Does Theory Really Matter?

Let's get straight to the point - does theory really matter? Well, if you've come over to this blog from the podcast where Dan and I discuss this in depth, you'll know what we think! And if you've clicked on this blog before watching the podcast, be sure to check it out below. Not to give anything away, but… we both give a handful of reasons as to why we believe that learning theory is an important part of being a successful guitarist. And though we briefly touch on topics such as ear training, chromatic notes and tritone substitution, we both agreed learning the basic harmonisation of the major scale is an essential for every guitarist.

So, if you have made amazing progress in your guitar playing journey and can play along to some of your favourite songs, but you're not sure why certain chords or notes work so well together - this is the lesson for you! In this lesson, I'll demonstrate how the major scale is created, how to harmonise it (build chords), and to remember it in any key. Let's get started!

As always, the best place to start is with C major. The reason for this is because the C major scale contains no accidentals - which is the collective term for sharps and flats. This leaves us with the notes of C, D, E, F, G, A and B. If we step away from the guitar for just a second and look at a keyboard, we can visualise this as all the white keys (natural notes) from C to C, without playing any black keys (accidentals).

At this point, you might be thinking that starting and ending on any white key would give us a major scale - which unfortunately, would be wrong. The only major scale this works for is C major, and it has everything to do with intervals. An interval is the distance between two notes, and can be broken down into two main smaller units - whole- and half-steps.

Let's visualise these on both our guitar, and on a keyboard. On a guitar, a half-step is simply the distance between two neighbouring frets - for example, the 3rd to 4th fret. A whole-step is equal to two half-steps, meaning that the distance would be from the 3rd to the 5th fret. On a keyboard, a half-step would be represented by going from a white key to a neighbouring black key (G to G#), and a whole-step would be going from a white key to a white key (G to A)… in most cases….

Whole- and half-steps on a fretboard:

Whole- and half-steps on a keyboard:

Why does this only work in most cases? Well, if we take a closer look on the keyboard, we can see there isn't a black key between every note. The two instances of this are between B and C, and E and F. This is crucial to remember, as it it will help you make sure that you're playing the correct notes - in any scale. I'll provide all the chromatic notes in order below to help avoid any confusion. And just in case, the word 'chromatic' simply means that we're playing every note in distances of half-steps, which means we're looking at all 12 unique notes. This can be visualised on guitar by playing one fret at a time.

With all of that said, let's get back to C major, and take a closer look at the intervals between each note. Referencing the image below, we can see that we're left with the pattern of WWHWWWH (W = whole-step, and H= half-step). This exact pattern is the formula to create any major scale, regardless of what note you're starting on.

To make sure we really understand this, let's put it into practice with two more scales - G major and F major. If we apply the same WWHWWWH pattern starting on G, we get the notes of G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, and G. And for F major, we would get F, G, A, Bb, C, D, E and F.

G major:

F major:

So why do we have a sharp in one key, and a flat in another - they're both major keys after all?! Simply put, we never want to double-up the same note name or degree of a scale. Taking the Bb in F major as an example - Bb and A# are enharmonic (the same note but with two different names), but only calling it Bb would be correct in the context of F major. If we called it A#, we would have the pattern of F(1), G(2), A(3), A#(#3), C(5), D(6) and E(7) - giving us two 3rd degrees of the scale, but no 4th degree. Long story short, always make sure you're including all the different intervals and you're not doubling up on any notes!

The next step after understanding how to construct any major scale is to know how to harmonise it. Essentially, we're going to be building chords based on each degree of the scale. This will then help you understand and create chord progressions in any major scale of your choice, so it really is incredibly useful!

Using C major again, we're going to be adding two more notes to each degree to form a triad. A triad is a chord built using the 1st, 3rd and 5th degree within a scale. Examples of triads would be any major or minor chords such as G major, C major, A minor and many more! Unless a chord has a fancy name such as Csus4 or Dmin7, it's safe to assume it's a triad.

Starting on the note, C, we're going to add the 3rd and 5th degree of the scale on top, giving us the triad containing the notes of C(1), E(3) and G(5). These are all the notes we need to build a C major chord. So what makes this major, and not minor? Well, the biggest hint is that this is the first chord in the C major scale, so it would be a bit strange to have a minor chord here… But more technically, the distance between the 1st (C) and 3rd (E) degree is two whole-steps (WW), resulting in the interval of a major third. The third has the amazing power of dictating whether a chord feels major or minor, but we'll get to that in just a bit. The distance from the 3rd (E) to the 5th (G) is a tone and a half (WH), also known as a minor third. Therefore, we can deduce that the construction of any major triad/chord is the combination of the following intervals: WW - WH or, major third - minor third. This gives us the chord formula of 1 3 5.

Now let's take a look at the triad starting on the second degree of the C major scale - D. This is very important - we're going to take the 3rd and 5th starting on D, but using all the same notes from the C major scale. This would give us the triad of D, F and A. If you're incredibly quick, you would have noticed that the distance between D and F is not a major third (WW), but a minor third - WH. This is why the third is so important, as changing it by just one semi-tone determines whether we get a major or minor chord. The distance between the 3rd (F) and the 5th (A) in a minor chord is two whole-steps - WW. Resulting in the slightly tweaked chord formula of 1 b3 5.

Let's look at both the C major and C minor triads to make the difference between the construction of the minor and major triad incredibly clear:

There is, however, one pesky chord that just had to be different… If we take a closer look at the seventh chord in the pattern (starting on B), we see that the distance between the 1st and 3rd degree is a minor third (WH), and from the 3rd to the 5th is another minor third. This forms a diminished triad, with the chord formula of 1 b3 b5. This is a chord that sees seldom use in more typical chord progressions as it is intrinsically more unstable harmonically, and is very hard to resolve to.

Creating triads for all seven unique notes within the C major scale will give us all the chords that naturally belong within the key signature. I want to stress one last time that we're building the triads for each note using only the notes within the scale - and this should give us the following pattern of chords within a major scale:

I'm sure you'll be very pleased to know that this pattern of chord values is true of any major scale! So, as long as you remember the major scale formula - WWHWWWH - you'll be able to write chord progressions in any major key without having to spend many hours remembering the circle of fifths - hurray!

Before we wrap up this lesson, I want to take a moment to give three quick tips on how to construct a strong major chord progression. Ultimately, all of these chords work harmonically together, but some pairings of chords work better than others for the musical mood you're trying to create.

Tip 1:

This first one might seem obvious, but it's important! Making the I (one/tonic) chord feel like 'home', or more musically put, the tonal centre, is the key to making a progression sound major. Many strong major progressions start on the I chord to set the harmonic scene. Think of songs such as 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' by Bob Dylan, or John Denver's 'Take Me Home, Country Roads'. Alternatively, putting the I chord at the end of the progression helps build tension throughout, which then resolves beautifully to what feels like 'home'. Examples of this would be either 'Sunday Morning' by Maroon 5, or 'Isn't She Lovely' by Stevie Wonder. With this said, there are no rules on where the I chord needs to go within a chord progression. I would recommend starting with the examples above, then exploring once you feel more confident writing progressions in general!

Tip 2:

Tip number two! There isn't a 'correct' amount of chords to have in a progression. I used to find myself often falling into the trap of always writing progressions with four different chords. As you can imagine, there isn't too much room for exploration by using four out of seven chords within a key signature… To avoid this, try the following: use the same chord more than once, and play around with the harmonic rhythm. Harmonic rhythm is simply how often the chord changes. It might feel most natural to play one chord per bar, but see if you can change it up a little bit!

Tip 3:

Avoid the diminished vii chord for now. As mentioned earlier, it's quite hard to use without it sounding too jarring, as it naturally holds a lot of tension. If you've watched the video, you might have heard Dan saying this about it: "the chord that for the whole of time, every guitar player has said - don't worry about that". Diminished triads definitely have their use, but we'll explore that in more detail when we talk about 7th chords.