Very Good Jazz Theory Site

[tenebrae]

Have look at this site dealing with Jazz theory, improvisation, harmony, modes, tips and tricks....

http://www.petethomas.co.uk/jazz-theory.html

The site is very good and worth checking out if you're new to playing over changes, using modes, interested in questions dealing with which scale goes where and suchlike.

Cheers

Tenebrae

[Timbo]

Cool site tenebrae

Now, does anyone know of a site that translates all those musical dots and lines into something an idiot like me can understand

[Jonnda]

Try this site put together by my teacher
http://www.bluffton.edu/courses/tlc/unraul/welcome.htm

if you end up here http://www.emusictheory.com/, then look where it says "Everyone"

and
www.jazclass.aust.com

No luck? Well I tried. It is kinda hard to teach a man to read with more(albeit simpler) books. So i could use pictures and say this dot with a line on that space is a C and this is what it sounds like (insert sound clip of middle c) but i would need to show you where all the locations of c are on the fret board... more pictures and sound clips i guess. But unfortunately i don't have time, so i'll say this.

1. The guitar is normally tuned E-A-D-G-B-E. except for the g and b string witch are 5 notes apart the strings are tuned in fourths.
2. Each fret represents one half step, or the equivalent distance between a black key and a white key on a piano.
3. The major scale consists of whole steps and half steps (a whole step being two frets), in order to build a major scale one would use Whole-Whole-Half-Whole-Whole-Whole-Half. I think you can figure out how many frets this means if you stay on one string.

4. The music staff has five parallel horizontal lines, the one in the center of a treble clef represents a B, which just so happens to correspond with the second to thinnest string on the guitar an octave above. Seeing a dot on this line usually means that note should be sounded in the appropriate octive for the amount of time given, but that is getting ahead of this chat. To test yourself, see if you can play the music below, it is in the time signature of 1/1. this means one whole note gets one beat. just play it once for as as long as you want. Each line and space is it's own letter/note from A to G. it is in treble clef signified by the g. Why a "G"? because thats what that funky spiral thing at the beginning of music is. And guess what, that line is a g note which corresponds to the third thinnest string on a guitar. if you play bass, that fender f like thing with the 2 dots to the right of it at the start of your music is a f, and between those two dots is the line meaning f. Cool huh?
|-------------------||
|--1----------------||
|-------------------||
|g-1------O--------||
|-------------------||

Hopefully this info will give you a head start.

[Southbound]

awesome site :yay

very informative

[The Nazz Are Blue]

hey, useful stuff in here!

[tomass15]

Nice one

[tomass15]

cool site