In this tutorial we focus on time. Topics covered include Tempo, Meter, Note Values,
and a combining of topics covered in the Written Music #1 tutorial.
This tutorial includes multi-media exercises. Flash Player 7.x is required to play these
exercises.
This area of Meridian Ensemble Productions offers various practice tools and tutorials.
Mousing over the links on the left will show info in this window.
Clicking on Guitar, Piano, or Essays will open sub-menus to the specific offerings.
The Guitar and Piano links deal with Scales, Modes, and Chords.
Essays are an introduction to note reading and theory.
Still to come:
More on Chord Theory and construction
Resonance in Sound and Music
Tetra-Chords and Modes
Improvisation
Guitar Scales
This is a learning aid for understanding scales. You can choose between
various types of scales and modes for each of the 12 roots.
The scale appears both on an image of the guitar (with numbered dots representing the fingering),
and on the musical staff.
Mousing over the notes on the musical staff highlight the notes on the guitar and mousing over the
notes on Guitar highlight the notes on the staff.
The name of the note being moused over is displayed in the field, "Note Name".
This contains fingerings and notation for the following modes or scales:
This is particularly useful in working out leads or comps to different scales.
In Guitar Scale Notes, rather than show the fingering of any given scale,
we show all the notes on the first 12 frets of the guitar for each scale.
All the notes are also shown on the staff below.
Mousing over a note on the
staff shows all occurances of that note on the guitar, and mousing over the
notes on the guitar highlights the 1 occurance of that note on the staff.
The "Note Name" field displays the note name of the note being moused over.
"Guitar Scale Notes" also contains a "Degree" field consisting of 7 links, representing the
seven scalular degrees:
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Clicking on one of the links will highlight every occurance of that degree on the
Guitar Fingerboard and on the Musical Staff. This is particularly useful in finding where the scale starts; Since
the notes shown start at the lowest note on guitar and not the first note in the scale.
Another highlight feature: If you click on a note on the musical staff, it will highlight all occurances of that note
on the fretboard.
Note: Sometimes things can get a bit confussing with all the different highlighting going on. Click on the "Calculate"
button will clear all highlights.
Guitar chords shows various ways of playing different chords on guitar.
This contains different kinds of voicings: Some more suitable
for strumming and some more suitable for arpeggio. Some are more suitable for
acoustic guitar and some more for electric.
The illustration below shows the C Major chord as shown in "Guitar Chords" (top picture) and
a mirror image photograph of a hand playing the C Chord on Guitar (bottom picture).
Note: Although in the picture above, it appears that the 4th finger is playing a note, it is actually not touching the strings at all.
There's actually a good 1/2 inch between the 4th finger and the fret board of the Guitar.
The reason for making the diagrams mirror images, is to put them in the perspective of the person playing the
Guitar, rather than that of someone watching. This way when you see these diagrams, it is easy to
visualize the fingers on the neck of the Guitar - as if you had x-ray vision and were looking through the
fretboard from behind. This avoids the situation where the notes you are playing are moving in the
opposite direction from the notes in the diagram.
To visualize, in your mind, your fingers on the fingerboard as you play the chords or the melodies (without looking at the fingerbaord)
is a good way to develope an organic sense of the instrument, and truely learn the notes on the Guitar.
Clicking on the Guitar link at the left will open the Guitar Sub-menus.
Mousing over the sub-menus will show info. Clicking on them will open the specific practice tool.
The illustration below shows the Eb Major Scale as shown in "Piano Scales."
The keyboard picture displays the middle 3 octaves on the piano. These are:
The notes from C to B below Middle C
The notes from C to B in the octave of Middle C
The notes from C to B in the octave above that
The picture of the Grand Staff below the keyboard shows the 3 note C's written on the music.
In all the Practice Tools for scales or chords for piano, all of the notes in these three octaves for the
given scale or chord are shown. The first note of the scale or chord is indicated by the letter "R"
(or Root - which is the 1st degree of the scale).
The image below shows the C Aeolian Mode (or relative minor scale) as it would appear in Piano Scales.
If you compare this picture with that of the Eb major scale above you will notice that the yellow dots indicating
the scale degrees are exactly in the same place - but they are labled differently. The Eb Major scale has R,2,3,4,5,6 and 7 (Eb,F,G,Ab,Bb,C,D).
The C relative minor scale has R,2,b3,4,5,b6, and b7 (C,D,Eb,F,G,Ab,Bb). Both modes have the same notes, but they start on different roots.
