We have seen it many times in guitar books or in chords like F#7. Numbers. 5’s, 7’s, 11’s, and every other number you can think of. Your probably thinking, “numbers, what are they doing in music.� Numbers are very useful in music and open up many doors to tricks you can’t even imagine. I know how you feel, but I assure you that this is nowhere near as difficult as algebra or any thing like that. All you need to able to do is count. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

To understand the numbers in a scale you need to understand what scales are made of. We will demonstrate this by using the minor scale in the key of F. This diagram starts on the first fret of your guitar, in the key of F.

As you can see the minor scale in the key of F is made up of seven notes, F, G, G#, A#, C, C# and D#. They are just played over and over again. Once you play them all you start over again with F. The number simply refers to what number in the scale they are. The 1st note is 1, the 2nd not is 2, the 3rd note is 3 and so on. So in the key of F, F is 1, G is 2, G# is 3, A# is 4, C is 5, C# is 6 and D# is 7. That gets us to 7, but what about numbers like 9 and 11. You just start over in the scale again. 8 would be F an octave higher, 9 would be G an octave higher, 10 would be G# an octave higher, and 11 would be A# an octave higher. So a cord like an F#7 is just an F cord with the 7 note on it or a D#.

If you have any questions ask them in a comment below and I will answer them as soon as possible.