Hey there fellow guitar people, welcome. Let's talk about sharps and
flats. I'm going to explain what sharps and
flights are. How they work on the guitar? A little bit of how they work on paper
as well. And I've saved the best for last, I'm going to tell you about this little
quirky thing in music called double flats and double sharps.
Let's do this.
Hey there I'm Tomas Michaud from Real Guitar Success.
I had a student recently asked me about sharps and flats
and if I could explain it. Well I'm going to do one better.
I'm not only going to explain it but I'll show you how it applies to the
guitar. Let's start with the short version. A
sharp means whatever note you're on, it goes
up a little bit. In this case one half of a step.
On the guitar that means one fret . So I'm playing a G note right here.
If I wanted to make that G sharp I would raise it up one
fret. Now that sound is the sound of G sharp. The flat is similar but it goes
the opposite way so if I want to flat a note it means it
goes back or down one half step. If I were on
G again and I wanted to go to G
flat that would be one fret down.
Now that sounds like G flat. Here's an interesting thing. Let's see if you can
get your head around this. You can have a note that sounds the same
but has two different names. Yeah, so here's one example. Remember that
G. We make it G sharp. Now look
here's an A note. If I want to make that A
flat one half step down, right? It looks and sounds exactly the same as
G sharp. G sharp and A flat are called enharmonic
that means that they sound the same but if you were to write them on paper it
would look different. A G sharp and a G flat look different
both in notation and if you write the letters out. So when
you're writing A sharp, we use this little symbol that's like a
hash sign or a number sign. And when we're writing flats, we use a
symbol that looks something like a little lowercase b.
Matter of fact when I'm using the computer I usually use a lowercase b
for that and a number sign for the sharp. Now when you make a note
sharp and it's on paper it just means whatever you're playing you're going to
play it up a half step higher. For example, if I write the note G it
sounds like that on the guitar. If I make that G sharp now it sounds
one fret higher. In the same way, if I write a G
and I put a flat in front of it, it's down one half step.
So let's look at the guitar again for a minute. It's really helpful by the way to
learn the names of the notes on the sixth string and then afterwards the
fifth string so start with the sixth string. A lot of people figure out
the names of the notes on the sixth string before they've memorized it just
by remembering the rule of B to C and E to F. What's that mean?
Well if you haven't heard it, it means there's one fret or one
half step saying between B and C and between E and F
and all the other notes there are two frets or one whole step.
Whole step equals two frets so you can figure out the names of the notes on the
sixth string easily that way. You just got to know first of all that's
E to start with then the half step between E and F
means one fret. Now two frets that's the G -
G to A is two frets. A to B is two frets. B to the C is the half one fret again C
the D and so on all the way up to. E another whole step.
E to the half, right? Half step. So on the guitar now you know where all the sharps
and flats are too. Let's count up to G to E
F G so we want the G sharp. You just go up a half step. We want
a G flat, you go back a half step. Let's go all the way up to A that's G
two frets up to A. Backwards is A flat. Also the same as
G sharp, we talked about that or A sharp and so on. It applies all the way up. What
about C? Is there C flat?
We go back. It's the same as B, right? There's only one fret between them.
We don't often use C flat but it is a thing actually. It's kind of
a little weird thing about music almost as quirky as the double flat
and the double sharp. So I promised you I tell you about double sharps and double
flats. Basically you go up a half step and then
another half step for a double sharp so if I run G
you'd go up a half step and then another one that's
G double sharp. Hey, it looks just like A. Hey A. I said that didn't I? Oh
well it is and for most practical purposes
the only time you'll ever see double sharps is this in some
written music where there's some good reason for it like when you're reading a
piece of written music and it's in a certain key and they want you
to go up one whole step but they don't want to write a note that's out of the
key so they might write G as G double sharp. It
just means A, right? Same sound exactly. It's
enharmonic and the same thing if I went G
double flat I'd go back two frets same as F.
Is that weird or what? Well that's all I know about sharps and flats.
Well at least all I want to talk about for today. It's a good
primer we'll say. Thanks for being with me. Today is the
29th day of my 30 days of guitar coaching. Wooh!
29, one more day we're gonna make it. I hope you can come join me tomorrow for
my 30th day of the 30-day commitment and
we'll talk about where we can go from here. Bye for now.