Fundamentals

Notes, intervals and scalesThe basics: notes by name, notes relative to each other as intervals, and sets of notes as scales. This is how musical structure is expressed, and it is the keystone to forming a mental model of your instrument.

Why the major modesTrying to figure out which notes to pick can be overwhelming — here's why you should focus on the scales that already underlie most music.

Writing songs

Songwriting basics: how songs usually goThe habits most songs share: a steady beat, chords from one key, a melody that leans on those chords, a verse and a chorus. Each one drawn and played, next to what happens without it.

On the guitar

The CAGED systemFive open chord shapes, moved up the neck, let you play any major chord across the fretboard. The standard map of the guitar fretboard; the minor chords, pentatonic boxes, scale positions and seventh chords all follow the same five shapes.Minor chordsPentatonic boxesScale positionsSeventh chords

On the instrument

The notesTwelve notes, then they repeat. Knowing where these are gives you the anchor for building intervals into chords and scales.

IntervalsThe distance between two notes, in semitones. Twelve inside an octave, each with a number, a name and a sound — and each the same distance from every note, on any instrument.

The major and minor scaleThe two scales most music is written in, in any key, on your instrument. The major scale is music theory's stable reference point, and the minor scale its most popular mode.

PentatonicsThe melodic scale and the core of improvisation — easy to sound good with, easy to play.

TriadsMajor & minor triads share the root and fifth, but split it with either a major 3rd or a minor 3rd. Find those three notes anywhere on your instrument and you can handle most harmony.InversionsOpen voicings

Seventh chordsA triad extended with a seventh get you the major, minor and dominant seventh. They are the chords of jazz, blues and soul.Shell voicings

Chords in a keyThe chords built from a key's scale, with their roman numerals. This is how you tell which chords go together, and how to play a song in any key.

The modesThe major scale from each of its seven notes as home. Same notes, seven different sounds — the way to get a mood out of a scale you already know.

Under the hood

Why some notes sound good together: the harmonic seriesA single note is already a stack of pitches, and the intervals that sound smooth are the ones found low in that stack. Every ratio played.

The circle of fifths, drawn and playedThe twelve notes arranged by fifths: where the pentatonic and the major scale come from, and which keys are neighbours. Drawn so you can play it.

The figures

The instrument figureA neck or a keyboard with a set's notes drawn on it — each a glyph labeled by its degree in the degree's color, the root by its name; a chord's shape outlined and its root ringed; the grayed notes around it the scale.

The note wheel figureTwelve wedges round a clock, one a semitone, the root at twelve: a set's notes are open, colored by their distance from the root, the rest closed — and a change of set opens and closes them.

The harmonic series figureEvery harmonic of one note as a wave, highest on top and fainter as they multiply, and their sum beneath — the chosen pair in ink, one period banded down the stack, and the shorter that band the more consonant the interval.

The circle of fifths figureThe twelve notes in fifths order round the outside and in pitch order on the wheel inside, home on top in both; a run of fifths stands on a capsule, and a spoke from each note to its wedge shows the two orders crossing.

The harmonic field figureA scale on one wheel, home on top, and the chord on every degree built in front of you — its notes marked one by one, the rest closed, the chord extracted — with a row of small wheels beneath, one a degree, each in its own frame.

The song strip figureA bar a column, the chord's numeral above and its tones lit across the pitch rows in the key's colors, the tune traced through them with a degree on every note wide enough for one — a melody, what was under it, and what each note is against that.

Principles

What Is NoSheet?Train the connection between hearing and playing

Music is like LanguageListening & playing music is like speaking

Perception–Action LoopListen, identify, play — ears, mind, and fingers all active

AudiationThe ability to intentionally imagine pitches

Absolute & Relative PitchRelative pitch is hearing notes by their relationship to the root

Why Major Modes?The major modes are singularly central to music

Harmonic SeriesThe physical reason certain intervals sound consonant

Equal TemperamentThe tuning system underlying Western music

SolfègeSyllables that name each scale degree for singing

Non-linear practiceRepeat within constraints, never the same sequence twice

ImprovisationSpontaneous problem-solving, and the flow between too easy and too hard

Song WritingPlanning out a piece of music before presenting it