Introduction to Music Theory & Jamming

[surferjay]

So I’ve had quite a bit of time lately and have been playing my Uke a lot. I’m making steady progress with River Flows but just to change it up a little I thought I’d have a look at the Introduction to Music Theory & Jamming.

I thought this would be something which I would have to tackle in a couple of years time and that jamming away with others was for the pro’s… I’ve tried learning theory on Youtube and to be honest just got lost.

This course starts out with the basics and just within the first couple of lessons everything just made sense it’s as if I could see the fretboard for the first time.. It was a bit of a matrix moment.

I’ve learnt all five shapes of A minor pentatonic and C Major which to be honest sounds difficult (I once tried to learn it all on the guitar) but with the Uke if we remove the high G from the equation there is only 3 strings which makes it pretty easy to memorise.

I can’t stop seeing C and A on my fretboard now which is a bit annoying haha I just wanted to say thanks and I can’t I believe I’m jamming away to some backing tracks. Highly recommended 🙂

p.s I just wanted to confirm something 🙂 Am I right in saying that Am and C Major is exactly the same scale (I know this to be true) but the only real difference is how you start the scale i.e If you make C the route (I think there is a better name for it) and progress the scale using C it’s a Major where as if you make A the route within the scale it’s a minor.. This is the only thing which is confusing me 🙂

• This topic was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by surferjay.

[robinboyd]

Hi Jay.

That’s awesome.

I can answer your question. Then answer is “yes”

[surferjay]

Thanks Robyn that is really awesome. I can’t believe I actually understand a tiny bit of music theory haha it’s actually quite fascinating (I sound really boring).

[Andrew]

Theory is awesome! It helps in a lot of areas, for ex: I just wrote 4 short compositions that are Halloween themed. And theory gave me some starting points and ideas on how I could make the music sound spooky 🙂

[surferjay]

Song writing next level 🙂

[surferjay]

Sooo.. A week on and I’ve exhausted all the YouTube backing tracks in C Major/A minor G/E minor 🙂

I wanted to try a bit of soloing over some Rumba Tracks. I think I can use Phrygian which I almost know as it’s the 3rd mode of major scale but im unsure what key im playing so my question is…

If I want to play a rumba backing track in E minor using Phrygian am I playing the G major scale but starting from E?

It’s a bit confusing 😳

• This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by surferjay.

[Andrew]

I’d recommend taking a Skype lesson with Stephen for help on theory 🙂

[surferjay]

I’ll keep it in mind Andrew, thank you. I worked it out btw. So if I’m playing Rumba in A minor the relative of C. I’m playing the E Phrygian which is the 3rd Mode of the C Major Scale. It’s actually easier to understand on a piano.

I’ve just gone out and brought a semi acoustic cutaway so I can jam along to Rumba tunes on Youtube.. Very excited 🙂 haha

[surferjay]

Sorry to be a pain… This is my last question 🙂

So in regards to the chords.. I understand the CAFD method of moving everything up the fretboard. My only question is…

How do you decide which shape to use? In theory you can make the chord out of any of the shapes so why would you choose one shape over the other?

Thank You.

[Andrew]

It depends on the music: where you are at or moving to in the progression of the piece.

If you’re strumming a 4 chord progression at the beginning of the neck, it would be out of place to move 1 chord all the way up the neck. But if you take those 4 chords and want movement where each gets higher in pitch, then the CAGED method comes in handy.

[surferjay]

Aha I see. Thank you Andrew makes sense. 🙂

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