We have to start learning just a tiny bit of music theory. A little goes a long way, and you will find your playing improves a lot with a little understanding! Learning the basic principles is not too hard, and we will using the information that we learn in this lesson for ever!

Video Lesson

The Note Circle

You can see here the "Note Circle" which shows all 12 notes that we have in western music. Each step around the circle is the same as moving one fret, and this is called a "semitone". Two steps around the circle is called a tone.

If you look at the "white notes" (ones with no # or b) you can see that that are all a tone apart, except for B/C and E/F, which are only a semitone apart.

A sharp (#) raises the pitch of a note by one semitone (one fret). An easy way to remember this is that if you sat on something sharp, you would jump up!

A flat (b) lowers the pitch of a monte by one semitone (one fret). The easy way to remember this one is that if your tyre is flat it goes down.

One term that I really liked when I was learning this stuff in high scholl was the term "Enharmonic Equivalent" which means two notes that sound the same but have different names, like A# and Bb. These two notes sound exactly the same (in our western "equally tempered" music system).

You should get into counting your semitones, if you have a friend to help you, ask them to name how many semitones there are between any two notes, and then you have to count around the circle. To start with you will probably have to look at the chart below, but try and get it into your memory as quickly as you can.

Remember that everything you learn should be placed into your memory, not left on a page!

Fun for Germans and some other Europeans

For some reason I still do not really understand, German people call the note B as H. And if I remember correctly the note Bb is what they call B. This throws up all kinda of horrible music theory problems and though I have read about how the change of name came about, it still makes very little sense. Many teachers in Germany now teach with the regular B and no H, but many still uphold the tradition. I would recommend to German people that study music theory to get used to using the B, if only because all the rest of the world uses it and it makes a whole lot more sense in a logical music system.

Now we are going to look at how to make your chord changes in the air in BC-153 • Air Changes.

HELP!!!!

If you need to ask a question about this lesson - there is a topic set up specifically to help you with this lesson. To help you find it easily you can click the following link and it will take you right the topic. You'll be able to see questions that other people had and ask your own questions! Hopefully one of the very helpful members of our community will be there to help you soon, I do go there and answer stuff too - but there are just too many questions for me to answer alone! So click this link to get help with this lesson!

Justinguitar Beginner's Products

I have four great beginners products that will help you make the most of this course. Most popular is The Justinguitar Beginners Songbook which contains 100 songs arranged by difficulty that perfectly match up with each level of the course. Many people told me they like books more than web pages so we've made The Justinguitar Beginners Course Book (comes with 2 x CD's too!) and many people found being online to watch the videos a pain so we offer The Justinguitar Beginners Course DVD which also means you can watch the vids in much better quality. Together they complete the whole online course and are perfect when there is no internet connection!! Also very popular is Practical Music Theory for those that like to know what they are doing and why!! It covers very basic theory in an easy to digest way and puts it onto the guitar! They are all available in Bundle Packs too where you can save a bunch of money!! Buying products and making donations help keep the site free and growing! :)