 Guitar and Excel, interval and modes complement and parallel worksheet. Get ready and some coffee, because usually when you ask guitar related questions to responses, who knows? Who knows? Who knows anything? Well lucky for you, I tracked down this Who guy that has all the answers. Apparently he was living in Dr. Seuss's Whoville, having been banned from modern society for actually knowing stuff. Intel, Max, that's what we're after. How many houses are in Whoville and how many whos? What do you mean Phil, who would have guessed? No, no, no. Phil, who would not have guessed? Because who knows? Remember who knows? That's why I tracked down Mr. Who in the first place for crying out loud. Who has the answers? Now that wasn't a question Phil. Who has the answers? Dang Phil. Honestly, who is this guy? Anyways, it's time to start learning what Mr. Who knows. So let's get into it. Here we are in Excel. If you don't have access to this workbook, that's okay because we'll basically build this from a blank worksheet. But first, we want to talk about the end product, the final result, the end worksheet getting an idea as to why. You might want to take the time to either build this worksheet, or at least to have this worksheet. How might the worksheet be helpful, be useful to you? So first we'll think about how might it be useful just to have the worksheet. Like we did in a prior section, we are going to be mapping out the entire fretboard and putting the names of the notes and number and letter within it. But we're also then going to be mapping out the fretboard and providing the intervals within it as well to get a better conceptual idea of the intervals. Then we're going to be mapping out fretboards for the complement modes and the parallel modes, and we'll discuss that more shortly. But that's a quick overview for now as to what the worksheet might be useful for. And then what's the objective of constructing the worksheet? Now if you're looking at this just purely from a music basis and you're not an Excel person, I still think it's useful to actually at least watch through as we build it. Or build it yourself because you'll be able to see how everything is kind of put together as we build it within Excel. And if you are an Excel person, you like Excel, this is a good project to be working on within Excel because it has a lot of things to work on within it, including the formatting of the cells and we have formulas that are somewhat complex within it and different patterns which are going to be useful just to visualize your work in Excel. So it's great for both people that want to learn Excel, people that want to learn music, and both would be even better. So let's just go through the worksheet getting an idea of how this will work. Before we create the fretboard, we're first going to list this out and we'll just start this from a blank sheet and we'll have a bunch of presentations that we'll just put this together piece by piece. We'll start by just listing out the musical alphabet. I like to list it out this way. I'm going to show the sharps and flats as a lowercase like this would be an A-sharp or a B-flat. I think that's just a pretty easy way to put it within the fretboard. And so it's not too convoluted, so that's the symbology I'm going to use for it. We're also going to name our number of the notes and I'll explain why that is useful. It's useful both for constructing our worksheet just from a, I guess, a structural point of view, but it's also, I think, really useful in music theory. I used numbers as well, so we'll do that. We'll combine the numbers and the letters together so that we can see both the number and the letter in terms of absolute number and letter. Then we're going to be putting together our musical alphabet in terms of the scale that we are in using our formula of whole, whole, half, whole, whole, half. So this will help us to see what key we're in. This green cell will change the key. So this number four represents a C, so if I change it to an 11, now we're in a G scale. So this will change the entire worksheet, this green key, or that's the hope if we get this built out correctly. So that's similar to what we did in the past. Now the new thing is these intervals. So I really think I'm going to make this a little bit larger here. So I put the headers up top because they're kind of squished in that people don't have a really good sense of what the intervals mean. And so I think just building this is a great tool to actually get a better idea of what these intervals mean. And then when we use these intervals, that'll help us to maneuver around the fretboard visualizing it in a different way. I think a lot of guitarists in particular have an idea of intervals as different related shapes on the fretboard, but they don't possibly know exactly what the intervals mean beyond that, which I think makes a substantial limitation on being able to conceptually progress. So the basic idea of the intervals is basically there's only 12 notes in the musical alphabet. So we could basically list, if you start at any point in the musical alphabet because it's a circle, then you can basically have only 12 intervals from there, or really 11, plus the one that you're sitting on. So if I'm on a C, for example, how many steps away if I think of it as distance on a ruler could I go? I can only go 12 and then it'll take me around the circle back to where I'm at. Now you could talk about octaves, you can visualize it instead of as a circle, as something that's going to go around like a spiral forever, or you can visualize it as a straight line that goes out into infinity, kind of like piano keys that go out into infinity. But I think the simple shape of a circle, like a track field that's just a circle, would be the easiest thing to visualize. So you have kind of like a ruler, there's only 12 steps you're measuring it, but really the ruler's kind of going around in a circle. So that means there's only 12 intervals. Now you would think you would name the 12 intervals like inches basically. You'd say, well, if you start at C and then you're at a D, well then you're two inches away, or two half steps away, or you can call that a whole step if you want, right, away. Or you can come up with a whole new name for the interval, which is basically what happened. And I'm not trying to, there is a purpose to that, because all the intervals are being tied to basically the major scale. So there's use to the names, but they're confusing as well, and there's some kind of ambiguity or just arbitrariness in the names as well. So we have to learn the names so we can properly communicate these intervals, and it's a little frustrating because you would kind of think that the intervals would just be named, well, it's two steps away from the root. But basically, the convention for naming intervals was to use the seven note, basically the seven note major scale instead of the 12 note scale, right, even though you're naming 12 intervals or 11 intervals plus the starting point. Okay, so we'll talk about that more as we go, but that's the issue here. So the bottom line is it's easy conceptually to think of, okay, well, there's only 12 steps, so wherever I measure the ruler, wherever I start the ruler at, there's only that point zero, and then 12 steps up from there, that's all there is. And then the question is, well, how are they going to, what are the wacky names that they're going to come up with? So here are the names, so we'll come up with a chart of the names. If you're on the one, we call that the unison, unison, or the perfect first. If you're on the two, we're going to call that the minor second. We'll get into this in more detail if you're two notes away. So that was one note away. If you're two notes away, the major second, three notes away, minor third, four notes away, major third, five notes away, perfect fifth, and we'll get into this more as we build it, but you have those names. Next thing is we need to abbreviate those names, because it's a pain to list it like that. So now we've got these symbols for the abbreviated names. Now the next thing that I would like to know about these symbols is not just the relative position on the major scale, but how many notes it is away from the starting point from a 12 position ruler or the 12 notes. So I've combined then the position here plus the interval abbreviation. So this means if it's a C in this case, it would be zero notes away or a perfect first. If you're comparing to the C and it's a C sharp, well it's one note away, one note away, which would be a minor second. If it's two notes away, a D, now it's two notes away, that would be a major second. So this is saying it's two notes away, which is a major second. And then the third here, so if you're talking about this three notes away, it's going to be a minor third. And you might say, well, it's redundant, you have a two and a two, but it's not redundant because here's a one note away and we call it a minor second, right? And then this one, for example, is four notes away from the C, which is our starting point, and we call that a major third. And because, again, we're basically measuring it based on a seven note measuring scale, even though there's 12 notes. So it's a little bit wonky, the measuring tool. But all we have to do is memorize these, and there's only 12 of them, and then we just have to realize in our mind there's really only 12 steps. If you want to call it a wacky name for whatever reason, we'll call it the wacky name, and then we'll just memorize and don't let it overwhelm you because, again, there's one. So that's one thing. The other thing that confuses people is the relativity of it because if I change this four to an 11, for example, the starting point has changed. So that means all the intervals are going to change relative to the new starting point. It's kind of like Einstein's theory of relativity, but it's not that complicated. It's way not that complicated. But you know what I mean? Everything is relative. In this concept, everything is relative to each other. When you measure something with a ruler, it depends on where the starting point is as to how many inches from that starting point it's going to be. So that's the other thing I think kind of confuses people that we don't really understand what's happening because I think these names get in the way a bit. And then we have these alternative names. We'll talk more about that later. But that's the general idea. Then we have our worksheet on the right, which will give us the notes in the scale. So these are the notes in the scale. These are the seven notes in the scale out of the 12 notes. Now when we construct the one note here, for example, we usually know the intervals as the one, three, five. And then you could add the seven, the nine, the 11, and so on. And those one, three, fives are interval names comparing it to the one. But it gets a little bit more confusing when I look at the other chords that have been constructed from the same scale, like the two chord. I can think of it as being constructed from this C because we just took every other note. We'll see how to build this. We started with a D, took every other note. But then when I think about the intervals, these intervals are not in relation to the C. They're now in relation to the D. So let me hide this and see if I can explain that a little bit more. So if I go over here and I try to hide, I'm going to hide from like this five, let's say, to here, maybe right click and hide. And then I'm going to hide. I probably don't need this hide. I don't think I need this again. It's hide, right click, hide. And maybe I don't need this. Right click, hide. And then maybe these three I don't need. Right click and hide. Okay, so now if I was to look at the one, all of these intervals down here on our interval worksheet are tying out to the one, seeing what's the distance from the C. So all of these intervals, here's a C right here. It's seeing what's the distance from that C. But when I look at the D here, then this is mapped out in comparison to the C. So if I want to know what it means to say it's the third or the fifth, it's comparing now to its related scale. Now you could go to the D minor scale, but if I'm looking at anything beyond here, like the seven, the 13 and so on, that are constructed from the C, I'm really looking at the relative, which would be the Dorian, right, the relative mode. So if I look at this D down here in the relative mode, now I can see that I have, I've mapped it out in the relative mode. And now, so I have the same thing, right? It's the same as up top, same pattern. That we have up top, but the numbering is now different, right? So now I can look at the mode as though it is the one, right? So now I'm constructing it from the D. The D is the one, so now you can see it's P1, which is representing unison. It's the one and then the three is over here. That's the minor third and then the fifth is over here. So now you can see the intervals in relation to the D chord construction as opposed to the intervals up here in this one, which are relative to the C. And then we can go through all of the Phrygian and we can do the same thing with it, the one being an E, so this is being mapped out with the intervals of the E and so on and so forth. So here's the Lydian and the Mixolydian. So these are what we call complement modes because they all have all the same notes to them, but when we think about the intervals, the intervals are going to change because we've changed the starting point. We've used the ruler and we started measuring the ruler from a different place. All right, so then we have the circle on the right-hand side. This is similar to the worksheet we saw, we worked on before. So now this is just visualizing these seven notes in a circular pattern. So we have C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and then it starts over at C. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and then it starts over. This is the circle of thirds, which is taking every other note over here. And that, if I make my chords, the chords are constructed by taking every other note. So I have C, E, G making this. Now if I just take every other note and make the circle of thirds, it's just going to be the C, the E, and the G, right? They'll be right next to each other. So this is kind of a nice little kind of cheat way or a simplified way to find those notes. Now then we'll do the same thing on the parallel modes. So if I'm looking at switching keys and whatnot, I might switch keys within the same complement modes so that all of the notes are the same, but then I would be changing the tonic. I would be changing from playing like in a C to a D, for example. So I'm changing the root note, even though all the notes are actually the same. The other thing I might do is I might change all of the notes around it. So that would be the parallel modes, but I keep the root note the same. So if I'm playing in the key of C major, then I might try to, I might then say that I want to be playing, I want to switch then to a parallel mode that still has the C and the root. So I don't want to go to A minor, which would be the complement. I want to go to the C minor so I can still keep the C as the root, but now I switched from a major to a minor, or I can instead of going to the D Dorian, which would be complement, I go to the C Dorian. So now I still am pivoting around that C being the root, but I'm going to a different notes around it. So in that case, same worksheet. Now we have this worksheet here, and we have our same kind of construction on the right, but now we're going to go from the major in a C to the Dorian in the C. So over here, instead of having the same exact shape, that we have up top, we have a different shape. You can see up top that the shape around it has differed. Now I'm looking at the C as the root, the C is still P1, which is the perfect first. It's still the perfect first over here, but notice this C shape that I drew doesn't fit around it because now you're in the Dorian, which has basically a minor C. So you still have the C as the root, but you'd have to switch this back over here basically to pick up, to switch from a C major to the Dorian. And then again, you can look at the intervals and get into the interval thing. Well, how does that do that? Well, how do you do that? Well, you take the third, if it's going from a major to a minor, and you drop it back, right? You flat the third. So now it's a minor third here, and something like that. So that's how the worksheet can be useful. Now then beyond that, we also put some worksheets on the right, which are very colorful. But the idea is that here we have the seven notes in the mode, and if you put this together, it really helps you to kind of get a better visualization of these modes, but even if you just have it, it's useful because now we have, what we have now is all of the modes, the C, the D, the D Dorian, the E Phrygian, and so on. So let me see if I can explain how it works here. I put it together. You'd think I'd be, I got this little circle here. So I'm focusing on the green side now. So now I'm going to say this is the C, this is the major Ionian for the C, and I'm following the green around then. So I'm going to say this is the one. It's the perfect first. It's a major chord that will be the first represented by, this is a Greek letter I, and then if I follow the green around, here's the two. Now that two is the D. So I know the D is red, but we're going to the D, because these are all the notes that we're looking at. So these are all going to be the related modes in like a circular format to, in this case, the C, because we put that green cell to the left in the key of C. If I change this to a G, then it would all change to the G. Here's the, here's this one. And we're going to say the two is a D. It's the two, which would be a minor chord construction represented by the lower case letter or number here. And the interval would be a major second. And then here's the three. It's going to be a minor chord construction. And it's going to be a major fourth. I'm sorry, major third or four notes away. And then we go over here. This is going to be the fourth, which is an F, the fourth, which is going to be a perfect fifth. It would be a major chord construction represented by the capital letter and so on. And then if I concentrate on the red, for example, now I'm looking at the Dorian. So all the notes are the same. I'm in the key of C. So I just have all the natural notes, because those no sharps and flats, in other words, because it's the key of C. But if I look at the D as my starting point, then I would be in Dorian. So if I'm in Dorian, then I'm going to look at this red item. That D would then be the one. It would now be the unison or perfect first. It would be a minor chord construction. And then if I go to the E, the E is now the two. It would be two notes away or a major second minor construction on the chord. And then we would go to the F and the F is now going to be the three. It's going to be a major third because we're looking at these now relative to the D. So this distance is now relative to the D as opposed to this distance, which was relative to the C. And then so on and so on and so on. We can go back out to the next one and say, okay, what if I started here and I'm looking at the orange now. So I'm going to say the orange starts at the Phrygian. So the E would be the one. And then it's now at zero. It's no distance away. It's at that point. That's the perfect first. And then we go over to the two, which is a major second or two notes away now. And that's an F. And then we go to the G, which is going to be the third. It's going to be a major chord construction. It's four notes away, which we can label as a major third. This was a major second major third, and then so on and so forth. So you have all of the all of the modes in one spot. And if you change this key over here, if I change it from a C to a G, then now we've got we've got everything. So now you've got some sharps and flats to deal with, but everything should change relative. And now we're in the key of G. So let's bring it back to C. So that's that worksheet. And if you construct that, it really helps to get an idea of what is happening with these modes. Now here, now if you thought that was crazy, then we have this one, which the problem with again, a lot of these modes is that we start to measure it and it makes sense to do so. Because that's how it was originally kind of designed. We're measuring things with a seven note ruler, even though there's 12 notes that we're measuring. So these only have seven notes that we're looking at, but there's 12 notes in the musical alphabet. And the, and all of these distances are actually, there's 12, there's 12 of them, including the, you know, 11 and then plus the one you're on, which is the, which is the starting point. So if I was to say, well, can I construct this with all 12 notes, right? So now I have 12 notes in here and we can see everything in this one from, this is just the major scale now, not the modes, just the major scale. So you can see, for example, if I start on the C, it's at zero, perfect first. And then what happens is you skip this one. That's why there's no C sharp. And then it goes to the D and the D is the second, and that's going to be the major second. And then it skips this one. You can see, here's my formula, whole, whole half. So it went from here, skipped to here, skipped to here. And that's going to be a major fourth. And then we're going to go from here to here. We have the F and that's going to be the perfect fourth, five notes away. And then from the F to the G, we skipped this one, right? And so you can see this is going to give you all, all of the notes to give you an idea of the notes that have actually been skipped as well. And their relative positions. So if I look at the red, then I'm going to say, now I'm going to start here, which is the C sharp and apply the same whole, whole half formula. So the next one, it skipped this one. There's no D and then it goes to here. So that D sharp or E flat is now the two. It's two notes away, which is a minor or a major second. Right. And then we skip this one and we go to this one. So that's going to be an F. It's four notes away or a major third and so on. And then we could do that. This is, again, only the major. So we could do this whole thing for each of the modes. So here's the same thing in a Dorian mode. So it's just the same thing, but now we have the formula for the Dorian mode. So I know this is pretty kind of overwhelming when you first look at this thing. But again, if you construct this thing, then I think it really gives an idea of what is happening with these modes and how you might be able to switch these around in your mind to see them. And then, obviously, if you construct it, you'll also be much better at possibly utilizing it when you're trying to figure out what you want to do with different modes. So that's the general process. We could copy over the prior project that we did before, but we're not going to do that. We're just going to start from scratch, blank worksheet, and just we'll build this thing out. So we'll start that next time.