Music, while being an art, is also VERY much a science. In this lesson I’ll break down what it is that makes certian notes sound better than others, and in my follow-up lesson, “Building Chord Tones” we’ll see how to find as well as play these magic notes.
Question: What do a Miles Davis solo, a Mozart symphony, a Metallica riff, and Britney Spears song all have in common?
Answer: Chord Tones.
When I first started playing guitar I was continually plagued by two consistent, nagging questions: What makes a note sound good? And is there a way I can find and play these good sounding notes?
This particular article will address the first of those two questions. If you don’t care why and just want to know how, you can check out the second part of this article “Building Chord Tones”.
The Science of Music
Music in its simplest form is merely the study of a natural phenomenon referred to as sound. Sound is created when there is a disturbance in the atmosphere which sets in motion a chain of expanding spherical waves of air pressure (much like a ripple in water).
These waves are very important to us as musicians as they determine what we perceive the pitch of a note to be. Pitch is a measure of frequency, or the distance from the crest of one wave to another (also referred to as wave-length).
A note will sound good with a second note when the first notes wavelength can be divided into the wavelength of the second note. The more pretty the division, the better the notes sound.
This principle can be easily seen in the following example:
Frequency of the note A 1 octave above middle C = 440 hz
Frequency of the note A 2 octaves above middle C = 880 hzAnother good example of this principle at work can be seen in the Overtone Series.
Have you ever heard a guitarist play a harmonic by lightly tapping a vibrating string to create a much higher pitch then the fundamental of the string he was playing?
What you heard was actually one of the overtones of that string. Overtones are the pitches produced above the fundamental (lowest and loudest) pitch. And while almost all musical instruments produce some quantity of overtones, we seldom realize they are present as they are often overpowered by the fundamental.
The overtone series is another way of looking at how note’s wavelengths effect the way we perceive one pitch relative to another -as consequently, all of the overtones (remember these are notes we are hearing while we hear the fundamental pitch) are strict divisions of the fundamental pitch’s wavelength.
So to conclude, if a note can divide into another, the two will sound good together.
Chord Tones
To truly understand chord tones then you must come to grips with the following conclusion: every melody implies a harmony, and every harmony implies a melody. One can not exist without the other.
Also, it is worth noting (no pun intended) that when someone says that a note sounds “bad” or “incorrect” what they are actually referring to is not the note itself, but rather the note’s relationship to the harmony. In actuality the it would be much more correct to say, “That note is outside of the harmony.”
The term Chord Tone then means just that: A tone or pitch that relates to a given chordal setting (a.k.a. a harmony).
Hear for yourself:
Try this experiment:
- Get together with a friend (or a recording device).
- Have your friend play a simple C Major chord on guitar or piano. The notes are (C, E and G).
- Now on your instrument start playing different notes at random, keep track of which ones sound good sustained against the chord, and which notes are real clunkers.
- Now replicating this procedure with different chords.
-Not to spoil the experiment, but what you should discover is that the only notes that really sound good against this chord are the notes of the chord (as in the example: C, E and G).
In Conclusion
- Harmony & Melody are inseparable. They only exist as one.
- A note will only sound good if its wavelength can be divided into that of a second note.
- The only notes that will sound good with a harmony are the notes of that harmony.
Want to be able to play the right notes?
Check out the follow-up to this lesson:
more articles by Tyler Oakleaf
- Notes of Fretboard Diagram
- Like our lessons? Take a poster!
- The Big Picture
- Chord Soloing & Chordal Embelishment 1
- Good Things…
- “Making It” In Music
- Practice Progression
