Category: Harmony & Theory

I hear a lot of people use the terms “tonic” and “root” interchangeably. When you’re trying to learn some harmony, that can lead to some confusion. In fact, they refer to subtly different things, so let’s clear this up. Go to morefromdave.com for your free copy of the Harmony & Theory Quick Start!

We built a major scale, now we can derive larger intervals based on the position of a note in the scale relative to the tonic. We’ll name these intervals: the distance between the first note of the scale in the third note is the interval of a third for example. The first note to the…

Let’s put these half steps and whole steps to work! In this lesson we’re going to start on a tonic note, and string together a series of whole step and half step intervals to create the seven note major scale. You can also download the major scale positions and start learning how the scale occurs…

Half steps and whole steps are the most basic building blocks in music, and the first step in understanding how music theory is applied to guitar. Most people are generally aware of these intervals, but how many of you have really taken the time to figure out how they occur on the guitar neck, and…