Fingerstyle Articles: The Good Oil: Bits and Bytes of Theory

BITS ‘N’ BYTES OF THEORY
(Reading this will help you with electronic tuners!)
by Fingerstyle Productions®

The Musical Alphabet has 7 letters... A B C D E F G A B C D E F G and so on. There is no note called H, I, J etc.
There are extra notes between most of these notes, called sharps, or flats—on a piano, they are the black keys.	# is the symbol for a sharp b is the symbol for a flat
	These black keys, the sharps and flats, can be called by two names. The black note below D is D flat. Because it’s lower than D. The same black note above C is known as C sharp. Because it’s higher than C.
The span of notes from one name of note to the same name (eg, C to C) is called a scale. When all the black notes between are included, we call this a chromatic scale. There are 13 notes in a chromatic scale.	The piano is a CHROMATIC instrument—all the possible notes used in Western music are laid out, ready to use.
Ask a guitarist to help—tuning is gDGBD from 5th to 1st string If you know your banjo is wildly out of tune, a guitarist can help. The 2nd 3rd and 4th strings of a guitar are the same as the 2nd 3rd and 4th strings on a 5 string banjo. That’s B, G and D. The banjo 1st string is a D and the 5th banjo string is a high G—the same note as the banjo’s 1st string when it’s fretted at the 5th fret. Tuners - What are the lights for? If you haven’t already chosen a tuner consider a digital chromatic tuner. It names the note and lays out the chromatic scale for you. Most tuners with lights use a green light in the centre to show when that string is in tune. If the red light is to the left when you pick the string, the string is flat—too loose. If the red light is to the right, the string’s sharp—too tight.

Fingerstyle Productions, Nambour, Queensland, Australia.

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