Monthly Archives: January 2011

The Baker’s Dozen Approach To Pentatonic Scales

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6 for the price of 5

While pentatonics are a great melodic and harmonic device, slipping some extra notes into the scale can add some additional spice to the  approach.  The most common way to do this is through the method used in the blues scale – which is a pentatonic minor scale with an added note (in the case of the blues scale – a tritone).

The impetus for posting on this was a post my friend Moby Pomerance put up regarding some elements of this very topic.  Originally I had devised an alternate (i.e. approximate) fingering for his idea – but ultimately I put a few twists and turns in it and came up with one lick that’s really three mini licks rolled into one.

First – The Scale

Here’s a “box” position D pentatonic minor scale as a starting point:

What I’m going to do is add in a 9th (e) for an additional flavor

If I put this in a 2 note per string pattern using the D on the D string 12th fret as a starting point, I get this fingering ascending and descending. (Use alternate picking with this lick.)

While there’s nothing wrong with fingering it this way, I like dividing it into 3 string groupings.  The 2-note-per-string approach with alternate picking is more aggressive – but the dividing the notes per string into grouping of 3-1-3 on the g-high e strings is a little more legato makes it easier for me to sequence sections.  So here is the same idea but moved to the 7th/8th position.

Pay careful attention to the picking pattern and the 4th finger.  The slide is indicated here to accent the pinky movement. While it’s picked in this example, it could also be played with only the first pick attack.

The lick

This idea is presented below in a larger lick that works over a d minor/d min7/d min9 chord.    Here’s an mp3 I recorded with the FNH Guitar  in AU Lab- first played slow (1/2 time) then faster (full speed – tempo is around 200).

** Note – the mp3 player on the site seems to be working better in Safari – but if you have trouble playing it – just refresh the page.


Notes:

  • The picking may seem idiosyncratic – but the approach is based on sweeping individual notes on multiple strings and alternate picking for notes on the same string.  You should find it consistent in that regard.
  • I see this as 3 licks.  Bar 1 is one approach.  The 1st two descending ideas in bar 2 as the second approach and the last 2 arpeggio ideas as the 3rd lick.
  • The note groupings are not all uniform.  Bar 2 has groups of 6 and 7 and splits a group of 5 up between bars 2 and three. .  Breaking out of rigid 4 note 1/16th note patterns adds an element of unpredictability .
  • There are a number of e-f slides to highlight the added note in this lick.  This is done with the idea of breaking the lick into segments rather than just using them in the lick as a whole.
  • Using patterns that have only 1 note on the B string – can make for some interesting chord ideas as well.  Here are some melodic fragments that can double as substitution chords over a d minor chord (with an mp3 here).

Lastly, examining the notes in this scale: D,E, F, G, A, C  as unique triads reveals the following:

D, F, A (d minor) + C, E, G (c major)

in other words – to get away from the full-scale approach – you could alternate D minor and C major arpeggios and get a very similar effect.  I’ll look at this more in a future lesson.

In the meantime, if this idea is interesting to you – you may also want to look at this GuitArchitecture lesson post, or look at the pdfs of the pentatonic posts in the online lesson (PDFs) tab on the top of the page.

I’m always looking for feedback.  If there’s anything in this lesson that helps, or that raises other questions – feel free to drop me a line at guitar.blueprint@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading!

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The Power Of Inertia Or Know Your Flow

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While inertia is a term that refers to Newton’s 1st law of motion, I’ve always thought about inertia outside of the realm of physics and applied it psychologically.  I’ve taken some liberties with Newton’s definition, “Every body remains in a state of rest or uniform motion (constant velocity) unless it is acted upon by an external unbalanced force” and tried to view it as a factor in personal development/motivation.

I saw the new A&E show, Heavy last week and it was a blunt reminder of just how powerful inertia is in our lives.

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Bodies at rest tend to stay at rest.

In watching the subjects of Heavy try to transform their bodies, I was immediately struck with how difficult it can be to get something moving.  As one person was exhausted and covered in sweat just walking to the gym, the personal trainer commented that, “He’s at 600 lbs.  That’s like a normal person trying to walk to the gym with a refrigerator strapped to their back.”

When I thought about that for a moment, I realized that if I had a fridge strapped to my back, it would only take a couple of steps before every synapse in my body said, “Forget this.  This is dumb. Just sit down.”  The fact that these people worked through that to get to their short-term goal, speaks both to how difficult it can be to work through inertia, and also to how we have the ability to break out of cycles in our heads.

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The flip side of inertia is that bodies in motion tend to stay in motion

So while putting something in action can be hard, maintaining it is a lot easier than stopping it and trying to start it up again.  If you build positive habits it becomes easier to maintain them over time. I’m not saying that it goes on auto pilot.  If you don’t like practicing scales and have built up a new practice regimen involving playing scales – you might have days you skip.  The important things are

1.      that when you’re doing it – you’re really doing it

2.      if you fall of the wagon make sure to get back on

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Falling off the wagon is easy, but getting back on isn’t a big deal if you’ve done it before.

I remember taking with an alcoholic who fell off the wagon in the middle of a multi-day binge and he talked about falling off the wagon like it was a high-speed train.  It’s an issue of perception – if you view a habit or an action as something you have to amp yourself up to do – it’s going to make it more difficult to instill.

If you view the wagon as something that you’re either on or off –it’s going to put a lot of additional pressure (and difficulty) for you to get back on.

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Going with the flow

If you’ve ever tried to walk up a really powerful stream, you know that it’s a lot easier to follow the current than it is to fight it.  In terms of productivity – it’s important to know your flow.  If you know what works for you and what you’re likely to do it’s easier to work things in around that.

I’ve often found that the biggest learning curve that I’ve had in maximizing productivity has been in learning what works for me.  For example, by nature I’m not a very disciplined person and I find that if I leave myself to my unorganized devices I don’t often get much done.

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Coordinates or knowing where you are

Having said that – I do tend to be an organized person.  So in being organized, I find that keeping a calendar (and a practice log) help keep me focused and in focusing helps keep me disciplined.

While I keep and maintain my calendar, every time I put it aside and say – “I don’t need that –  I know what I’m doing” – a week goes by and I find that I may have only gotten a fraction of the things done that I wanted to.

In keeping a weekly calendar  I see not only where I’ve been but also what I’ve been doing.  If I don’t get to my short-term goals, it simply means I’ve fallen off the wagon and have to get back on.  The more time’s I get back on – the less likely I am to fall off.

Because I know my behavioral tendencies, I can go with the flow of those tendencies rather than fighting against them.  If you’re not a morning person, getting up at 5 am to the gym is going to be an uphill battle.  If you tend to be focused mid day – working out on your lunch break might work better for you.  In being organized I find that keeping a calendar (and a practice log) helps keep me focused, disciplined and getting things done.

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Sometimes the last one standing is the winner

All of this works off of the concept of short and long-term goals.  There are times in life that you’ll have to hustle a breakneck 50-yard dash, but life itself is a marathon.

I don’t know how many of you have ever seen Another State Of Mind (a really great get in the van with the band style documentary featuring a then largely unknown Social Distortion).

Social Distortion was on Conan last night, and while I was watching it I thought about all of the critical accolades they’ve received since Another State of Mind and wondered if Mike Ness ever imagined that he would go from spray painting the band logo on a T-shirt to still being around 26 years later.

As a guitar culture, we’ve always put emphasis on the hot-shot guitar player.  You can go on You Tube and see any one of ten thousand people playing their fast licks, and most of them will be posting videos of their snowboarding jumps 2 years from now while their guitar sits unplayed and gains dust.

Social Distortion has achieved the success they have largely by being the last one standing.  Largely by being around and playing so long, they simply couldn’t be ignored anymore.  I also suspect that over time they started amassing a better team (management, lawyers, agents, etc) that helped amplify that process.  But they never would have attracted that team if they broke up for good in the 80’s or 90’s.

I’d known about my fret hand fly-away pinky issues for years, but it wasn’t until I studied with Miroslav Tadic and Jack Sanders , that I realized how much it was holding me back.  Unlearning my habits and fixing that has been a really arduous 4-year process but I can say that my playing is already in a different place than it was 2 years ago – much less before I studied with Miro.  If I just stuck with the old habits I had, I never would have been able to move forward – but in taking a huge step back in my playing  – I’m able to move forward now.

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Thinking isn’t Knowing

The difference is I thought I knew what I was doing was right, but it wasn’t until I experienced how wrong it was, that I knew it would have to be fixed. While I tend to conceptualize (or think) things very quickly, but it takes a long time for me to know something.  That’s my flow, and while it would have been great to fix my playing at the get-go, that wasn’t going to happen until I really knew what was wrong and what to do.  To know something is to experience it – and experience takes time.

If you have a plan of where you ultimately want to go (and have some flexibility in getting there) you are well on your way.  In the meantime, it’s important to know what works for you and establish practices that work with your nature instead of against it.

I hope this helps! Thanks for reading.

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A Lesson In Improvisation And Jargon From A Cooking Show

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Improv lessons from a cooking contest show

If you’ve ever watched a cooking competition show – you’ve probably seen some real world improvisation.

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The Challenge

  • Contestants have an imposed time limit
  • They have an ingredient(s) they have to use
  • There is a mandated outcome – something that has to be done

How is this not improvisation?  You have a skill set that you need to employ to navigate a series of changes that may or may not be unfamiliar to you.

So how do they get through it?

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The Approach

  • Emphasis on fundamentals.  The chefs have the confidence to execute because they have the basic skill set to do what they need to do.  They have a command of knife skills, cooking techniques and have a developed palate to work from.  These are basic things – using a music analogy – there’s no obscure chord scale or advanced reharmonization happening here – just using the fundamentals as a basis to establish an area of comfort and familiarity from.
  • Emphasis on repertoire.  They have a number of other dishes that they’ve mastered to serve as a template for what they want to do.  If you’ve cooked several thousand past dishes and someone says, “I need you to make me a pasta dish” you’re not going to freak out because it’s in a comfort zone.  If you quote tunes in your solos or comping – you quote tunes that you know so well that you can adapt elements of them at will.  Those trills you use on that klezmer tune you play every set – works their way into a phrase, etc.
  • Adaptability and creativity.  This is really a combination of the two points above.  There’s a constant stream of  plays on things, “This is my play on mac and cheese.”  Previous dishes that are mastered are used as launching points for new innovations.  From a guitar standpoint – maybe those string skips you developed to get that piano solo under your fingers you liked are now being used in a different context for your thrash solo.
  • Being in the moment.  They taste their food.  They monitor multiple components and adapt as necessary.  It may be the closest analogy to improvising a solo over a rhythm section for a tune you’re unfamiliar with.  You listen to the drummer, and the bassist and whoever else is playing and while you create music that enhances that.

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What the unsuccessful chefs have taught me, is that an approach that works for one thing may not work for everything.   “Oh I want to wow the judges, I’d better use Truffle oil.”  which may or may not work in an ice cream.  I heard an mp3 of Eddie Van Halen jamming w. Holdsworth once and it was grim – because he was just doing the Eddie thing over Holdsworth’s comping and it didn’t work at all.  It sounded like the bleed through of two guys in adjoining practice rooms working on something different at the same time.

When you’re in some kind of timed artificial event (i.e. they’re forced to improvise) – this approach makes sense.  When dealing with something unfamiliar you go with what you know.  You pull out the well-worn licks that have worked their way into your vocabulary. That’s also when you find out just how well you know something.

It’s not just about learning licks to play over ii-v->I’s – improvisation is a mindset as well – if you look for it in sources outside of music – you will find things to adapt and bring into your musical improvisations. It  brings something different to the table than someone who’s learned every Coltrane and Bird lick and nothing else.

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And now as an example of what not to do: A drinking game

I don’t drink – but if you do and you’re looking for a drinking game here it goes.

  1. Turn on the Food Network.
  2. Take a drink whenever someone says , “Big Flavors” or “Flavor Profile”

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You’ll probably be drunk in an hour.  It is basically impossible to watch the Food network and not have someone talk about the merits of “Big Flavors” or on some dish’s flavor profile.

And what do these terms mean?  Is there anyone out there trying to cook with small flavors?  And “Flavor profile”?  Really?  How about just calling it “taste” instead?

The thing is, this jargon has been hijacked by foodies and now it’s difficult to watch anything regarding cooking and not hear those terms.  My beef with jargon is that it should serve the function of simplifying a process through language and instead typically acts in an exclusionary manner.

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Music and jargon

When I did my undergraduate degree I had to take several classes that dealt with post tonal theory.  As a starting point, what does “post tonal theory” mean to anyone other than a composer or an improviser?  Can you imagine seeing a CD cover with a label on it that says, “Now with Post tonal Theory!”?  In terms of accessibility to the layman, it goes radically downhill from there.  Where some of the music created with this mindset is vibrant and exciting, the language and jargon around it explains what’s going on only to those in the know.  It makes no attempt to make inroads to the causal listener, and statistically there are way more music listeners than post tonal theorists.

Music is a language and like any language if you break away the accessibility of it, you doom it to oblivion.  In the 1950’s people still actively studied Latin – it was even taught in high school until it was pushed further and further into the realms of academia (I know Chronicle of Higher Education – Academe is the new preferred jargon – but academe is a poor shell of a word), and now is only taught in a increasingly fewer places.  It transitioned from a vibrant language to a patchwork of quoted phrases thrown out as part tricks.

The same thing happened to post tonal music.  Inside the hallowed halls of academia, there is a compositional indoctrination that occurs; a self-congratulatory high-five for music that is performed in student recitals to crowds of 10.  The theoretical language that is posted to describe these works often reads like a combination of a repair manual for a 1950s radio delivered with the melodramatic sincerity of an adolescent journal.  Taken on its own merits, it reads as intellectually aloof and emotionally underdeveloped and seems to be defensive before anything has even been sounded.

If the first thing people are exposed to is inaccessible, why would they take the effort to go on?  True, academia tends to support projects and approaches that reinforce the need for academia (i.e. peer reviewed journal entries that are so topic and jargon specific that only other academics will bother to read and understand (read: scrutinize) them); but this doesn’t help make the music more accessible.  It brings up the question of,

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Is it music if no one hears it?

Sure it can sit in a drawer or live on a cd.  But if no one is listening to it being played is it music?

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Music requires a performer and an audience.

Like any conversation it requires a speaker and a listener, and the magic is neither in the speaking or the listening – but in the communication itself.  If there’s no listener, there’s no communication, and no music.  This doesn’t mean that quantity equates with quality (it’s not a contest about how many listeners you have) iit’s about being inclusive rather than exclusive.

Just a thought…

Thanks for reading.

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Octave4Plus A4 – .007 String Review

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When I started playing 8 string (all 6 weeks ago or so) – I knew from the get go – that I was looking to have a full range instrument that went from a low B (below the 6th string E) and a high A (above the 1st string E).  When I checked out the Marshall Harrison video, he mentioned that he was using a .005 for the A – which was a little too high for me – but I decided to investigate the Octave 4 Plus string brand he was using.

Octave4Plus – are handmade strings for extended range instruments (up to 40 inches!).   Since there’s really no way to try before you buy – I figured I’d take the plunge and put an order in.

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Ordering

When ordering individual strings, the minimum purchase number is 5 strings.  Additionally, there is an online form you will need to complete which goes over some specifics of information needed to make your string (scale length of the instrument, whether the string is front or top loading in the bridge, etc.).  There is a several day time limit that you need to complete the form in – or your money gets refunded.  This might seem a little draconian, but given the small batches that the strings are made in – I imagine that hunting down people for information is a case of diminishing returns financially, so I understand it at least.

When I made my order, I got the strings with a “Type 2” thread wrap. While this is recommended for guitars with a string tree, I found that it’s also recommended if your guitar “… loads the string through the back, has a steep break angle, a sharp edge on the nut or tuner, or a string tree.”

The website does a good job of explaining a number of specific for string ordering – but as an FYI – if your scale length is 26.5” – you’ll need to order the 28” scale strings.

Payment is made on the website via PayPal and is a relatively painless process.

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Pricing

Here is the pricing for the order I made:

“Guitar  .007 plain steel    ( 28” )    $4.75 each   A440

5 strings @ $23.75

Type 2 strings – $10

Shipping and Handling – $10

Sales Tax $3.17

$46.92 (or about $8.20 a string including the test string [see below])

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Shipping And Delivery

My order was put in on Thanksgiving day and came on Christmas eve.  The time frame for delivery is somewhat vague on the website – but 4-8 weeks seem to be a reasonable time frame.

The package was shipped priority mail.  The contents were well packaged and included a copy of the order form, photocopied directions for installation, and 6 individually sealed strings (5 strings and a test string which was a nice touch).

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The Ball End

I’ve never used a handmade string before.  I was particularly intrigued with the allen wrench nut that serves as a proprietary ball end.

Ball end close up

There are specific instructions for installation, but it’s a very clever design that works well.

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String Installation

The installation instructions are clear and well written, but reading and doing are two very different things.  Right off the bat – you will probably notice that getting the string through the bridge can be tricky as it’s sooo thin.  (I can’t imagine trying this with a .005!)

While the Schecter Omen I installed this on didn’t have a string tree – I used the thread winding as an entry point for the string to go into the tuner, with the idea that it may help with any potential burrs.

In installing the string, the directions state that bringing the string up to pitch too quickly will result in the string breaking at the ball end.

Given the general instability inherent in attempting to get a string to stay at a pitch of high A over a 26.5” scale – this seems reasonable.

You should expect to spend 2-3 hours getting the string to pitch if you follow the directions verbatim.

Needless to say – this path isn’t for everyone.  If you break one of these on stage mid set – you’re not going to be replacing it between songs.  But this is a generality that applies to the circumstance – and is not specific to the Octave4plus string.

Since I started with a test string – I used the directions I outlined in my Omen review for bringing the string up to pitch – which worked fine – and took about 45 mins to an hour.

As a bonus tip: I also let it stay a ½ step below pitch overnight before playing it – and that seemed to help a lot with stability.

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In Use

I didn’t have a lot of time to get into it as almost immediately I got a call from Mike Reagan to see if I could add some high adrenaline lead playing to an X-box track he was working on.  I decided to bring the Omen and my FNH and see what happened.

While I don’t know about the material of the string, it definitely seemed more stable than the D’Addario .007s I was using.  In bending I easily got ½ step bends with no issue.  From the 12th fret on – I got whole step bends – which made me pretty nervous – but he was so excited by the pitches on the high A string that he wanted me to play a lot of bent melodies on that string.  The string finally broke after about the hour mark and (having broken one of them in getting it to pitch) – I finished the session with the D’Addario.

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Final thoughts

From an economic standpoint, it’s easy to balk as you could get 60 D’addario  .007 strings from just strings for $42 with shipping.  And if you don’t follow the instructions – those 6 strings are going to break pretty quickly.

If you’re playing something like an Agile – with an even longer scale length – this is pretty much the only game in town.  But even on the 26.5” scale, I liked this string a lot.  The construction quality is certainly there, and I really admire what they’re doing.

I’ve been pretty delicate with the D’Addario – so it hasn’t broken since the session – but when it does – I’ll give the Octave plus4 more of a chance than the few days it had before.

Thanks for reading!


Recycling Chords Part II: Triad Transformation

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In the previous recycling chords lesson, I looked at ways to reinterpret chords. Another way to create different sounds is to take something as basic (and familiar) as a triad and alter tones to create more complex chords.

Note: this process isn’t designed to replace the need to learn multiple chord voicings but instead to supplement it.

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Starting with the Flats

For example, take a C major triad (C, E, G) and flat the 3rd, and it becomes a C minor triad.

This idea also can be applied to the root of the chord.

If the note C is flatted a ½ step (1 fret), the new note is B.  This creates a C major 7th chord with no root.

Likewise, if the note C is flatted a 1 step (2 frets), the new note is Bb. This creates a C7 chord with no root.

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Moving to sharps

To add a 9th to the chord quality, raise the root  a ½ step for a flat 9 (b9) (or a step for a natural 9).

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This is a good place to make a couple of notes:

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First: the voicings presented here are used to demonstrate the process, but I like some of them better in other registers.  For example, here is the C add 9 voicing on the top 3 strings.

Second:  one reason to explore voicings without roots is that, in an ensemble setting, the bassist often holds down the root of the chord.  If you need the root –  it’s easy enough to just add it in.  Here is the same chord with a root:

The chord tone transformation chart


The following is a map of alterations to show how chord tones can be modified to create other sounds.

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Taking the approach above, some general rules can be applied to a major triad.

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The root of the chord can be lowered to the 7 or raised to the 9.


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The third of the chord can be lowered to the 9 or raised to the 11.

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The fifth of the chord can be lowered to the 11 or raised to the 13.

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In this manner, a triad can be altered into almost any other functional chord.


Here’s an exercise that utilizes a D major triad to illustrate this idea:

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Note:  D major is used instead of C major because each note of a 1st position D major chord can be lowered to another note on the fingerboard, without using open strings.  In other words, each chord is a moveable voicing on the fingerboard.

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The first step of this exercise is to make sure you can visualize triads both horizontally and vertically across the fingerboard.

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Horizontal (i.e. positional) visualization

Here’s a series of  D major chord inversions in the 2nd position.

Here are the D major inversions in the 5th position

and in the 10th position.

If these voicings are unknown to you, start by familiarizing yourself with them before continuing to the rest of the lesson.

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Vertical visualization

Note: the important thing with both the horizontal and vertical voicings is knowing where each chord tone is located in the voicing.

One way to practice this is to play through the chords and stop at random points and ask, “where is the root?” “where is the 3rd?”  “where is the 5th ?”  This has to be full internalized to be able to intelligently transform the chords, with the goal being instant chord tone identification.


As with the horizontal voicings, if these voicings are unknown to you, start by familiarizing yourself with them before continuing to the rest of the lesson.

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Triad Transformation Exercise

Now that the preliminary steps have been taken, let’s begin the process.

First, here are a few chord formulas we’ll need:

Major: Root, 3rd, 5th – D, F#, A

Major 7th: Root, 3rd, 5th and 7th –  D, F#, A, C#

Dominant 7th: Root, 3rd, 5th and  flat 7th –  D, F#, A, C

Minor: Root, flat 3rd, 5th –  D, F, A, C

Major 7 flat 5: Root, flat 3rd, flat 5th and flat 7th-  D, F, Ab, C

Now, let’s go through the exercise as individual steps to explain the process.

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Step 1:  Take a Major chord (in this case D)

Step 2: Make it a D Major 7 chord

[by flatting the root a 1/2 step (1 fret)]

Step 3: Make the chord a D dominant 7 (D7) chord

[by flatting the root 1 step (2 frets)]

Step 4: Make the chord a d minor 7 chord

[by flatting the 3rd of the D7 a 1/2 step (1 fret)]

Step 5: Make the chord a d minor 7b5 chord

[by flatting the 5th of the Dminor7 a 1/2 step (1 fret)]

You get the idea.  Transform the chord into every possible voicing and repeat with every other inversion.

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When less is more – A case for smaller voicings

When I started out playing, if a song called for a C major chord, I’d play something like this:

While there’s nothing wrong with six note voicings, context is everything.  It took a while to realize that when playing in larger groups, smaller voicings sometimes helped propel the song and allowed for better voice leading.

For example: here’s the same C Major chord but with just 3 notes.

And here is the voicing in a I-iv-V7 (C-F-G7) progression with smooth voice leading.

If you’re playing solo guitar – this isn’t going to fill a lot of space sonically but it works well in an ensemble, and it’s easy to play.  A win-win.

I hope this helps!  In a future lesson I’ll go further into this concept and use it to create 9th, 11th and 13th chords.  In the meantime, you’re free to download and distribute any of the lessons here but I maintain the copyright on the material.

I’m always looking for feedback on what people find useful and what they don’t, so if you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me at guitar.blueprint@gmail.com .

BKP (Bare Knuckle Pickups) 8 String Cold Sweat Pickup

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Recently, I got a call to play on a forthcoming X-box title and the composer asked me to bring a couple of guitars for some uptempo rock solos. (Unfortunately, I can’t post any audio from the session – but when the game releases I’ll post a link to any trailers for it.)

The session seemed like the perfect time to bring out my Schecter Omen 8 – particularly since I recently got Seth Mayer to install a Bareknuckle Cold Sweat Pickup and a kill switch on it.

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Bare Knuckle Pickups

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Bare Knuckle Pickups, they are one of the few companies that are making hand-wound (!!) passive 8 string pickups (in addition to their 6 and 7 string line).

When I was first looking into this – I sent an email to Tim Mills, to see what he recommended for someone needing a lot of tonal flexibility with a basswood body 8 string and he recommended the painkiller.  After reading the forums and listening to a lot of samples – I found that Axe Palace had an 8 string cold sweat neck pickup in stock for $160 and I bit the bullet.

(BTW – I had a really good experience with the Axe Palace guys, so if you’re looking for a U.S. Dealer to purchase from – I’d recommend them.)

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Cold Sweat Neck Close Up

The new Bare Knuckle website is excellent and absolutely full of useful information.  For example here are some specs taken from the bare Knuckle Website.  Each pick up now has this information posted so it’s really easy to compare and contrast different pickups and get a good idea about how they’re going to sound.

There are some mp3s on the Bare Knuckle Cold Sweat page – but having done some quick mp3s of the original schecter pickups, I thought I would post a couple of mp3s for comparison.

First, here is the Line 6 POD Farm patch I’m using for both clan and dirty sounds:

Here is a 4 octave B minor scale played with a clean tone ascending and descending using the neck (cold sweat), middle (Cold sweat and stock bridge) and Bridge (Schecter).

Here is a 4 octave B minor scale played with a dirty tone ascending and descending using the same pickup order as the clean tone.

Here are some clean chords played on the upper strings.  While the pickup allows for a coil tap – I didn’t have have the push pull pot to have it wired for that – but I’m sure that allowing for a coil tap – would give clean sounds like this even more tonal variety.

Here is chunk style low end riff.  The amp setting here is a little muddy to begin with – so you’ll notice that the Schecter actually cuts through pretty well.

And here is the same idea but with the tube screamer turned on.  With the added gain – the Cold Sweat takes on more definition.

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A quick sum up

This is a short review, because rather than regurgitate a lot of information that’s on their website – I’d recommend that you go straight to the source and get the full description.

For the xbox title – I ended up playing the FNH Ultrasonic and the Schecter in front of a Marshall 4×12 and for leads – the Cold Sweat made the Schecter just scream.

The fact that they’re hand wound – is insane to me – in the best way possible.  It speaks volumes about the commitment to excellence that BNK has towards its products and tone.  This isn’t the cheapest pickup that you’ll ever buy – but it blows an EMG out of the water and comes with a lifetime warranty.  Buying a Omen and installing one of these in it – is still cheaper than a Damien Elite – and I think it’s a better sounding guitar.  You owe it to yourself to check out what they’re doing.

Recycling Chords Part I or Where’s The Root?

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I’d like to start this brief series off with an explanation of how I view the function of theory.

(For those of you who are interested, this is taken from, A brief thought on Music Theory.)

“Theory is secondary to sound.

The history of music originates in organized sound.  Theory and jargon were developed over time as a way to replicate those organized sounds.  When a term like “C major” is used, it tells the informed person what kind of sound is going to be produced. This jargon then, is nothing more than a way for musicians to express ideas to each other without written music in a more efficient manner.

It’s much less important to be able to look at something and say, “that’s an altered dominant chord” than it is to hear an altered dominant chord in your head and be able to realize it on the guitar (or to hear someone else playing it and know what to play against it).”

This series of lessons are excerpts from the Guitarchitect’s Guide to Modes: Major Harmony book (due out in 2012).  While that book covers basic intervals and chord theory, this lesson will make the most sense if  you have some knowledge about chords, intervals and chord construction.  Having said that, even if you have a very limited knowledge of these areas you can still get something from this lesson by playing through the examples.

When I was at Berklee, one of the recommendations I got was to learn a minimum of two voicings for every chord type I came across (and more if possible).  While this is certainly a valid point – another way to approach learning new voicings is to reconceptualize what you already know. To see other ways of looking at things in this case, I’ll need to bring in a little music theory/analysis.

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When is C, E and G something other than C Major?

In order to identify a chord, we first have to establish the root to determine the functions of the other notes in the chord.

For example, if we look at the notes C, E, and G with C in the bass we get a C Major chord.

However if E is the root of the chord – it’s possible that the chord could be analyzed as an E minor with an added flat 6th and no 5th.

While you may hear this combination of notes as come kind of E minor chord, you are more likely to hear it as a C major triad with E in the bass.  The sound of a major triad is so entrenched in the average listener ’s head that it will be very difficult to hear this specific combination of notes as anything other than C major.

This is sometimes written as C/E.  This chordal notation is commonly called a slash chord and is written in the format of chord/bass note.

The same is true for the next example.  If G is the root of the chord – the chord could be analyzed as a G sus4 add 6 (no 5).  But more likely you will hear it as C/G.

Let’s add a note outside of the triad to the chord.  By putting an A in the bass, the chord spelling is now A-C-E-G (which is an A minor 7th chord).

Just because you have 3 notes doesn’t mean that you’re limited to a specific chord type.  In other words the notes C, E, and G are sometimes more than a C Major chord.

Using the same process as above the collection of notes above could also be analyzed as:

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Converting to C

Let’s now look at how a C Major triad can be analyzed over every other root.

A quick theory tip:  Whenever I see chord or a scale that I’m having trouble recognizing, I recommend modulating it to the key of C.  The reason for this is the lack of sharps or flats make any accidentals immediately identifiable.

Here are a couple of points regarding this:

  1. There are several ways that these chords could be interpreted and that this is merely my analysis.
  2. The Analysis column is analysis in relation to the root.  For example, the C of a C major triad is a b4 over a G# root.
  3. The resultant chord column has an implied analysis.  For example the D11 derived from a C major triad over D is more accurately a D11 (no 3rd, no 5th add 9).
  4. Some of the voicings presented are theoretical voicings and not something you find on a chord chart.  For example: C7 is a much easier voicing to conceptualize than C Major (add #13) and I have yet to see a chord chart with C Major (add #13) on it.)  Ditto for altered roots.

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Putting the Theory into Practice

Let’s say I’m playing a song that uses a major chord and I want to spice it up.

In looking at the above chart, I see that utilizing a C major triad over a Bb could be seen as a C7 chord with the 7 in the bass (C/ Bb ) or it could be seen as a Bb chord with every upper chord tension.

Here’s a voicing in open position.

Now let’s make this a movable voicing.

Let’s begin with a 1st position C major chord

and a 1st position D major chord

Keeping the root and the 3rd of the C major, we’ll use all the rest of the notes of D major:

and we get a really rich sounding substitution for a C major chord.

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Next steps

This chord merely scratches the surface of this approach.

In addition to making some new chords from familiar voicings (i.e. Ab maj7#5 = C major /Ab), you also get some improvisational approaches as well (for example – as a starting point for soloing over a Ab maj7#5 you could play a C major arpeggio rather than learning a maj7#5 arpeggio).

For now, I would recommend exploring these sounds both as chords and as an arpeggio approach (i.e playing a C major arpeggio over each root) to see what sounds work for you and then adapt those to other keys.

Additionally, this process can be applied to any chord.  If you feel like exploring this approach – C minor might be a good place to start.

In part II of this series, I’ll discuss a process I call triadic transformation as another way to reconceptualize chords that you already know.

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In the meantime, just remember that there isn’t anything here to get too hung up about.  Take the sounds and approaches that work for you and discard the rest.

I hope this helps!  You’re free to download and distribute any of the lessons here but I maintain the copyright on the material. I’m always looking for feedback, so if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to e-mail me at guitar.blueprint@gmail.com.

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Recabinet 3 Announced – New IRs And A New AU/RTAS/VST Shell

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For those of you who have been exploring the laptop/tech aspects of the site – Recabinet announced yesterday that the new 3.0 update will be sold on the  http://recabinet.com site on January 18th, 2011.

In addition to a number of 20 cabinets and 8 mics, you also get a new VST/AU RTAS Shell for hosting IRs in Mac or PC.

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(Screen shot taken from Recabinet website)

Here’s what I find appealing from a first glance perspective:

  • Drop down menus for the cabinet and mic positions are big time savers
  • The eq functions are a good idea
  • Individual gain controls (in addition to the host gain) offers a lot of flexibility
  • A number of bundled presets – also a very good idea

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Here’s a list of the cabs and mics

(taken from Recabinet website)

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Cabinets:

  • 1960 – based on a Marshall 1960AV 4×12
  • Angora – based on a Line 6 Vetta 4×12
  • Blackface 4×10 – based on a Fender ’65 Super Reverb 4×10
  • Chordal – based on a Roland JC120
  • Damien – based on a Marshall 1936 2×12
  • Dazed – based on a Supro Thunderbolt
  • Eagle – based on an ENGL Pro 4×12
  • Excel – based on a Randall RS412XLT100 4×12
  • Genzie – based on a Genz Benz G-Flex ported 2×12
  • Green – based on an original 1970s Marshall 4×12
  • Igor – based on a Krank Krankenstein 4×12
  • Manatee – based on an Ampeg SVT 8×10
  • Motown – based on an Ampeg Portaflex B15N
  • Ogre – based on a Bogner Uberkab 4×12
  • Oversize – based on a Mesa Standard 4×12
  • Sterling – based on a Marshall Hand Wired 4×12 (late 1960s reissue)
  • Tangerine – based on an Orange 4×12
  • Top Boost – based on a Vox AC30
  • Tweed 1×12 – based on a Fender ’53 Deluxe 1×12
  • Zodiac 2×12 – based on a Selmer Zodiac Twin 30

Recorded with the same mics as before

Microphones:

  • 57 – based on a Shure SM57
  • 545 – based on a Shure Unidyne III 545
  • 121 – based on a Royer 121
  • 409 – based on a Sennheiser MD409
  • 421 – based on a Sennheiser MD421
  • i5 – based on an Audix i5
  • Reference – based on an Earthworks M30
  • U87 – based on a Neumann U87

Pricing

While the cost for new users is $130, users who purchased the Recabinet 2.0:

  • between November 1st, 2008 and October 22nd, 2009 are eligible for a FREE upgrade (only between January 18 and January 26, 2011)
  • on October 23rd, 2009 or later can upgrade to Recabinet 3 for $60

If I understand this correctly, this means that even if you were remiss in not getting Recabinet before – if you buy Recabinet 2.0 before January 18 for $15 – you can get the new plug in for $60.  But, since this is a presumption based on the information on the website and not and official policy of recabinet, you should contact them to see if this is the case before purchasing.

If this is the case – it’s a smart incentive to get people to use their impulse responses.