Essential Guitar Theory – Chromatic Numbering

When I first started taking guitar lessons, I was anxious to understand the explanations provided in the different guitar magazines I was reading at the time. There was a language being used that I did not comprehend. You probably hear it thrown around by musicians all the time:

“It’s a 1-4-5 progression in G.”
“His solo uses the flat 6th.”
“Sing a 3rd above the melody note.”

This language sounds obscure and self-important at first but it is really very easy to understand. This fundamental theoretical approach is called CHROMATIC NUMBERING. Learning it holds many benefits to us as guitarists:

1. It simplifies communication with other musicians who “speak the language”, saving us time
2. It gives us a common point of reference for all our different note combinations (Chords, Scales, Arpeggios)
3. It relates extremely well to the way that patterns lay out and move around on the guitar neck

CHROMATIC NUMBERING (Foundation #1)
The approach begins by locating a single most important note and labeling it with the number “1″. You then label other notes you play with numbers that indicate how far away they are from the “1″.

This CHROMATIC RULER can be applied directly to the following example with the most important note at the 3rd fret of the sixth string, as demonstrated below:

You can see in the above diagram how the notes above our “1″, (which starts on the 3rd fret 6th string), now have specific numerical names based on the 3rd fret being labeled as number “1″.

MEMORIZE THE NUMERICAL SEQUENCE BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS and learn to use it on the fingerboard to label things that you play. This will interconnect the many things that you play and study to create a mutually supporting theory base between many different elements of music.

Example:  Play   1    2    3    4    5    6    7    1    =  The notes of the G major scale
Example:  Play   1    2    3    4    5    6  b7    1    =  The notes of the G mixolydian mode
Example:  Play   1          b3         5                        =  The notes of the G minor chord
Example:  Play   1          b3   4    5        b7    1    =  The notes of the G minor pentatonic

One example above, name the G major scale, is shown again below as it occurs in one neck area rather than just using a single string. (Players often use this pattern as a ‘map’ to quickly number neighboring notes that aren’t drawn). The more you apply the chromatic number system to patterns that you know and learn, the easier, quicker and more useful it becomes!

Being able to play number without a lot of neck motion (off any “1″) is a crucial skill. After players can easily find related numbers when ‘1′ placed on the sixth string, the next step is to learn to find numbers when to ‘1′ is on the 5th string, etc.

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