Music Vocab 1: Notes; Chords; Scales and Modes Video Lecture | The Ultimate Guitar Course: From Beginner to Advanced - Class 6

learning how to play an instrument can
be tricky enough but aside from that
there's an entire new vocabulary of
words and terms that you're going to
need to know or at least pretend you
know what they mean in order to
communicate with other musicians in
order to get the most out of maybe
resources you're reading online stuff
like that so I'm going to start defining
the differences between some commonly
misused terms and the main thing today
is going to be the difference between a
note a chord a scale and mode and we're
going to use all these in context and
sentences at the very end too so first
of all a note I know is this a single
sound all right there are twelve notes
in total that's it they happen at
different pitches so the same note can
be high the same note can be low like
how many notes are there there are
twelve notes no more no less
now the difference between a note in a
chord is a chord is when you use
multiple notes combined to make a
different sound right so this right here
the third fret of the e-string is a G
note now when I add more notes it
combine to make a G chord and a certain
type of chord is called a triad a triad
is a chord with three different notes in
it so again this G major chord even
though I'm holding down three frets I'm
actually playing six notes I have a G a
B a D another G another B and another G
so the thing about chords is that and
especially triads is going to be three
different notes now there could be a
hundred different types of that no like
a G chord I could have like 5 G's 1 B in
3ds any combination of those 3 notes is
going to make that triad of a chord so
sentence wise someone could be like is
that a major 7 chord or are you just
happy to see me and then you could say
actually it's a triad and I'm not happy
to see you so that's the difference in a
note in the chord a note is a single
thing a chord is at least three of those
combining sometimes more there could be
four notes there could be five notes in
the chord to make a bigger sound
now how that's different from a scale is
a scale is generally a collection of
notes that sound good together
now the word scale and the word key
is pretty much interchangeable so like
the scale of g-major would be right here
now most scales or keys have seven notes
in them one two three four five six
seven and an octave and you can repeat
these notes so here's the first seven
and it was the second seven right so
it's really and you know what's good is
kind of dependent on where you're from
cultural yeah like the major scale would
sound good in like western music but in
Eastern music that can be a different
kind of thing so generally a scale is
just a collection of notes the sound
good together also a key you can say the
key that you're in will you communicate
like what key you're in like I'm in the
key of a what that means is you're in
the key of a major
which means you'd use the a major scale
to find the notes in that key so another
word that comes from that that you may
have heard before is a tonic a tonic is
kind of like an interchangeable word for
a root note basically it's the first
note of the scale that you're in so if
you're in the key of a the tonic is
going to be the a and that also opens up
a bunch of other words like tonal Center
something like that all that means is
you're playing the root note of that of
that scale of that chord of that key
anything like that so there's been no I
notice a single note a chord is a bunch
of notes together to make one at played
at once to make one big sound and a
scale is a collection of notes that
sound good together
now mode is going to be the next thing
this causes a lot of different confusion
a basic definition of a mode is just a
scale played starting on a different
first note so don't mean by that let's
go back to this G major scale right 1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8
I started with the first note and I
ended on the first note an octave up an
octave being 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 notes away
from the first note now if I were to
play a mode in G the second mode is the
second note of Gia
so the second note in G major is in a so
if I play the G Major scale
but started about an a abcdefg that's
the second mode of the G Major scale now
every scale has seven modes because
there's seven different notes so the
first mode would be the G mode in G the
second mode is a the third mode is B the
4th mode is seed and so on this is going
to lead us to another term called a
scale degree like which degree of the
scale and this is kind of a fancy way of
saying what number of the scale you're
on so again we're back in G alright so
I'm playing a G I'm going to go to the
3rd degree of the G scale sounds kind of
fancy but all I'm doing is I'm starting
a G and County 3 G a B so B is the 3rd
degree of the G scale D would be the 5th
degree G ABCD so scale degrees are just
a way to kind of tell people what part
of the scale you're in and modes are
also referred to that now there are
different names for the modes we can get
in that later but a good sense for a
mode like if you wanted to put that in
context to be like I spend a lot of time
thinking about modes because I have no
friends that's a good example of the
word mode so we have notes a single note
chords multiple notes played at the same
time scale a collection of notes
that sound good together and a mode a
scale played on a different note
starting on a different note other than
the first note and again remember every
key or scale has seven notes in it
traditionally therefore there would be
seven modes depending on which one you
start on there you go you're beginning
to music vocabulary