Mokless Girgis Blog

Author: Lynne May

Do you have a song that you would love to sing but it is just too high or too low? Or is one of your band’s songs not right for your singer? It is easy to “transpose” the song to a more suitable key. Here are two ways!

TRANSPOSE A SONG BY SCALE DEGREE: For this method, you need to be familiar with chord progressions**. The steps to transpose a song in this manner are:1. Determine the scale degree of each chord. For example, if the chords in the song are: G / Am / Bm / C / Am / Em / D7 / G, then the scale degrees of the chords would be : I / ii / iii / IV / ii / vi / V7 / I. 2. Apply the scale degrees to the new key. To change this progression from the old key of “G” to a new key–”A”, for example, just apply the scale degrees to the new key. The above progression in the key of “A” would be : A / Bm / C#m / D / Bm / F#M / E7 / A.

NOTE: This method works best if the chord progression of the song remains in the same key throughout the song.

TRANSPOSE A SONG BY INTERVALS: For this method, you need to be familiar with intervals**. The steps to transpose a song by this method are:1. Determine the intervals between the chords. For example: G to A is a second; A to B is a second; B to C is a minor second; C to A is a sixth; A to E is a fifth; E to D is a flatted seventh (or a major 2nd DOWN); and D to G is a fourth. 2. Apply the intervals to a new key. For example, if you want to change the above progression from G to E, start with E and go up a second to F#; then up a second to G#; up a minor 2nd to A; up a sixth to F#; up a fifth to C#; up a flatted seventh (or down a major 2nd) to B; and up a fourth to E. 3. Apply the “chord qualities” (Major, minor, dominant 7th, etc.) from the old chords to the new chords. The progression transposed to the new key of E will be: E / F#m / G#m / A / F#m / C#m / B7 / E.

NOTE: With this method, you can transpose any song, even if it changes keys several times.

Author: Kristy Annely

As you take guitar lessons either on your own or with a help of a professional guitar player, you are most likely to encounter guitar sheet music. Guitar sheet music is a printed musical notation for guitar. If you are serious in learning how to play a guitar like a pro, you have to learn what guitar sheet music is, what it does and how it is used as early as now.

There are basically two types of musical notations for guitar: standard notation and tablature. These notations tell you which notes to play on your guitar.

Standard Notation

In this kind of notation, the notes are written in a five-line musical staff. You must be able to identify the notes in the staff and locate the equivalent note on your guitar. Each kind of note has its own duration — for instance, a quarter note lasts one beat; a half note, two beats; and a whole note, four beats.

Mnemonics are usually used to identify and remember the notes in the staff easily. Notes that are found in the spaces between the lines form the word FACE while the notes found in the lines form EGBDF, which can be easily recalled by the mnemonic “Every Good Boy Does Fine.”

The note located at the ledger line below the staff is called the middle C. On the guitar, the middle C lies on the fifth string.

Tablature

This kind of guitar notation tells you exactly where to position your fingers on the guitar. It consists of six horizontal lines that represent the six strings of the instrument. If you look at the staff closely, you will see numbers on the lines. Each of these corresponds to a fret in the guitar.

Since a guitar tablature or a tab shows a clear-cut illustration of the fretboard, it is much easier to use. Also, a guitar tab avoids confusion since notes in a standard notation can be played in different strings and frets.

Author: Gray Rollins

Guitarists know a lot about their instruments—techniques, chords, songs etc. But what many guitarists don’t know is the history of the guitar. It’s understandable, because many people don’t feel this helps at all in actually playing the guitar. Still, it is helpful to know everything about the instrument—including the history.

The history of guitar is a debatable topic, as there are no concrete facts about the guitar and when exactly it first appeared. What is known, though, is that guitars or similar instruments have been around for over 5,000 years. Entire books could be written about the history of guitar, so in this article, we’ll just go over a timeline of how it is thought the guitar evolved.

• 1400 B.C: The Hittites play a four-string, guitar-like instrument. This four string instrument had soft, curved sides, which were somewhat similar to the current guitar. Also around this time, the Greeks produced a similar instrument which was modified by the Romans and became known as the cithara.

• By 1200 A.D.: There were two types of guitars. One type was known as the Moorish guitar (guitarra morisca). This guitar had a wide fingerboard, rounded back, and several sound holes. The type of guitar was the Latin guitar (guitarra Latina). The Latin guitar looked more like our current guitar with a narrower neck and just one sound hole.

• The late 1400’s: A new guitar, called the vihuela, evolved from the two types of guitar mentioned. The vihuela was a large instrument with double the strings of the Latin and Moorish guitars, a longer neck and ten or eleven frets. The Portuguese and Spanish courts preferred the vihuela over any other instrument for roughly 200 years.

• Until the late 1600’s: The vihuela, and another instrument called the lute, were more popular than the guitar. This changed when the popularity of the lute declined because it had too many strings and was too hard to play and tune. The vihuela was replaced by four and five course guitars of that time. Four course guitars had seven strings—a single high string and three pairs of other strings—while five course guitars had nine strings—a single high string and four pairs of other strings. Some feel that the addition of the fifth course during the 16th century, which gave the guitar greater flexibility, was the reason why the guitar became popular.

• By the beginning of the 1800’s: Some guitars used fan struts under the soundboard and featured six strings (like the modern guitar). Also changed during this time was the neck (which was raised), the fingerboard (which used ebony or rosewood), and the tuning pegs (which were replaced with machine tuners). Guitars like these are most similar to early classical guitars.

• By the late 1800s: A man named Antonio Torres Jurado changed the guitar dramatically by refining the strutting of the guitar. This allowed for as many as seven struts to be spread out like a fan under the soundboard. Additionally, the size of the body and the width of the neck were greatly increased. As a result of Jurado’s improvements, the guitar had greater bass response and volume. Jurado’s work made it possible for the guitar to meet the demands of both the solo performer and the concert stage.

• The Present: Our modern guitar is practically the same as the one made by Jurado.

As was previously said, this is but a brief introduction to the fascinating history of guitars. If you wish to find out more on certain types of guitars, such as the history of Acoustic, Electric or Bass guitars, you can check out our articles titled “The Acoustic Guitar”, “The Electric Guitar”, and “The Bass Guitar”.

Author: Elizabeth Morgan

The history of modern musical keyboards dates back to at least the first century AD, as Vitruvius’ work on architecture during the same era provided information about an organ that had balanced keys. It is a well-known fact that in 757 AD, Emperor Constantine sent a musical instrument with keys as a gift to King Pepin of France.

The evolution of the musical keyboard continued with music genius Guido of Arezzo, who applied the keyboard to stringed musical instruments in the 11th century. Even as modern musical keyboards have undergone many changes over the last few decades, the basic key layout has not been much different from the traditional concept.

Most of the latest models of musical keyboards play certain compositions automatically. These compositions have been recorded in the memory of these keyboards. By pressing a particular key, the keyboard starts playing these compositions. In some of the keyboards, you can save new music compositions also. Musicians often use such musical keyboards to create and record their music.

Some musical keyboards produce sounds of a particular musical instrument, but some may produce sounds of several musical instruments. The latter are more popular among common people and music lovers as well as musicians.

Musical keyboards are very popular as gift items. They come in various sizes. Portable musical keyboards, specially designed for children, are also available. The price of a musical keyboard varies according the sound quality and the number of functions it can perform.

About Mokless Girgis

Mokless Girgis likes musical keyboards for creating music. Compared to traditional musical instruments, musical keyboards often prove to be more cost-effective and time saving. To learn more keep in touch with Mokless Girgis.