Music

Key to the music

The western concept of 'key' emerged in the early 17th century. It evolved from the system of 'models' - a limited system based on sequences of fixed intervals beginning at different notes. The key system, however, allows greater flexibility. Although a few experimental bands occasionally dispense with the now traditional concept of key, most rock, Blues, reggae, dance and folk songs are firmly rooted to their own particular key.

The key of a piece of music is defined by the scale to which its notes generally adhere. The piece doesn't have to include all the notes of a scale, but the majority of the scale's notes will usually be present. The overall sound that this gives to a piece of music is called its 'tonality'. A melody made up from notes found in the scale of C major is said to be in the key of C major, and this can be called the piece's key center.

What is harmonic?

Harmonics are bell- like tones that can be produced by playing strings that have been 'stopped', but not fretted, with your left hand. They occur all over the strings, but are most noticeable at points that represent even divisions of the string: half its length, one quarter of its length, three-quarters of its length, etc. These are called 'nodes', and they are still points in-between the two vibrating lengths of the string.

The harmonic over the 12th fret of every string is always an octave up from the open string. This is because it occurs at the exact half-way point on a string. The 7th fret harmonic occurs at a quarter of a string's length. The most commonly used harmonics are found over the 5th, 7th, 12th, 17th and 19th frets; the ones over frets 7 and 12 are the loudest and easiest to play.

This is a diagrammatical representation of the wave effect created by harmonics as they come into tune- a natural tuning aid. As the two notes converge, the wave slows down; it disappears when the notes are identical. This effect is audible when tuning fretted and open strings, but it is far clearer when using harmonics. In fact, it's the standard tuning method used by bass players, as listening to the tuning wave of harmonics is far easier than trying to discern the tuning of very low notes.

Chord diagrams

Chord diagrams show where the fingers go on the fingerboard. Frets are shown horizontally. Strings are shown as vertical lines. The line on the far left represents the sixth (lowest) string, and the line on the far right represents the first (highest) string. Dots show where the fingers go. Numbers above the diagram are left-hand finger numbers, as used in standard notation. The fingerings are of course only suggestions. An X indicates a string that should be muted or not played; 0 indicates an open string.

Match notes and their names

Glossary

I have made this glossary with the Oxford English Dictionary.