Lesson Two

What is Music?

   In this lesson, we'll learn about what music really is and how that knowledge can benefit you.

   If you didn't already know, all music consists of seven major notes and five chromatic notes (twelve total) that repeat endlessly. If you've ever seen a piano, then you've seen an example of these notes repeating over and over.

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
A	A#/Bb	B	C	C#/Db	D	D#/Eb	E	F	F#/Gb	G	G#/Ab

   There are varying degrees for each note (referred to as being either sharp or flat). This might sound confusing but a note can be sharp and flat at the same time (it depends on how you look at it). For example, A# (pro. A sharp) is the same as Bb (pro. B flat).

   So what is music? Music is just the combination of these notes in various harmonious pitches to create a song or piece that is pleasing to the ear.

   How can we use this information? Well, as you already know from lesson 1, a guitar is tuned E A D G B e. We can now figure out any note on the fretboard using this knowledge, which will become very useful when building chords later.

   Let's take the fifth fret on the D string for example. To figure it out we use the previous chart (above). Starting on D we count up until we can see that the fifth fret of the D string is a G note.
   It's that easy!

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