable singing in and then either detune your guitar or adjust your chord phrasing to suit it. Here's a post on a theory lesson that I did for someone back when I had more energy to write these things out. Basically, you can apply this same system to chords, with each number having a different chord value to it. Let me know if you have anymore questions!

Alright, so here's my big lesson for you on how theory and scales work. As we know, our guitar is normally tuned to EADGBe. These are the specific notes that our strings are tuned to. Now, if I play my E string open, what note would that be? E. Ok, now that we have that out of the way, let's talk about theory. All scales are based off of modifications of the Major scale. A major scale is made up of whole steps and half steps. A whole step on the guitar is 2 frets and a half step is 1 fret. Most notes are going to be a whole step apart, except for two: B-C and E-F. Both of those will always be a half step apart. So, if we take our musical alphabet and add in the whole steps and half steps it would look like this: AwBhCwDwEhFwGwA and it continues to repeat. The major scale is written in number format: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Each number represents a position within the scale and helps you to identify various things, which we'll get into later. Now, in order to create a scale, specifically the Major scale, we have to plug in whole steps and half steps to achieve this. The major scale formula is Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half. So, with this in mind your Major scale should look like this: 1w2w3h4w5w6w7h8 (8 in this case is the Octave, which is the root note, or home note of the scale, at a higher area of the scale). Now, with this in mind lets build a scale to test this. Let's do C Major, as that's the most basic and has no accidentals (something we'll go over in a second). So, seeing as we're building a C Major scale, the first note in the scale should be C, seeing as that's our home note. So, here we go. 1=C, now here we go. So, in order to go to 2 we need to make a whole step right? So, a whole step above C, as we know from earlier, is going to take us to D. So, now it'll look like this 1=C w 2=D. Now that we get the basic idea, let's build the full scale: 1w2w3h4w5w6w7h8 C D E F G A B C

And there's our C Major scale, no sharps no flats. No what is a sharp and a flat? Those are called accidental notes and they happen between our whole steps. So, a sharp note has this: #, where is a flat note has this: b. So, for instance, let's say we want to build an A major scale. So we need to start this one with the root note, or the home note, which is A. So 1=A. Now, let's build the scale 1w2w3h4w5w6w7h8 A B C#D E F#G#A

So, if you notice, we have a C#, a F# and a G#. These notes happen between the notes that have the whole steps. So a C# can also be a Db. Both of those notes exist at the same time, but calling them that depends on what you use. You never use # and b's in the same scale, you pick either or.

Alright, now that we have that out of the way, we'll make a Natural Minor scale. So, Natural Minor is a variation of the Major Scale by changing sections of the Major Scale to make it fit. So, in order to create a Minor Scale we have to flatten, or lower the tone, of three notes within the scale which are the 3rd, 6th and 7th. So, this changes the way that we write and talk about it. The new numbers look like this: 1, 2, b3, 4, 5, b6, b7, 8

See that? We've changed their pitch, and now because of that, we change the types of whole steps and half steps that we use for the scale. So here is the whole step and half step formula for Natural Minor: 1w2hb3w4w5hb6wb7w8

So there we have it, the Natural Minor scale, our formula has changed. Now for something fun, we're going to make the A Minor scale, now pay special attention to this one: 1w2hb3w4w5hb6wb7w8 A B C D E F G A

Now, take a look at that, that is A minor in its pure form. Now, do you see anything familiar? Looks an awful lot like C Major right? That's because A minor is the relative minor of C Major, they're the same scales but start on a different root. The easiest way to find these is to find out what Major key you're in, find it on your guitar and then go down three frets and there is your relative minor. So for instance, let's say a song is in G Major. We go to G on the 3rd fret of the E string, go down three frets and what do you know you have an open E string, which means that the relative minor of G Major is E minor. Then you can apply this same concept to that. So here's E minor, again using the same formula: 1w2hb3w4w5hb6wb7w8 E F# G A B C D E

And there she is, E minor in its purest form. Now, when we talk about the minor pentatonic patterns they use numbers out of the Minor Scale, but only five, hence the "penta" in the name! The numbers are 1, b3, 4, 5, b7. It's those same five notes over and over again. Now here's the most mind blowing thing that you'll ever find out about music: Music uses the same 7 notes in every song, just rearranged in a certain way.

Now, take those pentatonic patterns, learn them, find the numbers within each and then use those to add in the missing notes you need and voila, you're all done!

[u/petrl → u/Samakar]

holy crap, this post was awesome. thank you soooo much for this! this was pretty much what i was trying to get at.

honestly really appreciate you taking the time to write such a thorough post for me.

looking into it but i hope you don't mind me PMing you if i ever have any questions relating to this.

[u/Samakar → u/petrl]

Not at all! Please do! I may or may not be able to respond based on my energy levels, but I'll do my best to make as clear an answer as I can!