 Guitar and Excel, open chords, C major scale, A minor, 6 chord intervals. Get ready and don't fret. Remember the board's been fretted, so you don't have to be. Here we are in Excel. If you don't have access to this workbook, that's okay because we basically built this from a blank worksheet, but we did so in a prior section. So if you want to build this from a blank worksheet, you may want to begin back there. However, you don't necessarily need access to this workbook. If looking at this from a music theory standpoint, because we'll simply use it as a tool to map out the fretboard, give us the scale and chords that we're focused in on. If you do have access to this workbook though, there's currently like eight tabs down below. We've got the six green example tabs, one OG orange tab and the practice tab. The OG orange tab represent in the original worksheet we put together in a prior section. It now acting as the starting point going forward, mapping out the entire fretboard, giving us our entire musical alphabet and letters, numbers and combining them together and providing a key that can be adjusted with this green cell, helping us to then create the scale that we want to be focused on, in this case the C major scale, providing us the notes in the scale and the chord constructions from the notes in that scale. We then wanted to look at each of the chords constructed from the C major scale in open position starting with the one chord, C major chord, which we did on this first tab, mapping it out on the first three frets of the fretboard, looking at the fingering, showing the one three five, and then discussing in detail. We then went to the F, which is the four chord, skipping the two and the three because the one four five will be the major chord constructions. We talked about it in detail. Then we went to the five, similar kind of process, this being a major chord mapped it out on the fretboard, discussed it in detail. Back to the minors, we went to the two chord, which was the D minor chord, and we mapped it out on the fretboard, discussed it in detail. Then the E minor, the three chord, mapping it out on the fretboard, discussing it in detail. Then of course, we went to the A minor, our point of focus this time, which is the six chord, minor chord construction. We talked about mapping it out on the fretboard in prior presentations. We looked at the fingering of it, and we looked at it in relation to its pentatonic and major scale, which we can think of as either being in the key of C, or you can think of it as the A minor pentatonic and scales as well. Remember that when we're looking at the A minor, so this time what we're going to do is we're going to be talking about the intervals more. This is something that I recommend doing in the morning when your mind is still working, possibly if you have 15 minutes to a half hour to take something that's pretty easy to do, fingering the A minor chord on the fretboard, and then really analyze the notes within it in some detail. We'll do that here first. Let's think about the numbering systems that we want to keep straight in our mind as we do this, because there's a lot of different numbering systems, and if we don't get them straight in our mind, if we muddle them all together, we're going to get confused. For example, we need to name the actual notes in in the musical alphabet. We can do that, of course, with letters, but we can also do that with numbers. So we'll talk about that. We have a numbering system typically used to number the relative positions of notes in the scale that we are in, and then we could alter that numbering system. It's still providing the relative note position in the scale that we're in, but also because now we have upper and lower case, it allows us to indicate what the chord construction will be uppercase, giving us the major chord, lower case, lower chord, that little dot represents the diminished. Then we have the construction or the numbering system in terms of the intervals of the notes in a chord. So when we talk about a particular chord, such as the A minor chord, we think about it in relation to the first note in the chord, not the first note from the scale that we're basically built it from necessarily. So we'll talk about that. And then we can think about the absolute intervals, in essence, in terms of the intervals in our chord in relation to the one chord. So a lot of different numbering systems here, but none of them are difficult in and of themselves. I'm going to go back to the OG tab. They're difficult because people, they get all mixed up, right? So on the OG tab, just remember, I'm still going to argue here for a numbering system to actually number the notes in the musical alphabet. These are not relative numbers, they're absolute numbers. Why do I do that? Why do I argue for that? Well, because if you just say the musical alphabet, it's kind of confusing to be able to just say it forwards and backwards, if you're not, say, in the key of C, right? Because you've got the sharps and flats. So you've got AA sharp or B flat, BC, C sharp, D, D sharp, E, F, F sharp, G, and then G sharp and back to the A. Saying that backwards, just to say the musical alphabet backwards, is difficult. And then you have to worry about going backwards, you should be using the flats, basically. So there's good stuff to that. It works well when you're trying to voice out certain chords and stuff, but it's cleaner in some ways and easier if you just number them. So if I just number the notes and you're going to memorize a bunch of stuff anyways, might as well memorize this, right? So the one is an A, two is an A sharp or a B flat, I'm not going to distinguish between a sharp and a flat when I'm numbering them, because the point of the number is for it to be as simple as possible and also allow me to do simple math to look at intervals. The three is going to be a B, or C is four, C sharp or D flat is five, D is a six, D sharp or E flat is seven, and E is eight, F is nine, F sharp or G flat is 10, G is 11, and G sharp or A flat is 12, and then it starts all over. Obviously, I can count one, two, three, four, five, back down five, four, three, two, one very easily. And I can look at intervals if I'm trying to think about the distance and you can think of notes as distances in essence. If I went from an A to a D, what's the distance? What's the interval? It's going from a seven to a six, right? I can use my math and do some subtraction there and find the interval a lot more easily. So that's the first numbering system I'll argue for. That's why in our fretboard over here, I put both the letters and the numbers so we can see them in both ways, and those numbers are going to help in particular with our intervals. So if we just finger the chord and name the numbers, it'll be pretty easy after a while to see these as both letters and be able to switch in our mind from letters to numbers. Okay, and then we've got this numbering system, which is the relative number of the notes in the chord. There's only seven of them. How did we get those seven? Well, we went over here and we made our key go to a four, which is a C, and then we did our musical intervals for a major scale, whole, whole, half, whole, whole, half, or you can call it two notes, two notes, one note, two note, two note, two note, one note, right. And so if you start with a four, notice the intervals are a lot easier. You can see it just as a formula four plus two is six. If you know that six is a D, then that's easy to do right six plus two is eight. And if you know that eight is an E, that's an E eight plus one is nine. The half step that gets you to F nine plus two is 11, which is a G 11 plus two is back to one because there's only 12 notes in the musical alphabet. So you have to be able to account for the fact that you're going over around 12 back to one. And then one plus two is three gets you to a B three plus one is four gets you back to the C. So these seven notes are what we're using to construct the major scale over here. So that's going to be these notes. And then we construct the chords from those notes. How do we construct the chords? We just start on whatever note is in the scale and take every other chord. In this case, we're starting on the six. So six, skipping the B to here, skipping the D to here, we get to the A C E. When we number them, though, even though I created it from the C major scale starting on the six note, I'm not going to call it the six one three, you could as long as you define it as the six one three of the C major scale. But instead, I'm going to look at its relative scale. In this case, the relative minor scale, which is a very, you know, popular scale that people you would like to be able to re visualize in your mind making it the one. And so so now we can say if I look at the relative minor scale, then now we do have the one three, we just skip every other note from the one one three five. That's why we call it a one three five, even though here I'm looking at it from the six note that we constructed from the C major scale, we're naming it from the one note. Now you don't want to have to visualize every other scale. When you're trying to when you're trying to look at how to construct a chord, if you're working in the key of C, therefore, instead of doing that, you think about the intervals, right? What's the interval from each of these notes to the one chord. And so the three is going to be the distinguishing interval in our case, when we're looking at minor compared to the major. Now also remember that this one three five is here one three five of its relative minor. You might say, well, where's this nine coming from the 11 and the 13. There's only seven notes in the relative minor. And that's because we're basically just going around the horn. And you can look at it at its relative mode, which is the minor as though we started here on the a and we went boom, boom, boom. And then and then if we did it again, we would get to here. And then if we did it again, we'd get back to the B the one we skipped and then we get here and we get back to the D that's that's we're not going to go back and count like the two. Instead, we're going to keep going up to the top. So if it was here, this was the one. Here's the three. Here's the five and then the seven. And then it goes back to the two, which is now going to be called a nine, right? We're not going to call it we're not going to call it the two, we're going to call it the nine because we're going to keep our numbering system going up as we skip every other note. But we're still just picking up all the notes that are in the relative scale over here. Okay, so that's going to be that that concept of it. Alright, so now and now, I think it's useful, like if you just had a little bit of time to put the to just finger this on the guitar, and then and then just try to analyze, given your worksheet here, what we're actually holding down. And then to the point where you don't need the worksheet anymore, and you can just kind of say it in your mind, although I think it's actually better to say out loud. So what I'm going to do is say first, I'll just name the the intervals, am I holding down a one three or a five? So where are the 135? Well, if I'm holding this position down, the first string right here, the open string, let's do it like this, that's going to be the one. So that's going to be the one. And then I'm going to say, okay, and then this string right here, that's going to be the five. And I can also put maybe I should put this over here. That's going to be the five. And maybe I'll do this. And then this string, when I'm just looking at it, I'm going to say, okay, that string is going to be another one. So now I've got two ones and you can start to think about the pattern here. Okay, so this was a one. And this is a five. So if I just look at those two strings that relationship, you've got this relationship here between these two, I'm trying to look at I went back to here again, the one and the five. And that's like your power chord relationship. So if you've played the power chord like this, you're always going to have the five there. It's going to be the same interval, whether it be a major or minor. And then down here, I grabbed the wrong one. And then down here, you have your a. So now I've got another a here. So this was an a when it was open. And then this is an a. So that's a relationship that you'll see as well. If I if I see my a up here, for example, down two strings and over two frets, you'll find another a right another a different, different octave, but another a. And then here, we're going to say this note is going to be the three. So now we're on the three. And so notice that the three is down one and back one. But it's of interesting relationship because of the different interval between these two strings. So that relationship will basically be kind of unique to these two strings because of that different interval between these two. And then we've got the open e down here, and that's going to be my five. So that's the first thing to kind of be able to map out because because then you'll be able to see the relationship between the the ones the three and the five. Then I and notice this is also a bar chord, by the way. So if you looked at it like this, you could say, okay, that's a bar, you know, that's the your bar chord. So if you move that like up to here and you moved it in position, this would be a D minor bar chord that I'm moving up, then you can analyze your bar chord, which will always be the same if you're playing a D minor bar chord. And that's your that's your root. You can say, okay, in terms, this is not an a, but I know that it's going to be my one, right, it's going to be my one, which happens to be a D. And I know I might not even know the note that I'm playing down here. But if that's the one, I know this is the relative five to it. And I know that this is going to be another one. And I know that this is my third. Notice there's only one third, and this bar chord construction. So you have to make sure that you get that third in there. Otherwise, you're just basically playing a power chord, which is cool. You could do that too. But if you want a full thing, you got to get that in there. And then here's another fifth. So notice, as long as you know that one note, you can move this bar chord up and you could just say, Well, I'm playing whatever note that is on. And you know what the interval notes are, even if you don't even know the notes in the chords you're playing, right, that's the power of knowing the shape, and then knowing just the intervals that you're in. So now let's go let's go back in and say, Okay, well, now let's analyze it a little bit more in depth thinking about the intervals up top. Now notice that these intervals that I put up top are related to the one chord. So what I'm looking for then is when are these chord constructions intervals different than those on the one chord. And when I'm looking at a major or minor, it's going to be the third. So this is the major interval to note to our whole step. And then the minor is going to be different. Okay, so knowing that I'm going to go back up here and I'm just going to try to say this in my mind, I'm going to say, Okay, that that one is the relative position. I'm saying it's relative because it's going to be relative to the chord that we're playing, not even the scale that we're in. So I'm going to try to define that in my head. That is a relative number relative position one of note a or note one, which is an a relative position one of note one, which is an a and which is of course, a one or an a right, I'm just going to list that in my mind and then I'm going to go over here and say, Okay, this one is going to be and I'm going to call this and notice I didn't really have to say because it's the one I didn't have to say if it's a major or minor, I can say, Well, that's if that's my one note, whether it's major or minor, it's still the one of whatever chord construction I'm making, whether it be major or minor, then this one is going to I'm going to call this a relative position that note. What is that? Well, that's a relative position. I'm going to say it's a seven note away fifth. What does that mean seven note away fifth? Remember the fifth is the interval you might say, Well, the end we made it from the C major. So is that it's a G the fifth is a G no, the fifth in relation to its related scale, which is the is the minor scale, if I had an a minor scale, the fifth would be the E. So that's what it is. But I'm not going to I'm not going to have to think about the scale, the related scale that's kind of tedious to do what I'm going to do instead is say is know it by the interval, right? I'm going to say, Well, the fifth, the fifth related to the one chord is seven absolute notes away. So I can look at it by position and I can know it by interval seven notes away. So if I pull up the trusty calculator, and say, Okay, we don't really need the calculator, we can do it in our head, but calculators easier. And I could just say, All right, well, if I started on a one, and if I and if I name my notes as a one plus seven, that gets me to eight, and eight is an E. So you can see how just analyzing these simple chord positions this way will help you to memorize the intervals. It'll help you to memorize the relative positions help you to get the numbering system straight in your head, and help you to then put a numbering system in place for the actual numbers, absolute numbers of the notes, which I which I find to be useful. So then, okay, so then what I'm going to go then here, let's go to the C. Well, that's the wrong one. Wait, I want to go to the a. So then here's another a so I'm going to call that relative position one of note one, a, which is no one or a. And then this one, I'm going to say boom is here. And I'm going to say that that one is a C. So that's going to be here. And I'm going to say, Okay, that's a relative position, not four notes away. It says for why does it say for because that's what it is for the one chord. And I made it yellow, because it's different here, that's the differing factor between a major and a minor. And that's going to be that it's not four notes away, it's three notes away. So this is a relative position, three note away, minor third. I'm also going to define that it's a that it's a three notes away instead of four, and that it's a minor third as opposed to a major third, because this is the differentiating fact differentiating factor. The third is the differentiating factor between the major and the minor, the minor being that's you can call it the interval, you can name the interval as a minor third, which is basically three notes away. Or you can call it, you know, a whole step and a half step. However, you want to measure that interval. But I think the easiest unit to measure them in is notes and three notes, it's three notes away instead of four notes away. So then I could say, Okay, well, then I if I started on a one or an A plus three, that gets me to four, which is a C. And by the way, before I go too much further, let's, let's go back and just analyze what I mean by distance. If we go to this E again. And we say that this one is seven notes away. What does that mean? Well, if I start on an A, like here's an A, the open note is an A right here, and I go seven notes, that's seven intervals, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven or seven frets. So then I get up here to an E. So this is an E right there. But it doesn't really help me because I'm trying to play an open position. So it's cool for me to go up to that. And that'll that'll work. It might fit that in there. But but you can also see that this E and that year both ease and look at the relationship between that. Well, that is one, two, three, four, five frets up the fretboard and one fret up towards the ceiling on the fretboard. When I look at the third, I'm saying it's three notes away from the root. The root once again is a so it's an open a. So 123 frets up gets you to your C. So there's your C right there. Now that's pretty much in open position. But I don't normally want to hold it down because I want to play the open a right. So that's why the C down here is useful. And you can look at that relationship and say, Oh, those are both C's. And that'll start you to kind of see the pattern within the fretboard as well. If you want to count them up, you know, on one string. But so there's the C and then we're going to go to the E again. So the E is down here. And I'm going to say this is a once again, seven or the ease down here, boom, that's going to be a seven note away. I don't have to say minor or major because it's seven notes away, whether it be major or minor, seven note away, fifth of note one, which is an A. So I'm just going to say, Okay, one plus seven is going to be eight, eight is an E. Let me do that faster this time. I'm going to say, Okay, and then I and then I would do this without the without the key here. So okay, this one right here, boom, that's, that's going to be this note. The open a is relative position one of note one, a which is of course note one, a and then I'm going to go Okay, and then this one is going to be here, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, that's going to be relative position seven note away, fifth of note one, a which is seven plus one, or eight, eight is an E. And then I'm going to go over here and say, Okay, this one, no, okay, that's going to be relative position one of note one, a which is note one, a and then I'm going to go here and say, Okay, this one is going to be relative position three note away, not four note three note away, minor third defining that it's a minor of note one, a which is one plus three, or four note four is a C. And then I'm going to go here and say, Okay, and then this down here is going to be relative position, relative position, seven note away, fifth of note one, a which is one plus seven, or eight, note eight is an E. Right. So you see how just by, if you say that in your mind, you're solidifying the shape, you're solidifying the the positions in the shape one three five, where they are located. And then you're also solidifying the absolute numbering system in your mind, as well as the intervals. Now then you could, you could experiment beyond that you could say, Well, if I put this on top of the minor scale, I can look at the minor scale in relation. And remember, the minor scale is just these these five notes out of the seven. And because this a minor is special, meaning, you know, it's the relative minor and in Western music, we focus on the major and the minor, this pentatonic scale fits beautifully. And you can think of it as either the C major pentatonic or the a minor, you can't think of it so much as the the Dorian pentatonic right or the Phrygian pentatonic or anything right. So but let's go down to this scale down here. And this is going to be our our the whole major scale, or you can think about it as the whole relative minor scale here. And I'm going to build my my fingering again. And then we can think about picking up other notes in this right so you could say, Well, what if I played what if I play just like these notes, that would be like a movable shape that you can do. So that would be like this. And then I could say, Okay, well, if I did that, let's make this yellow again. And I'm going to go go here and say, then I would start analyzing that with my, with my root, which is now on the bottom. So usually, I would I would look at it from the root and say, Okay, well, that bottom note then is my a that's relative position one of note one, a, which is an a, and then above it, look at the construction here above it all the time. And unless you're looking at the relation between these two strings, you will have a fifth, whether that fifth, whether you're doing a major or minor, you're always going to have a fifth above it, right? So now you're going to say, Okay, well, if that's the one, then this one above it is my relative position seven note away fifth of note one, a, which is the one plus seven or eight note eight is an a, and then I can go Okay, and then up and over one, you get the the third, which is the minor third. And that's where the position is going to be a little bit different because that's the different chain factor. So if this was the fifth, then up one and over one, you find the minor third, which will be different than if you find the major third, or if you're looking at it from the first, from relative position one, you go up two strings, and over one string, you're going to find, you know, the minor third that pattern will repeat. So if you move this up the fret board, it would be remaining the same. As long as you know where your root note is, which is down here in this case, because it's inverted, we were inverted. Well, if you were directly above him, how could you see him? Because I was inverted. So there you have that. So we're going to say that that's going to be the three note away minor third of note one, a, which is one plus three or four, four is a C. So there's that construction. You can of course look at it when you move this shape up this way. You might just look at these three notes, right? And this is a very common weight way to see it as well. It's just part of this same structure. But now you can imagine that if I move this, this up, it would look like this, right? And so now you've got relative position one. And then the third is down one and back one. But that's because of the relationship between these two strings being a little bit different than all the rest of the strings. So you're going to find a different relationship between those two. And then down one and back one, here you would find then the fifth that's useful because then again, if you move this up to here, for example, then, you know, you could see the same relationship here would be like, like the C minor, right? You could see a relationship that would be the same as long as you know what the root is, then you can kind of move that shape up and you can see the relative strings around it. Now, then you might think, Well, what happens when I start blending stuff around? Because last time we talked about picking up fingers and doing crazy stuff. And we basically were thinking of it in that sense as I'm just going to do whatever I want to do to blend things together as long as I'm within this structure, all the all the colored notes, and it should be okay, right? But if you want to analyze that more technically now, which we'll do more later, but you could go beyond and do that now, you could you could say, Okay, well, if I picked up this finger, then I'd be going from an E to a D. What does that mean? Well, I can go Okay, what if I picked up E to a D? I still have all that all I need for a minor chord construction. But I have another note, which is a D. And that note is over here. So you could say, Okay, well, it's a D right there. And if you do that, as long as you're picking up a note that is in the scale, either you can think of it as the C major scale or the relative minor, you'd probably be thinking about it as the relative minor, but it's all the same notes as the major here. You would you would say, Okay, I can I can say it's going to be the the 11th. Now, remember, when you look, I won't get into the detail on the intervals out here, because it's going to be a whole nother, you know, can of worms, as they say. But if you want to get into that, just remember that the intervals here that we created up top are the intervals that are related to the one chord. And and so we decided we then we're going to say any other chord down here, we want to see is it different than the one chord? If you're looking at the majors and minors chords, the three is going to be the one that's different. When you look at these other, these other ones up above that, you can't just say, Well, this is a minor and this is a major, and therefore the intervals will be the same. That's what gets confusing about them, because you could have a situation where you have to know it's the four chord will have a different interval, for example, and the one the easiest one that that or the next common one that you'll generally learn would be the seven, right, which can starts to confuse people because it's like, Okay, the seven, if you if you're looking at the major sevens, then you have a different interval between the one and the four, and then you have a different interval for the five. So you can't just say, Well, all the majors are going to be positioned in the same shape on the fretboard, or have the same interval, it won't be the same shape because it doesn't have the same interval. And therefore you have to start thinking, Okay, this is the interval when I'm playing a certain chord. So then you can start to to figure out which of the intervals are the same, which are different, but it's not going to be as easy as just saying, all the majors are the same, and all the minors are the same. But if you're playing in the key of C, you can just grab whatever is in this position, and then you can analyze it more in depth, if you so choose. So obviously any, anything is like that, not just the open chords, like I could pick my finger up here, and then put it down here, for example. So what if I picked my finger up, or let's say I picked my finger up and I and I put it down here. Well, then what happened? Well, now I've got this is now here. And, and I've added this, right? So that's so so now I've got something like that, which sounds a little bit more kind of dissonancy. What so what did I do? Well, I added a B there. So we added a B. And we added a an F. And that 13 is the one that usually makes it sound a little bit more a dissonancy type of thing, a little bit more attention in there. So so so that's what that's basically what's going on there. So you can kind of analyze what you're doing there. So I would practice like in the evenings or something not analyzing it, just trying to say, Well, that's in, you know, that's in, I know that's illegal. So I'm just going to blend stuff together and see like, what if I grab like some stuff and work with your fingers and then when you want to get into why does that sound good or why does that not sound as good? Then you could start saying, Well, what am I actually picking up over here? And then the next step would be to like kind of look at the intervals, what are the intervals of what I'm picking up. And if I was to change keys, which we'll talk about later, what kind of things can I pull with me as I changed the keys? Because it'll be different in the relative position. In other words, if this minor chord was constructed as a two chord, instead of a six chord, what kind of things can I still pull with me? Well, the 135 construction would be the same, because it would still be the 135 is going to be the same if it's a minor construction. But then the seven through the 13 might be more dependent upon the position, right, whether it be the two chord or the six chord, that kind of thing. So any case, we'll talk possibly more about that later, but I just want to touch on it now. So if you wanted to dive into that, you can analyze it that way. And analyzing that kind of stuff, by the way, which is really interesting, is way easier to do way easier, in my opinion. I mean, I'm not like if you have your number, if you number the notes, because then you can look at the you can actually look at these intervals and say, Well, why is this different? Why is this shape different? Instead of having to count up the scale, you just count the actual intervals, you know, Oh, yeah, well, has a different interval. That's, that's why that's easy to know if you can do a little subtraction, which would be nice to be able to do, which you can do if you had numbered. Anyway,