Now we're going to talk a little bit about a fundamental building block of Western music. It's called a half step. In Western music we have 12 half steps. Now, conveniently enough, the half steps correspond to the frets on our guitar. If we were to play an open E string. [SOUND] A low string on sixth string. [SOUND] And we were to count 12 frets, or 12 half steps [SOUND]. We wind up 12 half steps higher on another E. So we have 12 half steps. And then above that, in a different octave, we have another 12, and it keeps going until we can no longer hear it. I think dogs can hear it. Conversely, below those are another 12, and another 12, and it keeps going on until we can no longer hear it. Conveniently enough, those 12 steps as I mentioned correspond to all 12 frets of the fretboard. Now, we have given those 12 steps letter names, from our alphabet, along with some other symbols. Now, we are going to take a look now at what we call the half step wheel. And we're going to actually take a look at how those fit in the grand scheme of some of the music that we're going to make. We'll talk about half steps, and we're going to talk about whole steps. Now, we're going to go straight to our little half step wheel. Don't let this confuse you, it looks a lot more complicated than it really is. If we start right here with a C. In between the C and the next letter of the alphabet, which is the D, we have, if we're going clockwise, which is higher or sharper, we will have a C sharp. In between the D, and the D and the E, we have a D sharp. In between the E and the F, there is, technically, no sharp or flat. Whichever way you're going. As we continue around, we come to the conclusion that there are sharps and flats between every note except the B and the C, and the E and the F. If you're going counterclockwise, there is a flat below the note, so you'll go from B to B flat. Then A, then A flat, G, G flat, F. There's no flat between the F and the E, technically speaking. And then under the E flat, we continue. These 12 steps in western music divide the musical palette in a way that allows us to create melodies and chords. That sound pleasing to us. Now we're going to go back to the guitar here for a second, and we're going to play a few notes. And again, if you think this is a complicated way to think of it, I'm going to show you an easy way now to remember it. There, there's a sharp above every note except B, and E. And there's a flat below every note except F, and C. That's an easy way to think of it. Now using this, it is possible for us to easily figure out given that fact that we know the open strings, we can figure just about any note. I'm going to start off with the E string. [SOUND] Open E string. The next note, [SOUND] would be an F. And we can look at that on our half step wheel. The next note would be an F because we're moving clockwise on the half step wheel. Then the next note would be an F sharp [SOUND]. Then the next note would be a G [SOUND]. The next note would be G sharp [SOUND], then A [SOUND], then A sharp [SOUND], then B [SOUND]. And remember there's no sharp, above B. We go directly to C [SOUND], then C sharp [SOUND], then D [SOUND], then D sharp [SOUND], and then we're back at E [SOUND]. Now, and if we listen to the open E string, and we listen to the E at the 12 fret, we can see [SOUND] they almost sound the same. [SOUND] They have the same quality, only one sounds a little bit higher. [SOUND]. If we do that again. Let's go from the open E string, [SOUND]. We go to the F [SOUND], the F sharp [SOUND], to the G [SOUND], the G sharp [SOUND]. And then we get here to the A [SOUND]. Now remember when we were tuning a guitar, we matched this [SOUND] A with the open string A [SOUND]. So now we can conclude that there's some notes [SOUND] on guitar that are actually repeated on other strings. Now as confusing as that might sound, that is the feature of guitar that allows us to play combinations of notes, which are called chords. We'll be covering chords later on after we cover scales, basic scales. The most important thing and the easy way to remember this, is that all ascending notes. Have a sharp note above them, except B and E. All descending notes have a flat note between them, except C and F. So in between each note, each note has either a sharp or a flat above or below it. The sharp of the flat is often referred to as an accidental. In addition, the word flat can also be used to define going lower in music, and the word sharp. Can be used to define going higher in music, and you might be able to remember that from when we were tuning the guitar where we needed to make a note sharper or we needed to make a note flatter. In order to make it agree with another note to which we were matching. So now we have an understanding of what a half step is, and how it corresponds to each of the frets that we have. So one half step, one fret. [MUSIC] A whole step of course convienently is two frets. [MUSIC] So if we were to start, let's start with this note F, which is actually a half step above our open E, on a sixth string. [SOUND] We'll start with an F here, and we're going to play a note a whole step above this note. Now this note, so we're going to skip over two frets to the next note which will be a G. [SOUND] Now we're going to go another whole step above that note. We're going to skip over the half step and go to the next two fret space which will be an A [SOUND]. Now if we want a note another whole step above that we move up simply two frets to B [SOUND]. A whole step above that note, we're going to jump over our C and we're going to wind up on C sharp [SOUND]. Another whole step above that note, we're going to jump over D and wind up on D sharp [SOUND]. One more whole step [MUSIC] and we're back an octave higher than the F [SOUND] that we started on. So we have now half steps. [MUSIC] And we have whole steps. [MUSIC] Now you can hear how that's beginning to sound a little bit like a melody. It's a combination of half steps and whole steps that make some of the scales that we're going to be covering later on in this course.
