GUITAR PLAYERS And SIMPLE MATH: Why Doesn't It Work?
Do you have trouble with simple math? It’s okay if you do, many guitar players struggle with it.
I mean, consider the following question:
What is the distance between the second and fifth fret on the guitar?
(No, it's not a trick question)
Is it three frets?
Four frets?
Impossible to say without additional information?
None of the above?
All of the above?
This may seem like a silly question - but it comes up when we talk about diminished chords and the fact that they repeat every 3 frets (or some people would say 4 frets...)
See, all of this is obvious, until you see other people giving a different answer than yours.
And of course, your answer is obviously correct.
Guess what, they think their answer is obviously correct too!
The obvious way out is a trial by combat having a consistent answer to sidestep potential confusion, conflict, and/or bloodshed when playing guitar.
(If you think bloodshed is unlikely, imagine if another guitar player told you "let's play this 4 frets higher" and you ended up in two different keys a half-step apart. I can assure you, tensions will be running high!)
So, to find out how distances on the guitar work, watch the video below!
This video talks a lot about diminished chords. If you want to learn more about not just diminished chords, but just chords in general on the guitar, check out my Complete Chord Mastery guitar course.
Video Transcription
Hello Internet, so nice to see you. I have a great question on how the diminished chord is repeating on the fretboard. You said the diminished chord repeats every three frets, but they repeat every four frets.
Okay, so let's see first of all Let's pick a diminished chord. Okay, I'm gonna pick an e diminished chord. You see why later? Okay, an e diminished chord will have those following notes. The e the G B flat and a D flat Fully diminished seventh chord.
Okay, if I play Those notes on the fretboard for instance, I can play them here Those notes are not in order, of course. So let me put those notes on a tablature so we can discuss. Okay, so we have Our sixth string of the guitar Okay, and this chord here will sound like two three two three fantastic.
That's an e That's a B flat That's a D flat. That's a G. You have all the notes only just not in the same order Good Now if I move Three frets higher, okay, if I go from to fret five and then I go five six five six What happens is that those are the same notes not in the same order.
Of course, this is a G now But here it was an E. This is a G. These are D flat. Here was a B flat now It's a D flat. That's an E and that's a B flat. So I have all the four notes again three frets higher.
Now I move to other three frets higher and I have eight nine eight nine Because I have now B flat E G and D flat and so on and so forth Every time I move three frets higher and I get the same chord So what about this question?
They say it's every four frets So let's find out more about that. As soon as I learned about music theory, it was always every four frets, including the fret you start and finish on. E, second fret, fourth string, and E, fifth fret, second string, encompasses four frets.
So, we agree that if you played like the common says, on the E on the second fret of the fourth string, or the E on the fifth fret of the second string, which I think is what it says, okay, that information here, we get the correct chord. The only thing we don't agree is that this is every three frets or four frets. Okay, so now, I maintain this is every three frets, because 2 plus 3, 5 plus 3, 8 plus 3 and so on and so forth. It says that it's every four frets.
Let's do this simple experiment. From fret 2 to 5, the commenter says it's every... no, it's essentially four frets apart, no? Every four frets are four frets apart. We agree on that? Fantastic. So from fret 2 to 4 it stands to logic that it's one fret less, no?
So it's 3 frets apart. Right? From fret 2 to 3 it stands to logic it's one less. So it's two frets apart. You start to see how this is breaking apart, no? It goes to 3. Not really two frets apart. So from fret 2 to the same fret it's one fret apart.
And you see at this point it doesn't make any sense. Right? So I argue that this, this, this, this, this, etc. It's every three frets. Like one, two, three. One, two, three. I'm just not counting both the beginning and the ending, okay?
But in music we are full of these kind of problems, okay? As just the usual thing, do we count both the beginning and the end? Or we count only the end, only the beginning, or we count the difference?
I like to count the difference, okay? So in this way I say diminished chord, however you play fully diminished 7th chord, however you play them, repeat every three frets. And with this I mean take the number of the fret, add the number 3, and play the diminished chord there.
And you're gonna find the same diminished chord. And this is Tommaso Zillio for musictheoryforguitar.com, and until next time, enjoy.