Apparently "Legato King" Tom Quayle tunes his guitar in straight 4th's like that, but I see him more as a single line player rather than a chord monster. Either way, he's about as fluid as can be like Alan Holdsworth was.
In this context, it’s really interesting to watch the old video by the late Emmett Chapman, inventor of the Chapman Stick, which is tuned in even intervals across the range, but adds the additional quirk of putting the largest gauges of string in the center of the neck. He loved the uniform intervals that allowed for a slightly wider reach for new chord voicings. I love the idea of it, but practically speaking, when I’ve had the chance to try one out, I find that the “bass” strings are fingered with the left hand, but the strings are flipped from thing to thicker. And the five “guitar” strings are tuned in equal intervals (instead of the asymmetrical B string) and played with the wrong hand.
Some older string instruments tuned to 4ths. Imagine the dude that figured out how to make barre chords easier along the way. Probably had some others all like, "nah man, these kids with their drop tuning, they don't even know how to really play." Just like, well, some guitarists do today XD
This has got to be one of the best videos explaining music theory and illustrating the reasoning behind the fretboard I’ve seen in over 40 years. Thank you for explaining it so thoroughly!
I use all 4ths tuning, and have used that as my regular tuning for about two years now. I think some people think of it as kind of limited or kinda like a "gimmik", like Tom Quayle for legato stuff. But I have found that especially as a jazz musician that you break out of that approach after a while, and really find that you can do almost the same stuff as with regular tuning. Its has really just everything to do with your creativity rather than tuning. I have just found that all 4ths makes learning and playing from ear more intuitive. Also you lose almost all of standard repertoire for the guitar, but that's something I wanted on purpose, breaking away from that standard "guitar sound" that can be hard to get away from. Since I´ve realized that I can't play the normal stuff anyways, I now tune in this tuning: C# - F# - B - E - A - D Something that was inspired by a jazz guitarist called Karl Bjorå. He tunes in C# standard. I have just found that this lower tuning resonates better with both me and the guitar. Hope that this helps the small audience who have thought about making these changes
Are you sure tuning C# F#, B, E ,A and D? C# standard tuning doesn’t make sense to me. Nor does E flat standard, or E standard, or B standard nor G standard nor D standard tuning. There is ONLY ONE STANDARD TUNING? Tuning to piano. Guitar notes match piano. Half step lower is NOT standard tuning to me. Half step lower on 6 sting you could call E flat tuning. Van Halen Jimi Hendricks Steve ray Vaughn etc are usually tuned half step low. But I have NO reason to call drop D tuning or C # tuning STANDARD. (into the void) tuning. I’ll never call standard tuning.. I tune my guitar through tuner (set on Standard) or to ‘piano’ is standard tuning to me. Simple. Whole step down D tuning wouldnt be Drop D tuning and neither one should be called STANDARD tuning.
Half step low tuning or E flat tuning Is NOT E flat STANDARD TUNING. Your tuned E flat not STANDARD. STANDARD should be simple understanding. Standard tuning where piano play C chord And you rip through C scale A min it matches. After warming up on MUSICAL finger exorcisms
@@DannyHood-j standard just means the intervals between the strings are the same as normal e standard tuning. So if you were to say e flat standard tuning it means that every note goes flat, but it’s still “standard” because the distance between the notes that the open strings play is the same. If you were to tune to e flat standard and put a capo on the first fret you’ll be back to regular standard tuning. It’s all the same
@@ole-helliklobben-seth143 Me too... I wanted to break out of the cliché licks I kept repeating, and make it easier to improvise. And cut down on all the pattern memorisation... No Caged or similar systems. I tuned to EADGCF, but didn't like the extra tension when bending the top two strings. So now I'm Eb Ab Db Gb B E.
Aside from an honestly clunky ~2 minutes at the beginning, this is a WONDERFUL presentation, perfectly edited and displayed. The previews of the +1000 pages of PDFs also look promising. Regards.
I'm a pianist, and I had always wondered about that odd kink in the guitar's perfect-4th tuning pattern. Thanks for explaining it! I tend to forget that practical considerations can be more important than idealized symmetry. 🙂
Perfect fourth tuning? I don’t even know what that is? I tune guitar to piano (standard tuning often.). The notes on guitar match notes on you piano. If you ripped through C scale from lowest to highest on piano I could only go 3 octaves. On 24 frets. If I played Stratocaster it be even less. It might be 3 octaves. Any player get more on 7 strings 24 fret. After adapting 7 strings. Whole month non stop. Don’t touch 6 string adapting 7 stings. If you play out clubs or parties for money. Dont get rid of it WAIT until you have weeks off play 7 string everyday. Now its no big deal i can switch
@@DannyHood-j this is bad advice. If you get a seven you can play it as well as any other instrument. If your goal is to only be able to play one specific instrument at a time I guess this would work but I think most people would rather be able to pick up any guitar and jam. Playing both instruments won’t magically make you forget things you’ve learned because the fret board is a little bit bigger on one. It will still take you time to get used to the 7 but playing your 6 will not make a lasting difference fast you acclimatize to the 7, but it can stunt your 6 playing. Especially if you’re new. Not playing your 6 string could just end up in you playing it sloppy because now your muscle memory for the last month straight has been trained to play bigger frets. Maybe this did work for you but most people won’t notice much of a difference moving to a 7. It’s just a little bit bigger. I really don’t get why you refused to touch your 6 for weeks. Also the straight piano tuning is really just going to stunt your playing. You can’t play most songs with chords because you don’t have the notes staggered. You can’t play most non chord based riffs because you would needlessly be jumping up and down the board in between each note. I’m sure you could write your own stuff in this tuning and it could definitely still sound good, it’s just very limited. There also the fact that your guitar will now have significantly less notes on it. So that means your music will now have a limited progression.
@dmoore0079 , another way to think of a perfect 4th interval is as 5 half-steps. So for example if you start at E, then moving 5 half-steps up from there hits the notes F, F#, G, G#, A. So A is a perfect 4th above E, and indeed the two lowest open strings of a guitar in standard tuning are E and A. It's easier to visualize intervals on a piano, where each key is a half-step above its neighbor to the left. So to find the 4th of E you can just play E and then play keys up from there, counting until you reach 5. All the intervals have unique half-step counts. The octave is 12, the perfect 5th is 7, the minor 3rd is 3, and so forth.
The Perfect Fourth is the confusing name for 5 semi-tones. A Perfect Fifth is 7 semi-tones. That's the 'distance' (interval) from the 1st to the 4th/5th notes of any major scale. 2-2-1 or 2-2-1-2.
Excellent explanation. Thank you for teaching a 77 year old muso who has never starved because of the guitar, and, as my wife says, my voice that has made it possible to always earn dinner for our family. I play rhythm guitar and because I always sang lead singer, I never studied playing lead patterns. I’m struggling a bit these days but I am enjoying trying to catch up. 🖖👀
I love you, man. Never has this been explained in such a clear, concise and relatable way before (for me at least). You have yourself a new follower. I wish I would have seen this many moons ago. Thanks!
I just wanted to say that this is the best explanation covering standard tuning and the circle of fifths that I have come across. The visualisations make it so easy to understand. Thank you! 🙏🏼
I've been playing guitar for 20 years and have known music theory just as long. Because of your excellent video , I can now visualize a few new correlations and patterns that I didn't even know existed until now
Over many years, I tried to understand the fretboard. You made it much more understandable. I played for quite a while and tried unsuccessfully to play guitar. This will really help.
A) get a cheap keyboard in a toy store ( 10 bucks max, it needs to be in tune thought) it's easier to understand the theory on a piano keyboard, it lays there in a linear fashion UNLIKE guitar. B) think of the guitar nut as a sixth finger...meaning EADGBE is a E chord (a weird one but a chord) hence the barre chords... C) music theory is simple mathematics, really , 12 items and a set of discriminating rules : if Jack and Peter are in the same room they will fight, so you can never invite those two in the same group (scale). You have to choose. Peter or Jack. 3) building chords: when you done set the group (a.k.a scale) with ONE simple discriminating rule you can build little harmonious groups : Jack, Frank , Maurice and Janet can go along , then Paul, Robert and Janet they are ok but if Frank is here Robert has to go, unless you want to "ruin" the party kind of...Peter can't get along with any of that group, plus him and Jack will for sure fight. don't give up, there's no bad students only bad teacher
Excellent explanation with terrific graphics. Nice work. I don't think more than 1 in a hundred guitar players understands the brilliance of standard guitar tuning. Now I'm one of those 1 in a hundred. Thanks.
I have beeb studying and learning Piano for a year - I have now moved to the Guitar - I have been perplexed by the layout of the neck and strings - I have searched everywhere for - WHY ! your video is perfect - thankyou - at last an explanation and extremely well explained
Once the scales are in the circle you refer to say, BD&E, are “related” but I don’t how those next to each other are related. Amazing teacher, you are!
Awesome video. I have been playing the guitar for over 40 years and you hit the nail on the head at 7:10 that the shift in the bottom two strings has always been bothering me. My guitar teacher simply said it’s so you can play bar chords, which didn’t satisfy me because that might explain one string, but not both. I finally understand - thank you!!!
Juan Bermudo, circa 1550s, said the “guitarra” which was like the modern ukulele at the time, or strings 1-4 only of a modern guitar with a capo around 3rd fret or higher, was the same idea as the “vihuela” (basically a Spanish 6 string lute), with an added bass string and treble string. So vihuela=guitar with 2 added strings. These were thought of as idea for intabulating vocal music (motets that had 5 or 6 vocal parts typically). That gives a similar tuning to ours, EADF#BE (capoed at 3 or higher). Only the third string is different. He also said to glue the frets in position for the shitty singers of the time (frets were tied by string and could move to better intonate the instrument as desired), basically at what we call Equal temp today (!!!! 470 years before Cher used auto tune!!!😂). One of Bermudo’s buddies, Luis de Venegas realized a few years later, that the Vihuela tuned lower (take off the capo) was better for catching ALL the vocal motets he encountered (the range of human voices perfectly matched with a standard pitch modern guitar, in other words, with third string tuned down to F#). So they liked the body style of the guitar better, and it was WAY cheaper to make guitars than Vihuela, so over time they added strings BELOW (starting with 5th being A) and finally 6 in the 1800s (took for ever to reinvent the E pitch vihuela), but we keep the 3rd at G instead of F#. So the real answer as to why the guitar is tuned and pitched like it is, is because of the range of the HUMAN VOICE.
It also was impractical at the time to tune any HIGHER because they just couldn't make good enough strings to deal with more tension than the high E. This is still a little bit of a problem, although 12-string sets have an octave G which is higher, and Robert Fripp's New Standard Tuning switched from a G at the top to an A once suitable strings became available. (Now CGDAEA).
Exactly, and there is no devil involved. Do more research. Also, if one changes the G string to F#, one will get Renaissance tuning just like a lute. JMHO
Thanks for the video. Also picked up the PDFs; I've been wanting something that'll show me what chords go together, I'm really musically dumb and the PDFs look really nice.
Great explanation and visuals! I have been teaching myself how to playforr just a few months. this is first video I've seen on music theory that doesn't make me feel like they are speaking another language.
@Mike George>>> Your animation is brilliant, I need to watch this video again and again until I get it drilled into my thick skull. Fantastic teaching there Mr. Mike you have a new subscriber... Cheers from Canada
My first instrument was violin, so I couldn't understand why the tuning wasn't consistent, string to string. Then, I got to barre chords and knew functional why. This video helps understand the theory behind it. Brilliant!
@@robwagner7545 if you haven’t already, look into tenor guitars. Most are tuned similar to instruments in the violin family - octave down violin tuning (GDAE) or viola (CGDA). I understand the practical reasons behind standard E guitar tuning, but always struggled with it due to it throwing off the “grid” due to the B string major third interval. Playing a tenor guitar for the first time was a revelation. Everything makes so much more sense (to me, everyone is different obviously.)
I follow many good guitar authors.. Paul Davis.. Jack Lizzo...Richy Beato .. etc etc but this is the first time I have heard such a fact about the meccanic of the guitar👍👍👍👍thank you so much
First time here, and at the beginning I almost left thinking "this is just beginner stuff", but then I watched the rest and was treated to my best guitar lesson ever!
I have watched a few videos on this now and holy crapola.. Something about the way you linked the concepts together, with the shapes and colours was just *penny drop*. Finally feel like I "get" it now and it's not just some abstract concept 🎉
These are brilliant observations! For me, being given the "big picture" , at least, quells the myriad of 'whys? ' & makes patterns and systems meaningful. Now, who came up with this back in history?
Ohhhhhh Voooooowww..!!! This is the first time I came to know about the Construction and Anatomy of the Guitar Fretboard..!!! Thank you soooooo much for the very useful information. Lord Swaminarayan bless you and your family and your Team.
Each Added Dollar Gets Betty Earings...persoanally I do well viewing things from a kids perspective when learning. It keeps things fun and fresh! But I always appreciate other perspectives! Thanks for the video!
Eat All Day Get Big Easy.. courtesy of D. Marks, literally, words to live by from a great guitar teacher. And thx for showing this note pattern easy to visualize, maybe this will help when I move a key sharp or flat on the board
I really appreciate standard tuning, and the more ways I can learn to look at it, the more I appreciate it. However, you lost me when you were talking about the colors. But I will rewatch it again and hopefully catch your point. Yes, truly, music is geometry. A very interesting geometry indeed. I appreciate the elegance of standard tuning. The maximum of circle of fourths, tempered with the least amount of adjustment for diatonic forms, but with the most effect. I invented, or discovered, or rediscovered, an alternate tuning for playing Irish Traditional Music. Most Irish music is in modes of Dmaj pentatonic, so I tune the G down to an F#. I can also drop the low E to a low D. Although I keep it E for E dorian tunes sometimes. Dmaj69 chord. In standard tuning, if you simply tune the G down to an F# you actually transpose that kink a fourth down, which works well with Irish music, and probably an interesting tuning for all guitarists to check out. It is fun playing tunes in what I call "E dorian pentatonic." That is the dorian mode of the D maj pentatonic starting on the E....
Maybe check out Bill Edwards's *Fretboard Logic* books from 30+ years ago, such as "Fretboard Logic SE: The Reasoning Behind the Guitar's Unique Tuning Plus Chords Scales and Arpeggios Complete." These were really popular books pre-TH-cam. There are some new insights in this video, but it does seem like a lot of YT guitar videos have people re-inventing ideas that were worked out in print long ago.
Hello, thanks for the well-made video. Helped me a lot with my guitar journey. Sorry if I am asking a stupid question. Why is key "D" and "E" closest relatives to "A"?
None of the theory here made any particular sense to me, but I do now understand why the first and second strings are tuned differently from the others. Ergonomics makes sense to me. It seems most people accept standard tuning as a given. I’ve never come across an explanation before, so I thank you for that. The rest was lost on me. Why does the chromatic scale begin with C instead of A? Color wheel? This is no doubt due to my near complete ignorance of music theory. I am pretty much a self-taught guitarist, which means I have had an ignoramus for a guitar teacher my whole adult life. I limp around on the fretboard writing songs for my own personal need to express myself. I’ll check out some more of your videos, and watch this one again, of course, to see if any of your ideas penetrates my thick skull. Thanks for this one! Will subscribe in another second or two.
The chromatic scale used to start with A a few centuries ago. Today it starts with C because there are no sharps or flats in the key of C making it easier to grasp.
Neat. I didn't know there was a phrase for EADGBe. I learned the letters as it was. learning all the words for the entire sentence, seems like more work.
Nice. I also think it's worth noting the the top three strings are tuned to an Em chord while strings 2-4 are tuned to G. Since the guitar evolved as an accompaniment instrument, those easily accessible chords make a big difference (as you noted at the end).
Always wonder about the 3 interval shift on the second string. Now I know 61 years playing. Good explanation. PS I decided some folks way smater that I figured it out and I didn't need to reinvent the wheel.
For decades I have wondered why the top two strings are not F & C. Thank you so much for this precise and clear explanation.
Apparently "Legato King" Tom Quayle tunes his guitar in straight 4th's like that, but I see him more as a single line player rather than a chord monster. Either way, he's about as fluid as can be like Alan Holdsworth was.
All 4th tunings can be cool for some stuff. Like model music since the scales/modes and triads have same shapes/patterns across the strings.
In this context, it’s really interesting to watch the old video by the late Emmett Chapman, inventor of the Chapman Stick, which is tuned in even intervals across the range, but adds the additional quirk of putting the largest gauges of string in the center of the neck. He loved the uniform intervals that allowed for a slightly wider reach for new chord voicings. I love the idea of it, but practically speaking, when I’ve had the chance to try one out, I find that the “bass” strings are fingered with the left hand, but the strings are flipped from thing to thicker. And the five “guitar” strings are tuned in equal intervals (instead of the asymmetrical B string) and played with the wrong hand.
Some older string instruments tuned to 4ths. Imagine the dude that figured out how to make barre chords easier along the way. Probably had some others all like, "nah man, these kids with their drop tuning, they don't even know how to really play." Just like, well, some guitarists do today XD
@@thegreatgambeeno , when the second person hit a rock with a stick, the first person told them they were doing it wrong.
This has got to be one of the best videos explaining music theory and illustrating the reasoning behind the fretboard I’ve seen in over 40 years. Thank you for explaining it so thoroughly!
@@InfoInContext absolutely agree.
Connection between circle of fifths , pentatonic scale and color wheel….Mind Blown!! Thanks
but totally meaningless. it has nothing to do with why the strings are tuned the way they are.
I use all 4ths tuning, and have used that as my regular tuning for about two years now. I think some people think of it as kind of limited or kinda like a "gimmik", like Tom Quayle for legato stuff. But I have found that especially as a jazz musician that you break out of that approach after a while, and really find that you can do almost the same stuff as with regular tuning. Its has really just everything to do with your creativity rather than tuning. I have just found that all 4ths makes learning and playing from ear more intuitive. Also you lose almost all of standard repertoire for the guitar, but that's something I wanted on purpose, breaking away from that standard "guitar sound" that can be hard to get away from. Since I´ve realized that I can't play the normal stuff anyways, I now tune in this tuning:
C# - F# - B - E - A - D
Something that was inspired by a jazz guitarist called Karl Bjorå. He tunes in C# standard.
I have just found that this lower tuning resonates better with both me and the guitar.
Hope that this helps the small audience who have thought about making these changes
Are you sure tuning C# F#, B, E ,A and D? C# standard tuning doesn’t make sense to me. Nor does E flat standard, or E standard, or B standard nor G standard nor D standard tuning. There is ONLY ONE STANDARD TUNING? Tuning to piano. Guitar notes match piano. Half step lower is NOT standard tuning to me. Half step lower on 6 sting you could call E flat tuning. Van Halen Jimi Hendricks Steve ray Vaughn etc are usually tuned half step low. But I have NO reason to call drop D tuning or C # tuning STANDARD. (into the void) tuning. I’ll never call standard tuning.. I tune my guitar through tuner (set on Standard) or to ‘piano’ is standard tuning to me. Simple. Whole step down D tuning wouldnt be Drop D tuning and neither one should be called STANDARD tuning.
Half step low tuning or E flat tuning Is NOT E flat STANDARD TUNING. Your tuned E flat not STANDARD. STANDARD should be simple understanding. Standard tuning where piano play C chord And you rip through C scale A min it matches. After warming up on MUSICAL finger exorcisms
@@DannyHood-j standard just means the intervals between the strings are the same as normal e standard tuning. So if you were to say e flat standard tuning it means that every note goes flat, but it’s still “standard” because the distance between the notes that the open strings play is the same. If you were to tune to e flat standard and put a capo on the first fret you’ll be back to regular standard tuning. It’s all the same
@@forderfdidnt knew about that. Thanks
@@ole-helliklobben-seth143 Me too... I wanted to break out of the cliché licks I kept repeating, and make it easier to improvise. And cut down on all the pattern memorisation... No Caged or similar systems. I tuned to EADGCF, but didn't like the extra tension when bending the top two strings. So now I'm Eb Ab Db Gb B E.
Aside from an honestly clunky ~2 minutes at the beginning, this is a WONDERFUL presentation, perfectly edited and displayed. The previews of the +1000 pages of PDFs also look promising. Regards.
Eddie Ate Dynamite Good Bye Eddie.💥🎸🎶
🤣😂
I'm a pianist, and I had always wondered about that odd kink in the guitar's perfect-4th tuning pattern. Thanks for explaining it! I tend to forget that practical considerations can be more important than idealized symmetry. 🙂
Perfect fourth tuning? I don’t even know what that is? I tune guitar to piano (standard tuning often.). The notes on guitar match notes on you piano. If you ripped through C scale from lowest to highest on piano I could only go 3 octaves. On 24 frets. If I played Stratocaster it be even less. It might be 3 octaves. Any player get more on 7 strings 24 fret. After adapting 7 strings. Whole month non stop. Don’t touch 6 string adapting 7 stings. If you play out clubs or parties for money. Dont get rid of it WAIT until you have weeks off play 7 string everyday. Now its no big deal i can switch
@@DannyHood-j this is bad advice. If you get a seven you can play it as well as any other instrument. If your goal is to only be able to play one specific instrument at a time I guess this would work but I think most people would rather be able to pick up any guitar and jam. Playing both instruments won’t magically make you forget things you’ve learned because the fret board is a little bit bigger on one. It will still take you time to get used to the 7 but playing your 6 will not make a lasting difference fast you acclimatize to the 7, but it can stunt your 6 playing. Especially if you’re new. Not playing your 6 string could just end up in you playing it sloppy because now your muscle memory for the last month straight has been trained to play bigger frets. Maybe this did work for you but most people won’t notice much of a difference moving to a 7. It’s just a little bit bigger.
I really don’t get why you refused to touch your 6 for weeks. Also the straight piano tuning is really just going to stunt your playing. You can’t play most songs with chords because you don’t have the notes staggered. You can’t play most non chord based riffs because you would needlessly be jumping up and down the board in between each note. I’m sure you could write your own stuff in this tuning and it could definitely still sound good, it’s just very limited. There also the fact that your guitar will now have significantly less notes on it. So that means your music will now have a limited progression.
@DannyHood-j Perfect 4ths refers to the interval between the open strings. The B string breaks the pattern.
@dmoore0079 , another way to think of a perfect 4th interval is as 5 half-steps. So for example if you start at E, then moving 5 half-steps up from there hits the notes F, F#, G, G#, A. So A is a perfect 4th above E, and indeed the two lowest open strings of a guitar in standard tuning are E and A. It's easier to visualize intervals on a piano, where each key is a half-step above its neighbor to the left. So to find the 4th of E you can just play E and then play keys up from there, counting until you reach 5.
All the intervals have unique half-step counts. The octave is 12, the perfect 5th is 7, the minor 3rd is 3, and so forth.
The Perfect Fourth is the confusing name for 5 semi-tones. A Perfect Fifth is 7 semi-tones. That's the 'distance' (interval) from the 1st to the 4th/5th notes of any major scale. 2-2-1 or 2-2-1-2.
Every Alcoholic Drinks Gin Before Eating
Ein Anfänger Der Gitarre Hat Eier
So now you have to remember 32 letters instead of six?
Eh, don't care for that one.
@@minhuang8848 no, that's not quite right.
Elephants And Donkeys Grow Big Ears ! Excellent explanation of the fret board Mike. Thank you for your effort. Keep up the great work. Dave
Excellent explanation. Thank you for teaching a 77 year old muso who has never starved because of the guitar, and, as my wife says, my voice that has made it possible to always earn dinner for our family. I play rhythm guitar and because I always sang lead singer, I never studied playing lead patterns. I’m struggling a bit these days but I am enjoying trying to catch up. 🖖👀
This video was so full of useful information I’m going to watch it at least 3 times to absorb it. Thank you!!
Very informative, and your graphics really supported your explanation. ❤
I’ve played guitar for 67years (self taught). This is the first explanation I’ve seen that is articulated masterfully. Thank you!!
I love you, man. Never has this been explained in such a clear, concise and relatable way before (for me at least). You have yourself a new follower. I wish I would have seen this many moons ago. Thanks!
I just wanted to say that this is the best explanation covering standard tuning and the circle of fifths that I have come across. The visualisations make it so easy to understand. Thank you! 🙏🏼
That is the best explanation i have seen on how the guitar is arranged, circle of fifths and all that. Thanks Mike!
I've been playing guitar for 20 years and have known music theory just as long. Because of your excellent video , I can now visualize a few new correlations and patterns that I didn't even know existed until now
Over many years, I tried to understand the fretboard. You made it much more understandable. I played for quite a while and tried unsuccessfully to play guitar. This will really help.
A) get a cheap keyboard in a toy store ( 10 bucks max, it needs to be in tune thought) it's easier to understand the theory on a piano keyboard, it lays there in a linear fashion UNLIKE guitar.
B) think of the guitar nut as a sixth finger...meaning EADGBE is a E chord (a weird one but a chord) hence the barre chords...
C) music theory is simple mathematics, really , 12 items and a set of discriminating rules : if Jack and Peter are in the same room they will fight, so you can never invite those two in the same group (scale). You have to choose. Peter or Jack.
3) building chords: when you done set the group (a.k.a scale) with ONE simple discriminating rule you can build little harmonious groups : Jack, Frank , Maurice and Janet can go along , then Paul, Robert and Janet they are ok but if Frank is here Robert has to go, unless you want to "ruin" the party kind of...Peter can't get along with any of that group, plus him and Jack will for sure fight.
don't give up, there's no bad students only bad teacher
Great graphics while you explain👍🏻
My remembering the string names:
E very
A sshole
D eserves (to)
G et
B eat (up)
E ventually
Idk, it worked for me 😆
Excellent explanation with terrific graphics. Nice work. I don't think more than 1 in a hundred guitar players understands the brilliance of standard guitar tuning. Now I'm one of those 1 in a hundred. Thanks.
Thanks! This explains so much of how it all is tied together. Great video. At my age however, I’ll have to rewatch it several times.
I have beeb studying and learning Piano for a year - I have now moved to the Guitar - I have been perplexed by the layout of the neck and strings - I have searched everywhere for - WHY ! your video is perfect - thankyou - at last an explanation and extremely well explained
Once the scales are in the circle you refer to say, BD&E, are “related” but I don’t how those next to each other are related. Amazing teacher, you are!
@@GilbertGryfud-mu3zi Yeah, I’d also like to know what you meant by related … this is the bit I’m stuck on
That's what you call quality content. Literally marvelous.
Awesome video. I have been playing the guitar for over 40 years and you hit the nail on the head at 7:10 that the shift in the bottom two strings has always been bothering me. My guitar teacher simply said it’s so you can play bar chords, which didn’t satisfy me because that might explain one string, but not both. I finally understand - thank you!!!
Juan Bermudo, circa 1550s, said the “guitarra” which was like the modern ukulele at the time, or strings 1-4 only of a modern guitar with a capo around 3rd fret or higher, was the same idea as the “vihuela” (basically a Spanish 6 string lute), with an added bass string and treble string. So vihuela=guitar with 2 added strings. These were thought of as idea for intabulating vocal music (motets that had 5 or 6 vocal parts typically). That gives a similar tuning to ours, EADF#BE (capoed at 3 or higher). Only the third string is different. He also said to glue the frets in position for the shitty singers of the time (frets were tied by string and could move to better intonate the instrument as desired), basically at what we call Equal temp today (!!!! 470 years before Cher used auto tune!!!😂). One of Bermudo’s buddies, Luis de Venegas realized a few years later, that the Vihuela tuned lower (take off the capo) was better for catching ALL the vocal motets he encountered (the range of human voices perfectly matched with a standard pitch modern guitar, in other words, with third string tuned down to F#). So they liked the body style of the guitar better, and it was WAY cheaper to make guitars than Vihuela, so over time they added strings BELOW (starting with 5th being A) and finally 6 in the 1800s (took for ever to reinvent the E pitch vihuela), but we keep the 3rd at G instead of F#.
So the real answer as to why the guitar is tuned and pitched like it is, is because of the range of the HUMAN VOICE.
I suggest that you make a video of this explanation. It is good! Thank you for your insight.
Don't forget hands
It also was impractical at the time to tune any HIGHER because they just couldn't make good enough strings to deal with more tension than the high E. This is still a little bit of a problem, although 12-string sets have an octave G which is higher, and Robert Fripp's New Standard Tuning switched from a G at the top to an A once suitable strings became available. (Now CGDAEA).
Exactly, and there is no devil involved. Do more research. Also, if one changes the G string to F#, one will get Renaissance tuning just like a lute. JMHO
Omg! This deserves more reach!
Seen so many video none of them made it this easy to understand everything!
Thanks for the video. Also picked up the PDFs; I've been wanting something that'll show me what chords go together, I'm really musically dumb and the PDFs look really nice.
Excellent video. Your graphics kill it. Well done!
Thank you. A friend shared the link. Appreciate you. 💙🌻💙
Fascinating. Thankyou,look forward to more.
Thank you sooo much for your kind effort and help!
Mike; this is BRILLIANT! Thank you
I have always asked this question and no-one has been able to give me an answer I could accept
Great lesson mate… I was hanging on your every word. Well done
Great explanation and visuals! I have been teaching myself how to playforr just a few months. this is first video I've seen on music theory that doesn't make me feel like they are speaking another language.
Wow... Now it all makes sense... This is brilliant! 🎉
Great explanation, meanwhile I've been playing in various open tunings and DADGAD so long I forget sometimes standard exist.
Thanks never had it explained in such a practical way 😊
great stuff. its been decades since i learned this but never seen it so well done other than mel bay did it.
Wow, this is cool. 51 and just learning guitar. Very helpful to understand the Why.
amazing job! Very complex stuff you made easy to understand, tres bien!
@Mike George>>> Your animation is brilliant,
I need to watch this video again and again
until I get it drilled into my thick skull.
Fantastic teaching there Mr. Mike you have a
new subscriber...
Cheers from Canada
Holy moly. This is a fantastic video. Thank you!
One of the best explanations out there!! Thank you so much for doing this! I learned something today!
Helping me to understand the fretboard; Thankyou so much!
My first instrument was violin, so I couldn't understand why the tuning wasn't consistent, string to string. Then, I got to barre chords and knew functional why. This video helps understand the theory behind it. Brilliant!
@@robwagner7545 if you haven’t already, look into tenor guitars. Most are tuned similar to instruments in the violin family - octave down violin tuning (GDAE) or viola (CGDA). I understand the practical reasons behind standard E guitar tuning, but always struggled with it due to it throwing off the “grid” due to the B string major third interval. Playing a tenor guitar for the first time was a revelation. Everything makes so much more sense (to me, everyone is different obviously.)
your animation is already in my head but i can't explain to people. I will use your video to explain this.
I follow many good guitar authors.. Paul Davis.. Jack Lizzo...Richy Beato .. etc etc but this is the first time I have heard such a fact about the meccanic of the guitar👍👍👍👍thank you so much
Really good stuff. I love the animated visuals to highlight the relations. Surprisingly simple and clear to the point. Thumbs up
First time here, and at the beginning I almost left thinking "this is just beginner stuff", but then I watched the rest and was treated to my best guitar lesson ever!
I have watched a few videos on this now and holy crapola.. Something about the way you linked the concepts together, with the shapes and colours was just *penny drop*. Finally feel like I "get" it now and it's not just some abstract concept 🎉
Brilliantly insightful, and if anything, makes the guitar even more fascinating than it already is. Thank you!
Brilliant decoding !
Guitar mysteries are well explained. The lesson has strengthened me. Thanks Mike.
Killer video
Awesome channel
Thank you for the great explanation of the notes
Fine work Sir 👏
That was great, thank you for explaining this.
These are brilliant observations! For me, being given the "big picture" , at least, quells the myriad of 'whys? ' & makes patterns and systems meaningful. Now, who came up with this back in history?
You make learning easier and clear. Thanks
Everything is so clear now. I get it Awesome
Hey thank you very much you gave me a better insight of why the guitar is really built as it is. Hope this comment boosts you in the algorithm.
Cool. Thanks for sharing.
Mine is now "Eat All Day Get Bowel Explosion". At least for now. Great explanation, it makes imperfect sense.
1:03 goodbye eddie! 👋👋
Brilliant, once again. Regards!
Excellent and concise explanation.
Ohhhhhh Voooooowww..!!! This is the first time I came to know about the Construction and Anatomy of the Guitar Fretboard..!!! Thank you soooooo much for the very useful information. Lord Swaminarayan bless you and your family and your Team.
Ive been playing EADGCF since the 1970s. Dan Armstrong suggeated it to me when we used to jam at his home in London. It has a few advantages.
Weemockaboe I get it. Wow what a cool way to think about this and remember the circle and the harmonic tones too. Thanks
Each Added Dollar Gets Betty Earings...persoanally I do well viewing things from a kids perspective when learning. It keeps things fun and fresh! But I always appreciate other perspectives! Thanks for the video!
Thank you!
Best explanation I ever heard.
Eat All Day Get Big Easy.. courtesy of D. Marks, literally, words to live by from a great guitar teacher.
And thx for showing this note pattern easy to visualize, maybe this will help when I move a key sharp or flat on the board
Finally, music theory I can actually understand 🤔. A big THANK YOU. 🙂
Great video and animations! :D
Phenomenal breakdown!
Fantastic!
Great video!!
I’ve been adopting, ‘Every Apple Does Go Bad Eventually,’ since.
I've been playing way too long and never realized or had this explained the way you just did it. Unbelievable.
Great video thank you.
I really appreciate standard tuning, and the more ways I can learn to look at it, the more I appreciate it. However, you lost me when you were talking about the colors. But I will rewatch it again and hopefully catch your point.
Yes, truly, music is geometry. A very interesting geometry indeed.
I appreciate the elegance of standard tuning. The maximum of circle of fourths, tempered with the least amount of adjustment for diatonic forms, but with the most effect.
I invented, or discovered, or rediscovered, an alternate tuning for playing Irish Traditional Music. Most Irish music is in modes of Dmaj pentatonic, so I tune the G down to an F#. I can also drop the low E to a low D. Although I keep it E for E dorian tunes sometimes. Dmaj69 chord.
In standard tuning, if you simply tune the G down to an F# you actually transpose that kink a fourth down, which works well with Irish music, and probably an interesting tuning for all guitarists to check out. It is fun playing tunes in what I call "E dorian pentatonic." That is the dorian mode of the D maj pentatonic starting on the E....
awesome stuff, i can't believe this is not talked about more, if the number of years i've been wondering about this is any guide to its relevance
Maybe check out Bill Edwards's *Fretboard Logic* books from 30+ years ago, such as "Fretboard Logic SE: The Reasoning Behind the Guitar's Unique Tuning Plus Chords Scales and Arpeggios Complete." These were really popular books pre-TH-cam. There are some new insights in this video, but it does seem like a lot of YT guitar videos have people re-inventing ideas that were worked out in print long ago.
There it is, the pentatonic scale hidden in plain sight. This has been a revelation.
Great explanation of this!
Hello, thanks for the well-made video. Helped me a lot with my guitar journey.
Sorry if I am asking a stupid question. Why is key "D" and "E" closest relatives to "A"?
I didn't know that . Good job .
None of the theory here made any particular sense to me, but I do now understand why the first and second strings are tuned differently from the others. Ergonomics makes sense to me. It seems most people accept standard tuning as a given. I’ve never come across an explanation before, so I thank you for that. The rest was lost on me. Why does the chromatic scale begin with C instead of A? Color wheel? This is no doubt due to my near complete ignorance of music theory. I am pretty much a self-taught guitarist, which means I have had an ignoramus for a guitar teacher my whole adult life. I limp around on the fretboard writing songs for my own personal need to express myself. I’ll check out some more of your videos, and watch this one again, of course, to see if any of your ideas penetrates my thick skull. Thanks for this one! Will subscribe in another second or two.
The chromatic scale used to start with A a few centuries ago. Today it starts with C because there are no sharps or flats in the key of C making it easier to grasp.
@ Well, that makes sense to me. Thanks for the comment!
Wow, you made is sound simple. For years I thought it was arcanely complicated.
Simply brilliant.
Neat. I didn't know there was a phrase for EADGBe. I learned the letters as it was. learning all the words for the entire sentence, seems like more work.
Eric And Derek God Bless Eric
Fabulous!
Fun lesson.
Pneumonic ("noo-mon-ik") = related to the lungs
Mnemonic ("ne-mon-ik") = a memory aid using a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations
@@AaronSegalMD lol
@@AaronSegalMD i think autocorrect did you dirty
@@AaronSegalMD not "new-mon-ik"?
@@jakefriesenjake new-mon-ik would still be the lung word... Pneumonic
In the first example, Johnny gets sick and dies.
Great explanation. I'd always wondered why the guitar doesn't perfectly follow the circle of 5ths like the accordion left side or bass guitar.
This was extremely interesting thank you!
I really started appreciating standard tunning when I was finally physically capable of doing Barre Chords
Brilliant video. Thank you!!!
Really appreciate your knowledge. Do you have this information in a book 📕 form that one could purchase?
Nice. I also think it's worth noting the the top three strings are tuned to an Em chord while strings 2-4 are tuned to G. Since the guitar evolved as an accompaniment instrument, those easily accessible chords make a big difference (as you noted at the end).
Always wonder about the 3 interval shift on the second string. Now I know 61 years playing. Good explanation. PS I decided some folks way smater that I figured it out and I didn't need to reinvent the wheel.
Brilliantly done. Thanks