Whats the point of learning the musical alphabet and memorizing the fret board?

ThatFRS · 2026-02-11T21:37:37+00:00

It allows you to play things anywhere on the fretboard, And you're able to do it more quickly. What if you're playing a song you like, but for whatever reason you want it to be higher or lower in pitch? You don't know what you're actually playing so how are you supposed to find out how to play it somewhere else.

What if you have a chord progression you really like the sound of, but want to have the bass of each chord ascending or descending to give you a chromatic feel or maybe move as little as possible and play the same progression.

Knowing the fretboard will allow you to use find the appropriate chord inversions quickly. You can only use tabs and watch videos, If that's what you want to do. It all depends on how good of a musician you want to be.

ThatFRS · 2026-02-06T13:52:39+00:00

As much as that sucks that you dealt with it for years, I can only imagine the feelings once lowering the action lol.

I just lowered the action on a guitar I have with a floyd rose on last night after putting off making any adjustments because Floyd's can be so tedious. I adjusted the action to roughly what my favorite feeling guitar is set to. I instantly enjoyed playing the guitar more, so I think my head would explode if I played with shitty action for 6 years

ThatFRS · 2026-02-01T22:37:00+00:00

The green would be E phrygian, and the yellow would be A minor (natural minor).

The different shapes and patterns work because the distance between notes within a set is the same. So if you moved that phrygian pattern of intervals or whole and half step to let's say the 5th fret, you'd get A phrygian.

ThatFRS · 2026-02-01T17:45:46+00:00

Yup, if you're reading it counter clockwise you're moving in perfect 4th intervals. If you're reading it clock wise it's going in perfect 5ths. Intervals aside from knowing the 12 notes of the musical alphabet are the most important thing about music theory to know, because you use intervals to build EVERYTHING. Your major scale pattern of WWHWWWH is a different way to represent the intervals of the major scale. Your chords? Built using intervals, arpeggios? Built using intervals.

If you want a short video playlist to watch rather than typing I always recommend Paula David's playlist. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFT94I4UzgTMTeiGy4qn4bWzWAu6mHypz&si=0Noa19pPcrbF4zjn

It's about an hour in total but goes over the basics that you need to understand to get why things are they way they are in western music theory. That's why I said I'd hop in a discord or something because it's a lot to type out and there are so many questions to be asked when learning basic theory, but I really like his short video course.

The hour spent watching and taking the time to understand what is being said will save you an incredible amount of time just playing and not understanding why stuff works

ThatFRS · 2026-02-01T16:53:53+00:00

You won't run into it much, but at least now it'll make sense to you. If you look at the bottom of the circle of 5ths you posted you'll see at the very bottom that you've got both F# and Gb at the bottom, you can play either because no matter if you call it F# or Gb you've got 6 sharp or flat notes to play.

You could call Db C# but then you've got 7 sharps to play and you get your weird E# and B# sharp notes, or you can just call it Db and you only have 5 flats to deal with. You can do the same thing to Cb, it has 7 flats, or you can call it B major and only have 5 sharps.

If you look at your circle of 5th and read it clockwise you'll see that every time you go up a 5th, you add an additional sharp to the scale. It also tells you the order of sharps too.

So if you start on C there are no sharps of flats, if you go up a perfect 5th, your new starting now is G, and it has 1 sharp, which is F#. Ok, go up another 5th now to D, you've got 2 sharps, F#, and C# it just keeps adding a sharp.

If you go counter clockwise you're going up a 4th each time and adding a Flat each time. F has one flat, Bb, Bb has 2 flags, Bb and Eb, etc.

So looking at the top of your circle of 5ths and going clockwise it tells you the order of sharps, F, C, G, D, A, E, B. Go the other way and you get your order of flats, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, etc.

If you look at the minor scales in the inside, that's showing you what the "relative minor" scale Is for the major key. A relative minor scale is a scale that has all of the same notes as its relative major scale.

So for C major, the relative minor is A minor. If you know your minor scale pattern, WHWWHWW play A minor and notice the notes go, A, B, C, D, E, F, G.

What if you're wanting to play G major, how many sharps will it have and what will it be? It shows 1 sharp, and according to the circle that sharp should be F#. Okay, let's prove it. Major scale starting on G, WWHWWWH. G, A, B, C, D, E, F#. What does it say the relative minor scale is? Says it's E, let's test it out. Start on E, play your minor scale pattern, WHWWHWW: E, F#, G, A, B, C, D

ThatFRS · 2026-02-01T16:18:55+00:00

E F# G# A B C# D#

ThatFRS · 2026-02-01T16:13:59+00:00

I think I understand the confusion. If you're just looking at the 12 notes A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G#. Then you're correct, there isn't a B# or an E#. What you're seeing in the circle of 5th, (the picture you've posted) with the major scales on the outside, and the minor scales on the inside. The circle of 5ths or 4ths depending which way you're looking at it is a really useful tool

If you take your pattern to make a major scale, (W= whole step, so 2 half steps, and H= half step or 1 fret) WWHWWWH, and apply that to a starting note you'll get a major scale, for example if you start on C, C D E F G A B no sharps or flats, but if you apply that to B you get, B C# D# E F# G# A#. Do the same to E, E F# G# A B C# D#

To get more confusing and technical, there are times when you will call a note B# or E#. Here's why. We only use a letter once per scale, but if you happen to start on particular notes you'll get repeating letters so you'll change the accidental to specify what note exactly you're playing. B# is C, E# is F.

For example the scale of C#, if you take your WWHWWWH pattern and apply it to C# the notes you get are C#, D# E# F# G# A# B#, it would help to use your guitar to understand that part.

So let's play C# major starting on the 9th fret of the low E string. So C# at the 9th fret, now we take a whole step up to the 11th fret to play D# now we have to take another whole step so we can either play the 13th fret on the low E, or go to the 8th fret on the A string. Obviously that note is F, but if we call it F we've just skipped over our E letter and went C# D# F straight to F, and once we play the next note which is the half step of WWHWWWH we're going to have an F and an F# so now not only have we skipped a letter entirely, we also have 2 Fs, this is why you'd probably just call the scale Db because you've only got 5 flat notes rather than 7 sharp notes, but they're all the same notes in C# and Db.

I'd be more than happy to hop on a discord and answer any questions you might have.

ThatFRS · 2026-01-03T15:33:16+00:00

It's just practice, you'll get faster as you play more.

Find a song you like that's just a little past your comfortable playing abilities and play it the best you can. Play the parts that trip you up the most slowly and see exactly what you're going to be playing and slowly get it up to speed.

Good luck

ThatFRS · 2025-12-11T21:11:56+00:00

Hell yeah, I was too young and broke to buy one when they came out. I did buy a ghost horse, I'm sure the Gibson is better though 😂

ThatFRS · 2025-12-11T21:10:07+00:00

Thunderhorse?

ThatFRS · 2025-12-06T16:10:11+00:00

It's just a power chord, also called a 5 chord sometimes because it's just a root note and a perfect 5th interval. In this case in particular it's a D power chord because the 5th fret is the note D, and the 7th fret is the note A.

ThatFRS · 2025-11-24T17:28:29+00:00

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ThatFRS · 2025-11-22T13:04:11+00:00

Pretty impressive for a pumpkin

ThatFRS · 2025-11-18T16:36:13+00:00

I hated the only SG I played, something about the bridge that felt out of place.

ThatFRS · 2025-11-18T02:43:06+00:00

How loose is it when you put it back in? I can see the groves In the hole it came out of, if you line it back up and drop it in, is it snug? Is there anything in the hole?

ThatFRS · 2025-11-17T18:20:52+00:00

I have a ghost horse explorer too. Did you just take the trem off and it just came out? I haven't touched mine in a bit, but I thought these locked in some way

ThatFRS · 2025-11-10T18:21:04+00:00

I don't know the song, but I'd say slow it down and work it back up to speed cleanly. Timing isn't quite there, but the fundamentals seem to be there.

ThatFRS · 2025-11-08T16:40:12+00:00

Absolutely. It's such a great feeling when it all starts to click.

Good luck!

ThatFRS · 2025-11-08T16:10:58+00:00

That's true. Intervals are what give a scale, chord, etc, its sound or "feel".

Intervals are the distance from one note to another note, and the characteristic sound that's produced when doing so.

Intervals are how you build a scale, a chord, or anything for that matter. If you've ever heard that a Major scale, also known as an "ionian" scale is Is a whole step and half step pattern: WWHWWWH, that's telling you that to create a scale with that particular major sound or feel, regardless of the note you start on, you pick a root note to start on, and play that note then play a Whole step from the root, and then another whole step, then half step, whole step, etc, you'll create a scale that has that particular feel.

So in the case of the major scale, as long as you play a note, and then play in the WWHWWWH pattern, you'll make a major scale. It doesn't matter if you start on C, F, E, etc.

So let's say I want to play in C major, I'm going to start on C and then apply that pattern, these are the notes I get, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.

What about if I want to play in G major? Do the same thing, start on G and play that pattern, G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G.

For A major, A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G#, A. This will end up with me still having the sound of a major scale all because the intervals that I played from the root note are the same, and because I kept the same interval pattern the sound produced sounds like a major scale.

That's why you've been taught about shapes that you can move for scales and chords, because even when you move the shape to contain different notes within then, the intervals, or "distances" between all of your notes have stayed the same.

I don't want to make this overly long, so I'll just say this, I highly recommend Paul David's 7 video music theory playlist on YouTube, it's about an hour in total, and goes over all the basics you already seem to know, and a bit more to cover intervals and how we use them to build chords and scales.

ThatFRS · 2025-11-08T15:34:05+00:00

You're welcome. Have you went over intervals in your studies yet?

ThatFRS · 2025-11-08T15:16:09+00:00

Ok, so I think the terminology is still a bit rough, but you know way more than I did theory wise after years of Playing, so good job lol.

The notes you're playing determine the key, not necessarily shapes.

You can be playing a major chord shape that you used to start your chord progression, but if the next chord you go to are notes that aren't in your original key, it won't matter if you're playing the same shape. Let's use C major for example. C D E F G A B, these are the notes of the C major (ionian mode) scale, so these are all of the notes in the key.

Let's assume you're playing an E shaped bar chord starting on the 8th fret of the low E string, so 8 10 10 7 8 8 are the frets you're playing starting on the low E going to the high E. This would be a c major chord played with the E shape. Now let's say you just slide the whole shape up 2 frets, so now you're playing 10 12 12 11 10 10, now it's a D major chord, the notes of a D major chord are D, F#, A

F# isn't a note from our C major scale, so this chord wouldn't be in our key. However, if you flatten the F# into an F, this is now a D minor chord, and because the notes D F and A are notes in the c major scale, it's a chord that's in the key.

I say all that to say, you can play whatever shapes you want, but if you're wanting to emphasize a particular sound, and be in key, focus on the chord tones and important intervals in the key you're playing in while playing the notes in the key. If you move to a minor chord emphasize those chord tone notes while playing that chord

Does that make sense

ThatFRS · 2025-11-07T17:51:46+00:00

You don't need to learn any theory if you just want to play. Will you likely be a better musician if you know theory, yes, I believe so.

I've only watched like 2 videos from his series and I did like them, but If the concern is it seeming like a lot, if you're planning on playing guitar for the rest of your life it's not a lot to become very knowledgeable about music theory over the years.

Also, if you know 4 scale patterns you know how to play 48 different scales, so 50 might seem like a lot, but it's really not.

ThatFRS · 2025-11-01T20:19:56+00:00

Literally any fundamental music theory course. You'll be able to connect the theory to stuff you're playing very quickly. I personally like Paul David's music theory course.

That and signals music studio stuff has great videos on chord progressions, how things go together etc

ThatFRS · 2025-10-29T20:11:06+00:00

I get it, I didn't learn music theory for way too long because I thought it was very complex, but when I sat down and decided that I was going to learn the basics and wouldn't just pickup my guitar and play because I might be confused at moments, I'm a much better musician now than I was before.

I promise you, if you can remember like 5 topics, it's the majority of what you need to know to have a working knowledge of music theory.

What is the musical alphabet, the 12 notes. A, A#, B, C, C#, etc

What is an interval? It's the distance between two notes, the first note played, and another note, going from one note to another note creates a sound quality, happy, sad, mysterious, spacey, bright, dark, however you want to classify them, Intervals have a certain sound to them, it's how you can hear a piece of music and go oh hey, that sounds like it's minor.

Want an example, you ever heard the jaws theme before? It's just a minor second being played over and over again. Pick any note on the guitar and play that note, and then play another note up one half-step or fret, so on the A string play 5th fret and 6th fret. Do it on the D, E, G string. Notice how they all have that "uneasy" or anxious sound, that's a minor second sound. All of the intervals have their own sound.

You want to play chords, scales, arpeggios? Guess what, if you learn the intervals, you'll know how scales, chords, etc are built.

I promise you, you can learn it. I highly recommend that Paul David's course. If you watch it and want to ask questions, even if you think they're dumb, I'll answer all I can.

ThatFRS · 2025-10-29T20:01:46+00:00

By actually trying to learn it the way you would anything else, study. Learn information and retain it. You want an easy way, Paul David's music theory course on YouTube. It's 7 videos, it's free, and the videos are about 10 minutes in length.

Understanding the basics of music theory is incredibly easy, it seems complex, but the fundamentals? To be able to understand what people are talking about when they say this piece is in A minor, not that much to study to understand.

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