Nicolas Carter > Quotes

“you think about it and analyze some of the most famous solos in history, for example those in songs like ‘Hotel California’, ‘Stairway to Heaven’ or ‘Sultans of Swing’, you will notice that one of the things that makes these solos so captivating is that the note choices are mostly arpeggios of the chords playing in the background.”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“Music is all about the intervals, and if the set of intervals within a scale is different - even though the scales share the same harmonic structure - then the sound of that scale will be different as well.   What”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“C is no longer the minor 3rd (of A), it is now the Root. D is no longer the Perfect 4th (of A), it is now the Major 2nd (of C), E is now the Major 3rd, G is now the Perfect 5th, and A is now the Major 6th. So the new set of notes is: Root, Major 2nd, Major 3rd, Perfect 5th, Major 6th; or: R, M2, M3, P5, M6 This is a completely different abstract collection of notes than the A minor pentatonic scale — even though it consists of the same 5 tones — because it is now a completely different set of intervals.”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“sound can be defined as mechanical waves produced by a vibrating object that travel through a physical medium, like air, water or solid objects. Sound is a physical process, but it is also the perception of the brain that processes those mechanical waves and produces the experience we perceive as ‘sound.’ Sound has many of its own unique physical properties, such as frequency, speed, amplitude, duration, etc.”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“On a deeper level, modes show the relationships between chords and scales, and they are completely relative to the chords that are playing underneath in the background, or on the backing track. This concept will be extremely important when it comes to 7-note scales,”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“While there are a variety of different note patterns that can make up pentatonic scales, there is one in particular, which define the minor pentatonic scale as well as the major pentatonic scale, that is most often used. These scales are found in blues and rock music, and variations of those simple scales are enough to produce a rich landscape all by themselves. There’s a reason why they’re called “minor” and “major” and it’s because they originate from the 7-note scales that bear the same name.”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“This is a very basic understanding of modes. As your understanding and application in playing deepens, you will start seeing them as completely separate scales rather than simple note re-orientations of the parent scales (that’s why you can sometimes use the terms ‘scale’ and ‘mode’ interchangeably).”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“We say that the minor pentatonic scale consists of 5 notes: A Root, a minor 3rd, a Perfect 4th, Perfect 5th, and a minor 7th or (when abbreviated) R, m3, P4, P5, m7”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“That means that a good melody moves away from the harmonic center of the music, building tension, and then moves back in some interesting way, releasing that tension.”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“Most other common progressions in rock and pop music are variations (more or less) of I-IV-V, such as: I-IV-I-IV-V-IV-I. Here’s a list of some very common chord progressions you can find in songs: I — vi — IV — V I — V — vi — IV I — V — IV — V I — IV — V iii — vi — ii — V I — IV — I — V I — V — ii — IV I — vi — ii — V I — V — vi — iii I — iii — IV — V You can just pick a key and play any of these chord progressions and it will sound great. More complicated progressions include, for example, iii-vi-ii-V-I (in which diatonic chords are played on the 3rd, 6th, 2nd, 5th and tonic of a Major key), I-vii-vi-V, and iii-vi-V-I, among others. Notice that in all of these cases, movement is established away from some tonic chord (usually to some subdominant chord) and then, passing through a dominant chord (usually the V chord), a cadence is produced as the progression resolves back to the tonic.”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“Hearing, distinguishing and using modes is a process that will take some time, but once you do it, most of the things in theory will start to make much more sense, the dots will be connected, and it will make you a much better musician. So be patient and take your time with this. Let’s get to the modes.”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“music is, after all, a time-based art form.”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“you can’t learn a language by learning a set of rules, you have to learn it by immersing yourself in it and getting a sense of its practices.”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“Beyond 5-note and 7-note scales, there are a few specialized 8-note jazz scales (called bebop scales).”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“Concepts such as modality, which seemed so strange at first, begin to seem obvious, less intellectually taxing;”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“sound can be defined as: mechanical pressure waves that travel through a physical medium, like air or water.”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“while instead they should just free up their minds and play from their heart,”
― Nicolas Carter, Guitar Fretboard Mastery: An In-Depth Guide to Playing Guitar with Ease

“a good melody moves away from the harmonic center of the music, building tension, and then moves back in some interesting way, releasing that tension. To tell a story is to create an arc. To rise and to fall.”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“WH W W WH W or (same thing) TS T T TS T This is called a scale formula. In this case it’s the minor pentatonic scale formula.”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly

“One such example would be if you had a progression, let’s say: i — VII — VI — V7 (which is a common progression used in flamenco music, also called an Andalusian cadence). In the key of Am the chords would be: Am — G — F — E7. Here you can use the A minor scale to solo and it would fit perfectly over Am, G and F chords, but when E7 comes, just for that one chord you would switch to playing E Dominant 7 arpeggio – meaning the notes of E7 chord: E G# B D, in any combination.”
― Nicolas Carter, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly