It’s common for beginning guitar players to use a basic chord chart to learn some of the fundamental guitar positions. Most beginning guitar chords charts will show chords consisting of 4 strings, 5 strings, or 6 strings. It’s not nearly as common to find a method or chart that concentrates on learning to play simple melodic intervals on a single string and simple harmonic intervals on 2 adjacent strings. Intervals in music are defined as a combination of two notes, or the ratio between their frequencies. There is a whole bunch of terminology associated with intervals but there is no specific name for each individual interval. C-E is called a Major 3rd. D-F sharp is also a Major 3rd. E-G sharp, F-A, G-B, A-C sharp, and B-D sharp are all Major 3rds as well. There is no name for each one though. I think this is why people have such a hard time understanding them when they begin to learn music. It seems to be no trouble to memorize more complex sets of intervals such as triads, seventh chords, and scales but intervals continue to baffle people. I’m sure there are some creative teachers out there who come up with sensible names for each of the two-note intervals in every key but it’s still problematic because there are not standards with these names as there are with chords and scales. Whoever the people are who came up with the names for everything in music should standardize the names of the intervals. While they are at it I also think they should come up with standard names for all the modes in the pentatonic scales. If you study composition and learn to read figured bass symbols then I guess there are ways of reading and identifying the intervals but there really is no universally accepted way to communicate intervals by name. Guitar players and guitar chord charts will refer to Major and Minor chords without a 3rd as a 5 chord or power chord. Chord symbols like C5 and G5 are used to describe these intervals as two-note chords. This is inconsistent though because chords named A6 or A7 have 4 notes and not just the two notes of the interval like in the 5 chords. I guess if we can learn the English measurement system, with all of it’s inconsistencies, then learning chords and their names shouldn’t be to hard. Send your ideas on this if you were bored enough to read all this. Peace out!
Musicguru
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