 Guitar and Excel, A minor scale and related modes, fret 5 intervals. Get ready and remember, most stars, they burn out because they're made of gas, but we're never burning out, man. Why? Because we're rock stars. Not gas stars, rock stars. That's what I'm talking about. We ain't never gonna die. So, let's do this. Rock, paper, scissors. Good ol' rock. Nothing beats that. Rock, paper, go! 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 did so in prior presentation. 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 note scale chords that we're focused in on. If you do have access to this workbook though, currently 10 tabs down below. We got a bunch of these example tabs. The O.G. Orange tab and the Practice tab on the right. The O.G. Orange tab representing the original worksheet we put together in a prior section mapping out the entire fretboard, giving us the entire musical alphabet in letter format, number format, and combining letter and number format, having a key allowing us to change the worksheets on the right hand side for the key that we want to have selected, the worksheets providing us the notes in the key, the chord constructions from the notes in the key, and giving us some interval information. We then wanted to look at the key of C starting with the open position chord constructions, which we did on the first tab starting with the one chord, open positions being frets 0 through 3. We mapped out the 135 of the C major chord and then discussed it in detail. We then went to the F chord, the IV chord, because it is going to be a major chord construction and we mapped it out discussing it in detail. We then went to the V chord, the G chord, same thing. We went back up to the D minor chord, mapped it out, discussed it. We then went to the III chord, the E minor chord, discussed it, and then to the A minor chord, the VI chord construction, discussed it, and finally to the VII chord, the diminished chord and discussed it. We now want to move to the middle of the fretboard and part of the reason that we would like to do that is because what we have done thus far is learn the first part of the fretboard, open positions, fret 1 through 3, and what I would think is the most interesting way possible by learning the actual chords within it. If you put all those chords together, you'll basically get this scale, this colored blob. That's great. Now we'd actually like to learn it as a scale, but let's not do it in the same spot because we've already been working there. Instead, let's move to the middle of the guitar, which is a great place to start learning scales and can also blend into what we've already learned on the open positions of the guitar. That's what we've started to do this time. We then mapped out the pentatonic scale, which is the green notes here. So here are the green notes. There's five out of the seven notes for the pentatonic, and then we've been putting the major scale on top of it, or you can think of the major scale as the pentatonic five notes plus the added two notes, or you can think of the major scale as having all seven notes, the pentatonic scale, subtracting two of them. Either way you think of it, it's nice to be able to distinguish the pentatonic from the major scale. We then wanted to practice exercises so that we can learn our intervals and help us with understanding the scale constructions and the numbering systems. Exercises I recommend doing like in the morning if you have time, like 15 minutes in the morning, so that you can do this while your head is still kind of working just a little bit of a time a day, I think goes a long way. Now note that I've talked about this and other things as well. We talked about chords and how you might spend a little bit of time mapping out each item on a chord, each note in the chord, and now we're talking about the actual scales and whatnot. We obviously can't do all of that in 15 minutes a day, but whatever we're working on is what I would be thinking. Like if you're working on any particular chords, you might take one or two of them and really kind of map them out in 15 minutes a day, or if you're working on the scales, then you can take one or two of the scales and really map them, or you can take a scale and map out possibly part of that scale. Now later, once you get good at that, you could try to combine those two things together, by the way, because later on we'll talk about how we actually build chords in the scale positions, or you can look at the scale that we've already built in open position and actually take each note that we're looking at in the scale, which are each of the notes that we constructed our chords from, and see what kind of chords you can build if you can build these chords, meaning the major chords and the minor chords as you go through the scale, and that way you're looking at the scale notes in order, in position, and you're constructing chords from it. However, beware when you try to do that, that there will be multiple ways that you can construct chords. So it's not just like you can construct chords the one open position ways that we've discussed. So we'll get into that in a later area, but if you want to kind of tinker around with that, that's an interesting thing to do. You can do it up here too. You can actually go through your scale and then see how you can build the chords from that scale. See what is around in your fingering position around that note to build if you find a C here, like you're on the C chord, well that's going to be a C E and a G, and you can look for those notes around here and you can start to see the fingering position and start building triad chords, three note chords around it. Any case, we'll talk more about that later. For right now, we want to look at the scale. So let's first just list out the numbering systems we're trying to get straight in our mind. We have the numbering system or some kind of system to actually label the notes. You could use letters, you could use numbers. We have a numbering system to label the relative positions in a scale. We have a numbering system that can allow us to know the chord construction by having it uppercase and lowercase, uppercase for the major chords, lowercase for the minor. We have a numbering systems for the position in relation to the one chord of any chord that we construct, and we have absolute kind of numbering systems that we can think of as we look at the intervals of the chords. So let's try to keep those straight. Let's just do that by doing a quick recap before we get into these intervals of the numbering systems we're going to use. So we're looking at the musical alphabet. The musical alphabet would have just 12 notes in it. Once again, just to recap it, A, A-sharp, B, C, C-sharp, D, D-sharp, E, F, F-sharp, G, G-sharp, A, A, I'm sorry, G-sharp, and then it would end, right? And if you're going back, you would basically flat it. So you'd have A-flat, G, G-flat, F, E, E-flat, D, D-flat, C, B, B-flat, A. That's kind of easier from our perspective, especially as we look at intervals to number them. You don't have to. You don't have to memorize the numbers, but I think it would be a good exercise to do. Even if you don't, they will be useful for us as we think of the intervals. So I'm going to say an A is a 1, an A-sharp, or B-flat is a 2, A-B is a 3, a C is a 4, a C-sharp, or D-flat is a 5, a D is a 6, a D-sharp, or E-flat is a 7, an E is an 8, an F is a 9, an F-sharp, or G-flat is a 10, a G is an 11, a G-sharp, or A-flat is the 12. Once we have those notes, we can use our formula to create the major scale. How do we do that? We do that the whole, whole, half, whole, whole, half. That's just what we're going to accept a priori beforehand as the formula. We're not going to explain why that is the case. Not that I know exactly why it is the case, but we will get into that mystery today. We're going to say that the 4 is a C, so 4 plus 2 is 6, which is a D, 6 plus 2 is 8, which is an E, 8 plus 1 is 9, which is an F, 9 plus 2 is 11, which is a G, 11 plus 2 is 1, because we go to 12 back to 1, or 11 plus 2 is 13, 13 minus 12 is 1 or an A, 1 plus 2 is 3, which is a B, and then 3 plus 1 gets us back to the C. So these are the notes that we used in our C major, and they happen to be all the ones without sharps and flats, which makes it nice and easy for us to look at. So then we went back over here using that information and mapped out on our fretboard here, the position in the middle of the fretboard last time, and we looked at the C major construction. So if we do that, we started here on the key of C, and then we mapped out each of these items, trying to explain exactly what the relative position is to the key that we're working in on, and what's going to be the distance from that relative position to the next one using basically our formula. This really helps us to learn the relative positions, learn the scale shapes in order, learn the notes within it, and learn the numbering system if you want to learn the numbering system for the notes, which I think is helpful. Now I wanted to do the same thing this time, but emphasize the fact that we can do the same process for any of the other modes. So you could think of the major scale as the Ionian mode, for example, just one of the seven modes that we can be looking at. However, we often think of it as the major mode because it's what we use most often in Western music. So we usually think of that as like our central key mode, and then we can construct other things from it. So in this case, we're probably going to start with the minor construction, and it's a similar concept over here as we talked about with the open position chords. So remember, if you're an open position chords in the key of C, we can try to make the C the central point. How do you do that? You just start easiest way to do that at least is to start with a C, move away from a C, F, G back to a C. So C kind of feels like home because I'm hovering around it. If I want to make any of these other ones home, then I can try to do that by basically hovering around whatever note. The next most common mode would be the Aeolian, otherwise known as the minor mode. So if I had an A minor and I try to make that home with the exact same chords, I can go... Well, the exact same chords I can pick from, I might not pick the exact same chords, but A minor, F, D, back to A minor. So A minor kind of sounds like home, hopefully that was the idea at least. So you could do that with a D for the Dorian mode. You could make the E the central point. It's more difficult sometimes with some of the modes than other modes to make it the central point. The idea is that you could take all this information and just change the recipe a bit by starting from a different point and you get something different. It would be basically the idea. Same thing is happening with our scales. I can take this exact same scale and just start from a different point or target a different note and make it basically any of the modes that are constructed from the major scale. Let's demonstrate that with the minor mode, which is the most common one. So just to solidify that, hopefully a little bit further, let's go to the OG tab. And I just want to remember this formula again. We started with a C and then we went whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. Now if I started instead with an A right here and I just did the same thing, which is just repeating itself. I can start here and say, well then it would be a whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step to get me to another A. So notice that there's no difference between the pattern. It's just a repetitive circular pattern. But instead of me starting on the one of a C major, I'm starting on the six of the C major. And then I'm doing the pattern from there, which will repeat itself once I get back to the C, right? So if I was to go that six, I was going to go down to here. Now if I was to do the pattern from here, I would be back in a C major pattern, right? Whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step. So the point is it's the same pattern. And that leads to the question of why do I need to learn then the minor scale? Why can't I just say that the minor scale is just the same as the major? The chords are all the same. Everything's the same. But I'm just going to center myself around the six, which is the minor chord. You can, you can do that. But there's some benefit to then redoing the formula and putting that six up at the one and making it the minor scale. And that's basically what we want to do. One benefit is that's what people do, right? So if they talk about a minor scale, they're not going to talk about it as the six of the major. They're going to talk about it as the one of the minor. So if nothing else, you're going to need them know at least the minors for that. But you can still think of it in that way. It's kind of connected to its relative major, right? So, so if I went to my minors over here, they're on the right hand side. Let's see if I can, I can go to my minors. Here's my minor chord and notice again, all the notes are going to be the same. But now the A is up top. So let's hide, see if I can hide from here to here, right click and hide. So, so now you can see we're even going to have the same chord constructions, right? This is a minor, an A minor. So now I have the one, four, five are the minors and over here, and that happens to be an AD and an E. And over here, the minors are the two, three and six, which is an ADE. So it's just shuffled around to make the A now the one, which is kind of nice that the one, four, five are the minors this way. Because that mirrors what's on the major side with the one, four, five being the majors. So what we're going to do now is we'll go through this interval kind of exercise this way. But thinking of it as a minor, the minor instead of the major, even though the notes are the same to try to solidify the positions this way. So that we have the one, the one chord being the A minor chord, the one note being the A minor note. So let's do that. Now I also just want to point out quickly that it's useful often to think about all of these modes as though they are constructed from the major mode. And basically they kind of are. That's how we originally constructed them. But when you think of them as modes, there's not really, in my mind, there's not really any difference between one mode and the other. It's not like the major mode is the key from which all others were built. It's more like if you had any of these modes, you can build all the other modes from it. In other words, if I started with this pattern for like the minor mode, and I did that pattern and then I just started from a C, then I would get the major construction pattern. So all the modes are really like, you can construct everything from one mode, like kind of like a fractal picture, you know? It's not like the major mode's in the middle and everything, and then it's the central point of everything else. It's more like a fractal picture where everything is kind of connected, I think. But that's like a subtle point. We kind of think of it as the major mode. Let's link everything to the major mode. That's a practical thing to do. All right. So let's go ahead and hide from here to here. Right click, and I'm going to hide. And then I'm just going to go through these positions again in a similar way as we did before. I'm going to try to unhide some cells over here. I'm going to right click and unhide some cells over here. I'm going to hide some cells over here. Right click and hide some cells on this side. Remember if I, and let's hide the, I don't need this from Z to A. Let's hide that. Right click and hide. So remember that the general idea of the guitar, as far as I can tell here, is going to be such that I can take my scale and map it out on one string. That would be like kind of like the same what we would do on a piano. This is still on the major. I want to be at the minor. What is going on here? I'm going to hide some more cells. Sorry. I'm going to go over here and right click and hide. Okay. So, so here's our new formula with, with the holes and half steps on the right. And if I map this out on one string, I would start at the A, right? And then we go, okay, now it's going to go up. We go a whole step up to the B. And then if I was doing this on one string, we would then go a half step up to the C. And then we would go a whole step up to the D. And then we would go a whole step up to the E. And you can notice how nice and easy it is in the key of C because you're just eliminating all the sharps and flats, half step up to the F. And then whole step to the G. And then it would go back to the A, right? And it would start over on the A. Now, on the, on the guitar, it makes sense. Now, notice on the piano, the great thing about the piano is they're not on one string. It's a bunch of other strings, but it kind of simulates like what would happen on one string. So you can play multiple notes at one time that are laid out as if they were on one string kind of thing, right? But here on the guitar, what the design looks to be like is that we're trying to get things so that we can play this, play the scales within basically a four to five fret interval. And that's going to be that. That's going to be the idea. That's why they put the distance of, in essence, the five notes between the strings is the general idea. Okay, so given that we're going to walk through. Let's hide from like, let's go like 12 or 13 and hide these. And let's get that. I want to use that. So let's put this from 13, right click and hide. So here's the same kind of exercise we did last time, which I would recommend possibly doing, you know, in the morning with 15 minutes if you have time in the morning. And I know that I've said there's a bunch of different exercise that I said would be great for 15 minutes in the morning. Obviously, you can't do all of them. So you'd have to pick one and say, I'm going to do this particular one such as analyzing a particular chord or doing a scale and possibly only part of the scale at any given time. And walk through any part of the scale would be the idea. Now note also that you could try to combine these two things together that we talked about, meaning walking up the scale, as well as the construction of the chords. Because again, you could go to each of the notes. I think I already talked about that. I think you can go to each of the notes in the course and try to construct a scale from it. But we won't get into that any more detail now. We're just going to do the same process we did before, but with the minor. So let's do that. Okay, I'm going to move this here. So we'll start then with the A. So now we're on the A. And so I'm going to say that's going to be the A here. I'm going to say that's going to be relative position one of the scale of a minor. So I'm in a minor, not C major. So now the A is relative position one. So relative position one of scale a minor is note one a minor. And then I'm going to go from relative position one to relative position two. So relative position one is a one or an A. I'm going up two frets, or I'm going up a whole step. Sorry, not two frets. Yeah, well, two frets, a whole step to a B. So if I start at a one, one plus two is going to be three. And note number three is a B. And then I'm going to go, okay, let's go down to the next one. I'll try to do this a little faster because we did this last time. And I'm going to say, okay, and then I'm going to go from here to here and here to here. So now I'm going from relative position two of the A minor scale, which is note three B up to relative position three, is a half step away. Therefore, I'm going from a three up one note to four. Note number four is a C. Okay, and then I'm going to go, okay, let's do this again. And then this one, notice, I'm not going to leapfrog over here because that's outside. It would have four notes on the string would be violating that rule. And it would be going, it would have four notes on a string. It would be going out more than four frets across for any one finger in position, which are rules that we cannot violate at this time with this positions. So I am going from pinky to pointer over here, which is a perfect whole step, step jump. That's why there's five notes between the strings, right? Because if I went from here, one, two, three, four, five, up one, there's the other D. So instead of jumping to this D, I'm going back to this D, which is a whole step pinky to pointer. So now we're going from relative position three, which is note four or a C up a whole step to relative position four. And a whole step up would be four plus two, four, five, six. Note six is a D. And then we'll do this again. I'll go to, I'll go to out here and then here and then bring this down. Now we're going from relative position four of the A minor, which is note six or a D up two notes or a whole step to relative position five. If I'm on a D two notes up, it's going to be six, seven, eight. Note number eight is an E. And so we're going to go, okay, it's right there. There's an E. And then we're going to go to the F. So we're going to say, okay, now I'm going to go from relative position five, which is note eight and E up a half step to relative position six, which is going to be eight plus one or note or nine note nine, which is an F. So we're going to go, okay, that's great. And then we're going to go from here to here. I'm going to go instead of jumping to here, we're going to go back down here. So now we're going to go from relative position six, which is note nine or an F up two notes or a whole step to relative position seven. If I'm on note nine, which is an F, nine plus two, nine, ten, eleven. I'm not going to pick up this eleven out here, but instead pick up the same whole step by going pinky to pointer, because that's why there's the five note interval. Pinky to pointer brings me that whole step down to here. So there's the G, and then we're going to go from the G up to here to dude. And so, and I have a repeated one here. So I can go, it's going to repeat. So now we're going to go from relative position seven, I would say to relative position eight or to one. Sometimes it's useful in your mind to say it's an eight, but it's a repeat, we're repeating at that point. So I'm going to go from there to here. So relative position seven, which is note number 11, a G, and then we're going to go, and then we're going to go up a whole step or two notes to note eight or one, which is going to be 11 plus two, 11 plus two is 12, 13, 13 minus 12 is one, or 11 plus two is 12, and then around the horn, back to one. So here's the one that we're back home. So we went one time round. Now we're going to repeat it again in the higher register. So we've gone one time around, we'll copy this up top. Now we're going to go from this position down to that B over here. So that's a little bit of a tricky move. So now we're on relative position one, which is note one or an A. We're going to go up two notes or a whole step to relative position two. If I'm on note one, one plus two is going to be three or B. I'm not going to go to this B out here, even though there's only three notes on a string, because it's still outside of the four string across. There's no half step involved, so it still would be a stretch, even though there's only three notes on the string. Therefore, we're going to go down here. Remember that this one is the same distance between the strings, but I'm going to have to reach back. So I'm going to have to reach back here. That's what most people will probably do, because they're going to start here, pointer on the A, and therefore they're going to be reaching back to get to this B. So it's still the same interval, because one, two, three, four, five gets to here. You still have the pinky to pointer interval. The only difference is that you won't be playing that with your pinky usually, because you're going to be playing it with your ring if you're fingering it this way, and then you're going to have to reach back as though it was pinky to pointer. You could try to play this more in position, but that's, I think, how most people will do it, right? It's kind of like the easiest thing to do. So now we're on this B, so then I can say, okay, let's move this down to D, to D, to D, to D, to D, and so we'll bring this down here, and now we're going to go from relative position two of the A minor scale, which is note three or a B up a half step or one note to relative position three, which is going to be three plus four gets us up to a C. So there is our C, so then I'm going to go to D, bringing this here, bringing this here, bringing this there, bringing this over here, and now we're going to go from relative position three, which is a C, which is relative position three, which is note four or a C up to relative position four, which is a whole step, and so four or a C plus two, it's going to be four, five, six, and note number six is going to be a D. So now we're on the D, and then we go from the D down to the E, and that's where we have that weird kink in the strings. So now we're going from relative position four of the A minor scale, which is note six, a D up a whole step, going up a whole step to relative position five. If I'm on a six up a whole step, that's going to be plus two notes, six, seven, eight. I can't go to that eight because it would be four notes on a string. It would be longer than four long. Therefore, I'm going to go to the next E down here. Notice that the next E down here is going to be inside. So I'm kind of doing a kind of a wonky finger in again because I'm going to go usually from my pinky because I started out here and bring my pinky in to pull that one out. So I'm going from pinky to pointer, but it's not the same interval because I'm kind of squishing my hand together in order to do that. That is in part because we're going from this note instead of the note over here, and it still wouldn't be pinky to pointer because of the difference in the intervals between these two strings. So you can see if I go from this E, one, two, three, four, and up, there's only four notes out instead of five notes out. That's that kink in the string. So now we're on that E. So I'm going to say, okay, then do it, do it, and bring this out to here, do it, do it, do it, do it. And so now we're going to go from relative position, relative position five, which is note eight or an E to relative position six, which is a whole step, going from what was that, an E. Did I not do this? I'm going up to an F. Hold on a second. Did I not change that? I confused myself. Relative position five, which is note eight or an E, up a half step to relative position six, which is going to be eight plus one or nine, and that's going to be an F. Hopefully I did that correctly. I feel like I messed something up, but I'm going to keep rolling. I apologize if I messed something up. It happens from time to time. So now I'm going to go, okay, now we're going from relative position six, which is note nine or an F. We're going to go up to relative position seven, which is a whole step or two notes, nine plus two, nine, 10, 11 is a 12 or a G. And then we're going to go to do again, relative position here to here. And then we're on the 11, a G, and now we're going around the horn back to the A. So relative position seven, which is note 11 or a G, up to relative position eight, or you can think around the horn to back to one, is going to be a whole step. So 11 plus two is 12 and then back to one. One is an A. We have the classic pinky to pointer position because we're not going to go out here the whole step to this A, but we're going to go to that A. That's in position. Okay. And then we're going to go, okay, keep on going relative position to spring this one up here to here. We're going to say there, there, and now we're on relative position one, which is an A relative position one, which is note one or an A up to relative position two is a whole step. So, and by the way, my finger should be down here on that A is a whole step. So we're going to go one plus two is going to be three. That brings me up to the three, which is a B. So now we're on the B. And then one more brings us to the C. So we're going to say, okay. So now relative position two of the A minor, which is note three or a B up a half step to relative position three is going to go from a three or a B up to a four, which is a C. Notice that it's not always going to end at the end of our, our position here at the end of the scale or start the scale over. It's not going to resolve possibly depending on which position we're playing. So just keep that in mind. Then you might want to go backwards. I won't go all the way backwards, but just note that just a couple of them so you can see it in reverse. You'd want to start on the C and say now we're on relative position three of a minor, which is note four or a C. And I'm going to go back a half step to get back to relative position two of the A minor. So if I'm on a C four minus one is three, three is a B. And then I can go back up and say, okay. I did. Duh. Duh. And then we're going backwards, which is going back. And so now we're going to go from relative position two of a minor, which is note three or a B back a whole step to relative position one, which would be three or B minus two notes, bringing you three minus two or an A. So here's your A. And then again, you can go around the horn from one, or you might think of it as like an eight now. So you can subtract from it because that makes more sense oftentimes in your mind. So I'm like, this is a one or an eight that I'm going to go back down to the seven. Right. So I'm going to say, okay, now I'm on a relative position. One. And I'm going to go, and the seven is down here because this is repeated. So now I'm going to go back down here and I'm going to go, okay, I'm on relative position one or eight, which is no one or a, and then I'm going to go down or round the circle to relative position seven. And that's going to be a whole step. So I'm going from a down, which goes around the horn to 12 and then back to 11, right? So that's, there's our 11, kind of a sneaky little numbering thing there. So then we're back to here on the fingering. And then we would go from here to here. I'll do just one more maybe. And so now we're on this one to this one. So now we would be going from relative position seven, which is no 11 or a G. And now we're going back then two notes. So back two notes, 11 minus two gets you to nine or an F, right? And then again, you kind of finger, you could finger through this and hopefully you can see that if you, if you do this and you actually are kind of mindful of it, like I said, you'll get the fingering correct. You'll start to get where the relative notes are in the position just through repetition and just being mindful about doing the fingerings. And once you do that a few times, you get a little bit faster with it. And you could start then doing that in open position and thinking about the chords that are being built off of the notes, off of those root notes, whenever you get to those root notes, although again, it's not perfect to do that because we only looked at one format of the chord constructions in these big open chord constructions. But you can basically build a three note chord off of any string, oftentimes multiple different ways. And that's another kind of useful exercise. Now, note that I won't do it for all the other modes, but you could do that same thing for all of the modes, like the Dorian mode, the Phrygian mode, the Lydian mode, the Mixer Lydian mode. Now, it might not be as useful to do that that it would be for the minor Aeolian mode and I'm seeing, yeah, Aeolian and the major Ionian mode. Those are the two that you would like to be able to see both in relation to each other as well as in their own modal relationship to see the one note pretty clearly because those are going to be used very often. And then the other modes you could probably get away with saying, okay, I'm looking up the Dorian, which is like the two note of the C major or something. But some of those modes, again, you might go to some of them like the Dorian, which is going to be the next one, which might be used quite often, and then try to think about it. You already have the information in your mind. It's just in the format of the other modes, minor, major. All you have to do is reverse it in your mind to think about what's going to be the one note, and then you can try to map those out and you'll get basically the construction here in the same way as we did with the minor by just taking the major formula and then starting from another note, just like we did with the minor, to learn the formula from each of them as the one note, which are basically the modal constructions. But as far as we'll go with doing that exercise, we're going to something new next time. It's going to be great.