My favorite music theory book is:
Edly's Music Theory for Practical People
http://www.edly.com/mtfpp.html
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Music Theory is the "Science" end of music.
It can help you understand how to find notes, scales and chords anywhere and everywhere on the neck of your fretted, stringed instrument. How to find the "notes in a chord", and then to find those chords ALL over the neck of your instrument. It can help you layout a neck diagram... finding and placing correctly, first the natural notes, then the placement of scales and chords. It can help you identify Key Signatures in standard Music Notation, which in turn, helps you identify the "Key" a piece of music is in... which in turn, helps you to determine what scales and chords are associated with that key.
I found certain elements absolutely essential to enable myself to 'hear', analyze and generally understand how to read, write and arrange music.
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1. The Music Alphabet - All scales, keys and chords get their "Alphabetical" names from the Music Alphabet
The Music Alphabet: A B C D E F G
Seven letter names... that's all? Yep! Not so bad!
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2. The "Revolving Concept" of the Music Alphabet - This concept helps you figure out how to find notes on the neck of your fretted, stringed instrument. Once you "run out of notes" in the Music Alphabet... What happens next? Where do you go?
The Music Alphabet continually 'revolves'... Once you get to G, you simply start over again with A... and it goes forever or until you run out of frets on a given string. Physically, the names just keep repeating... Pitch-wise, however, each time the Music Alphabet 'repeats'... you have risen in 'pitch' an octave... going up or down... whichever direction you are heading. When you add in the "steps" and "half-steps" to the Music Alphabet... it takes 12 frets total from any open string to run completely through an octave (or eight notes). So... the standard seven notes (plus the octave note...same name as the note you started on) PLUS the "steps" and "half-steps" come out to a total of twelve frets from the open string you started on.
This also means that your 'open tuning' is repeated exactly, string to string, at the twelfth fret.
The "Revolving Music Alphabet": A B C D E F G, A B C D E F G, A B C D E F G, ad infinitum... This is easiest to see on a piano keyboard (white keys only)... There are only seven letter names in the Music Alphabet... but there are 8 octaves of notes on a full-sized piano keyboard.
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3. The Music Alphabet By Thirds - If you look at the diagram (below) of the music alphabet... and circle (or highlight as I have to do here) every other note (beginning on F, for a special reason)... You have the Music Alphabet "By Thirds" or "every-other-note". Every chord in the universe is built from scale notes. Taking the scale notes by thirds is how you find the notes in the chords you are looking for.
Here is the Music Alphabet: A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G... Using the Revolving Concept to get several octaves)...
Here is the same Music Alphabet with the Thirds highlighted (in red):
A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G...
The highlighted notes are: F A C E G B D... They are easy to remember if you add a hyphen and look at the spelling:
F A C E - G B D
Memorizing this pattern... forwards and backwards will be the key to your being able to understand and build chords at will.
F A C E - G B D (Forwards) - MEMORIZE THIS... Say it out loud!
D B G - E C A F (Backwards) - MEMORIZE THIS... Say it out loud!
Once you have developed this ability (to build chords from scales)... you will NEVER need to buy another chord book again... you will understand chords!
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4. The Music Alphabet by Fifths - This will help you figure out Keys and Key Signatures... another useful tool when trying to analyze tunes... making you a better 'By Ear' player!
The Music Alphabet: A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G (Revolving Concept).
Highlight every Fifth note, starting on F:
The Music Alphabet: A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G (By Fifths or every 5th note).
And that leaves you: F-C-G-D-A-E-B or: F C G D - A E B. (Easier to remember this way).
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5. The Circle of Fifths -
I use the Circle of Fifths mostly to quickly identify 'Key Signatures"... How many sharps or flats tells you what key you're in and then you have an idea what chords, scales, etc., can be used.
Also notice from the very top and right-ward... are the "Guitar Keys": C, G, D, A and E.
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6. The Order of Sharps - The Order of Sharps is the same as the Music Alphabet by Fifths, starting on F...
F C G D A E B This is important to know when trying to decipher key signatures in standard music notation. When you look at a piece of music, the order of the sharps ALWAYS follows the same order from left to right... If you only see ONE sharp in the key signature, it is always "F". If you see TWO sharps, it is ALWAYS F and C. THREE sharps is ALWAYS FCG. Four sharps will always be FCGD. Five sharps will always be FCGDA. Six sharps will always be FCGDAE. Lastly, if you have 7 sharps, they will be FCGDAEB. Being able to figure out the "NAME" of the key is important... it immediately clues you in to what chords you can expect to find in the song... thereby, reducing 'guesswork'. Being familiar with the Circle of Fifths will also be helpful as far as figuring out keys by the number of sharps or flats in the key signature.
See table below:
1 - F
2 - F,C
3 - F, C, G
4 - F, C, G, D
5 - F, C, G, D, A
6 - F, C, G, D, A, E
7 - F, C, G, D, A, E, B
Once you know this trick, it is fun (I find it so), to go through any "Irish fiddle tune" book and practice reading out loud what the key signatures are... You'll find there are certain keys that fiddlers prefer...even though a fiddle can play in any key.
I also like to look through church hymnals and read the key signatures... just out of curiosity!
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7. The Order of Flats - Is IDENTICAL to the "Order of Sharps"... EXCEPT it is BACKWARDS...
The easiest way to remember it is: "B E A D" - G C F
Remember, if you have ONE flat... it is always B, 2 flats it is always E... See table below...
1 - B
2 - B, E
3 - B, E, A
4 - B, E, A, D
5 - B, E, A, D, G
6 - B, E, A, D, G, C
7 - B, E, A, D, G, C, F
Each time, you just add the NEXT letter name from the order of flats!...
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8. Steps and Half-Steps - Knowledge of where "Steps" and "Half-Steps" occur will help you determine WHERE the notes occur on the neck of ANY fretted instrument... WE are mostly concerned with banjo... However, once you know this... you can find all of the notes on a Guitar, a Mandolin... even a Turkish Saz!
(illustration to come)...
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9. Neck Diagrams - Anyone could draw a neck diagram... I typically make 5 vertical lines longways (for a banjo) on a piece of 8.5 x 11 piece of paper... Then make a double horizontal line at the top, representing the 'nut' of the (banjo, guitar, mandolin, Turkish Saz). Then make individual horizontal lines going from left to right to indicate the frets as you go down (or up) the neck of your chosen instrument. I typically stop at the 12th fret... everything repeats from there... At the twelfth fret, from the first string to the fifth string... the notes are exactly the same as they are open.
(illustration to come)...
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10. "The Guitar Keys" - There are 15 total 'keys' that music can be played in (See the Circle of Fifths). Out of those 15 keys, the keys of C G D A and E are the 5 keys that the guitar plays in most easily.
This means that most "western hemisphere" music styles such as Rock, Blues, Country, Folk, Bluegrass, Old-Time and Gospel music are easily expressed on the guitar in any one of those 5 keys. This is an important concept to know in developing your ability to 'play by ear', because knowing which keys to start looking at when figuring out a tune by ear, greatly increases your chances of success... It's also an added help to know that mandolin, banjo and fiddle share some of these guitar keys, i.e., they can play in certain of these keys fairly easily.
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11. Harmonized Scales - You can take ANY scale, Major or Minor and build thirds (remember the Music Alphabet by thirds...) from every scale 'degree' (or note of that scale) and find out what all the 'harmonizing chords' are for that scale (key).
In the 7 Mel Bay guitar method books, Mr. Bay has you learn the major scale in various climbing and descending patterns. Then, as he progresses from 'key to key', he starts introducing the 'Harmonized Scales'. You'll play a single note scale, then a double note scale (partial chords, introducing the thirds), then finally a three-note harmonized scale (triads, or three note chords). The harmonized scales typically progress from low to high, staying on the same set of strings, thereby 'climbing up the neck' towards the body of the instrument. It's another way to learn chords and scales up the neck... and it's amazing how many songs you'll find that use these types of chord patterns... in many different styles of music. It's also possible to expand this to 4-note, 5-note and 6-note chords, depending on the number of strings on your instrument.
Once you've learned your chord theory to a certain point, you can set-up neck diagrams and lay out these harmonized scales, major and minor, in any key.... and greatly expand your working knowledge of your favorite fretted, stringed instrument.
Sample of the G Harmonized Scale (In Tabledit):
Tabledited Sample
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12. The "Major-Minor" Chord Pattern based on the Major Scale:
There are 7 notes in a major scale. Each scale note (or scale 'degree') can represent a NOTE name or a CHORD name.
If we take the C Major scale as an example (Because it has NO sharps and No flats to confuse the issue)... we have:
C D E F G A B C
If we add numbers to each note (or degree) of the scale shown...
C1 D2 E3 F4 G5 A6 B7 C8... Then lay them out Vertically:
1. C - Major
2. D - Minor
3. E - Minor
4. F - Major
5. G - Major
6. A - Minor
7. B - Diminished (same as minor, with a lowered 5th)
8. C - Major
You see the pattern: Maj min min Maj Maj min dim. Maj
This is important because it happens the same way in EVERY key!
This knowledge will help you figure out which chords in each key are Major or Minor (Diminished is minor with a flatted 5th scale/chord degree). Another step towards 'training the ears'!
This pattern is used when building "Harmonized Scales", where each note of the scale is represented by a chord.
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