Category Archives: Applied Theory

Favored Curry Or Spicing Up Chord Scales And Triads Part 2

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In Part 1 of this lesson,  I went over how to create a chord scale for improvising over a specific chord (in this case C major)  chord.  As a brief recap – here is the chord scale I chose:

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C major chord scale with a # 2, # 4, and a b6 scale degree.

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To start this off – here’s a sample lick using this scale:

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Here’s how the scale sounds played slowly  (1/4 note at 90)

Here’s the scale faster (1/4 note at 180).

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The chords you say?

Since we’ve engineered this chord scale around a C major triad – we know that any licks we come up with will work over that chord – but to see what other chords can be used with this scale – we need to harmonize it.

Let’s look at the triadic (3 note) harmony first.

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C major chord scale with a # 2, # 4, and b6 scale harmonized in 3rds (triads)

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**Note the first 2 chords have been moved to the back three strings to facilitate playing:

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Here are  the chord formulas that are generated:

  1. C, E, G – Root, 3rd and 5th – C Major
  2. D#, F#, Ab – Root, 3rd and double flat 5th – non functional harmony*
  3. E, G, B – Root, flat 3rd and 5th – E minor
  4. F#, Ab, C – Root, double flat 3rd, flat 5th – non functional harmony*
  5. G, B, D# – Root, 3rd, sharp 5th – G Augmented
  6. Ab, C, E – Root, 3rd, sharp 5th – Ab Augmented
  7. B, D#, F#, – Root, 3rd, 5th – B Major

(Note:  even though these don’t have a triadic function they can serve a function enharmonically – I’ll get to that in the 7th chord section).

To recap –  any licks that we generate from this scale will work over C major, E minor and B major.

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Adding the spice

Since we started this approach with C major – let’s look at a lick that spices up a C Major Triad.

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Here’s an mp3 of the lick.  This is an example of something I might play as a backup accompaniment in the pre-chorus of a song.

To my ears even playing this over a straight C major tonality, the D#–>E really triggers an E minor tonality.  Try playing this over a C major –> E minor progression.

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Moving to E minor – here’s an approach I use a lot in rhythm playing.

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The first step is to take a set of three strings – in this case I’ll use the high E, B and G strings.

Starting with a sample chord voicing in the low register – ascend up the neck by moving each note in the voicing up by scale degree.  In this example:

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I’ve started with an initial voicing (Ab, C and E) and moved it through scale-wise motion.

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(Note:  I hear this as G# instead of Ab – you may want to see the section on enharmonics below).

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Here is an mp3 of the voicings.  In the audio example, I play a low E between each chord to establish an overall tonality.

Having done this – I see some cool dyads ( 2 note voicings) on the B and G strings that I can use to spice up an E minor vamp.  This is an example of the type of comping I might do on the verse of a song if the song chart just said E minor).

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Here is an mp3 of the lick.  Don’t be afraid to lay into the slides or add a little vibrato to make the notes sing a little more.

With a lot of these approaches – I’m not really conscious of what the specific functions of the notes are.  Once I know that the scale will work over a chord – it’s more about focusing on the sound of the notes and how they fit into the song.  On some tunes – these notes would clash with the melody and it wouldn’t work.

This process is about building a repertoire of sounds to have at your disposal.  Knowing the theory around it just allows you to adapt those sounds and approaches to make the fit where you want them to.

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Space is the place

Here’s a lick that takes the above approach of breaking chords up into different string sets and applies it to a melody line.  Here I’ve focused on the A, D and B strings and added in the high E string at the end.

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Here is an mp3 of the lick.  Note the slides, vibrato and slightly rubato phrasing at the end of the lick.  These are the little nuances that help make the difference between playing music and playing notes.

This next lick combines chord forms and melody by using artificial (i.e. “harp”) harmonics.  To produce these – a chord shape is held with the fretting hand while the picking hand picks and partially frets notes 12 frets higher resulting in a chime like timbre.  If you are unfamiliar with this technique – just google Lenny Breau (an absolute master of the approach) and you’ll get an idea.

For this specific lick:  I’m holding the D# with my second finger, the C with my 3rd and the Ab with my 4th so I can reach the F# with the fret hand 1st finger.

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Here’s an mp3.

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One of the secrets of this method is to strategically time the release of the fret hand notes.  The longer you can leave the notes held down, the more the pitches will bleed into one another – which produces the desired effect.  Before we go to the next lick I need to make a brief enharmonic diversion.

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An Enharmonic Diversion

An enharmonic is when a note is spelled differently but sounds the same (for example Ab and G#).  When playing this over an E drone – I hear the pitch on the first fret of the G string as a G# (i.e the third of the chord) instead of Ab.  It’s very difficult for me to hear that note functioning as a b4.

As a case in point, here’s another lick.  (This piece makes liberal use of vibrato bar scoops – listening to the mp3 of the lick for phrasing is recommended).

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I’ve notated this lick with both a G# and a G natural as those are the intervals I hear in the approach.

With this interpretation it makes the scale harmonically vague as it would then have both a major AND a minor 3rd.  If we go back over the initial triadic chord and replace the Ab with G#, F# for Gb and D# for Eb we get a couple of different chord options.

  1. C, E, G#-  C Augmented
  2. E, G#, B –  E Major
  3. G#, B, D# – G# minor
  4. C, Eb , G –  C Minor
  5. G, B, Eb – Eb Augmented
  6. Ab, C, Eb – Ab Major

To recap –  in addition to C major, E minor and B major – these licks can also be used with care over E major, Ab major, C minor  and G# minor.

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To finish this approach out for now – let’s look at 7th chords.

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C major chord scale with a # 2, # 4, and b6 scale harmonized in 3rds (7th chords)

**Note:  the stretch on the second chord should be approached with caution.  If it hurts – stop playing immediately!

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Here are the chord formulas that are generated:

  1. C, E, G, B – Root, 3rd, 5th and 7th  – C Major 7
  2. D#, F#, Ab, C – Root, 3rd and double flat 5th, double flat 7 – Enharmonically – this spells – Ab, C, Eb, Gb, – or Ab7 – but doesn’t serve a function from the D# pitch.
  3. E, G, B, D# – Root, flat 3rd, 5th and 7th – E minor (Major 7)
  4. F#, Ab, C, E – Root, double flat 3rd, flat 5th – Enharmonically – this spells – Ab, C, Eb, Gb, – or Ab7 – but doesn’t serve a function from the F# pitch.
  5. G, B, D#, F# – Root, 3rd, sharp 5th, 7th – G Augmented 7
  6. Ab, C, E, G – Root, 3rd, sharp 5th – Ab Augmented 7
  7. B, D#, F#,A  – Root, 3rd, 5th, flat 7th  – B7

This gives us a couple of new tonalities to explore – namely, C Major 7th, E minor (major 7th), B7 and Ab7.

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The final tally:

At a minimum, this chord scale will generate licks that can be used over the following chords:

C major, C Major 7th,

C minor, C minor (major 7th)

E major, E Major 7

E minor, E minor (major 7th),

Ab major, Ab7

G# minor

B major,  B7

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Next steps:

You will probably not like the use of this scale with all of the chords listed but, as is the case with any musical approach, the key is always to use your ears as a guide to what works and what doesn’t.

I hope this helps! 

Happy Holidays and thanks for reading!

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The material in the lesson is adapted from the material in The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Chord Scales book. More information about that book (including an overview and jpegs of sample pages) can be found here.

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-SC

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PS – If you like this post you may also like:

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MAKING MUSIC OUT OF SCALES

CREATING CHORDS AND LINES FROM ANY SCALE – A HARMONIC COMBINATORICS / SPREAD VOICINGS LESSON

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RECYCLING SHAPES OR MODULAR ARPEGGIOS FOR FUN AND PROFIT

GLASS NOODLES – ADAPTING A PHILIP GLASS ARPEGGIO APPROACH TO GUITAR

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MELVILLE, MADNESS AND PRACTICING – OR FINDING THE DEEPER LESSON PART 2

SOME USEFUL ONLINE PRACTICE TOOLS

POSSESSION IS 9/10S OF THE LAW BUT PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING OR PRACTICING PART VII

TESTING YOUR VOCABULARY OR PRACTICING PART VI

PRACTICE WHAT YOU PLAY OR PRACTICING PART V

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DEFINITIONS AND DOCUMENTS OR PRACTICING PART IV

TENSION AND THE SODA CAN OR PRACTICING PART III

PROPER POSTURE IS REQUIRED FOR PROPER PERFORMANCE – PRACTICING PART II

PRACTICE MAKES BETTER AKA PRACTICING PART I

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MELVILLE, MADNESS AND PRACTICING – OR FINDING THE DEEPER LESSON PART 2

FINDING THE DEEPER LESSON

INSPIRATION VS. INTIMIDATION

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WARMING UP: FINGER EXERCISES, THE 3 T’S AND THE NECESSITY OF MISTAKES

“THE LIMITS OF MY LANGUAGE ARE THE LIMITS OF MY WORLD”

A BRIEF THOUGHT ABOUT MUSIC THEORY

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BOOKS

LESSONS

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GuitArchitecture, Sonic Visualization And A Pentatonic Approach For The Holidays

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Happy Holidays!

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I know I’ve been posting a lot of gear related items lately – and  based on the statistics for site visits – this seems to be what people are primarily interested in – so this has driven the posting content recently.

While I’m happy to blog about gear (not incidentally, my 8 string Bare Knuckle Cold Sweat pickup came in last night and I squealed like Bobby Hill); I don’t want to get too far away from playing.  With that in mind I’m putting a concentrated effort to get more lesson/performance posts up to rebalance the site a bit.

I’ll have a new  chord-scale lesson up next week but in the meantime wanted to explain my performance/pedagogical approach to navigating the fingerboard with a fleet fingered pentatonic lick (yes, it’s reposted – but just like Thanksgiving leftovers – aren’t they still good on day two?).

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GuitArchitecture?  Sonic Visualization?

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I wanted to take a moment and talk a little about GuitArchitecture, sonic visualization and re-examine a chestnut from the lesson page as a little – three for the price of one post.

In broad strokes, the GuitArchitecture concept is that the nature of the guitar’s fretboard and tuning lends itself to visualizing fingering patterns.

While patterns performed mindlessly can be a bad thing, they allow people to realize ideas more readily.

Through these patterns, musical structures can be realized and worked into larger sonic arrangements.  More importantly, patterns can be associated with sounds and visualizing how to realize a sound by seeing its shape on the fretboard makes performing it easier.  Hence the term Sonic Visualization.

In my forthcoming books – I have a lot of information on this topic as it applies to scales.  When approaching scales – I see them as a series of modular two-string patterns that connect the entire fingerboard.

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The GuitArchitecture Approach

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Here’s an applied example of sonic visualization:

Let’s say I’m playing a solo over an E minor chord.  As mentioned in a previous post – when soloing over a minor chord you can substitute a minor chord a 5th away (in this case B minor).

So if I’m thinking of using E pentatonic minor over the chord (E, G, A, B, D) I can also use B pentatonic minor (B, D, E, F#, A).

If you look carefully – you’ll see the only difference between the two is the F# and the G.   Both notes sound good against E minor, so if we combine them we get a six- note scale (E, F#, G, A, B, D).  Here is a sample fingering of the combined scales in the 12th position.

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If that scale were fingered as a 2-string scale instead of a six- string box pattern – the same fingering pattern can be moved in octaves – thus eliminating the need for multiple fingerings. (This is the same approach I’m using on 8 string guitar btw).

Here is an mp3 (note mp3s are a little glitchy in Safari – if it doesn’t play you may just have to reload the page) and notation/tab for the descending scale:

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Sextuplet descending

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* Fingering Note: I finger both patterns with the 1, 2 and 4 fret hand fingers on both string sets.

* Descending Picking Note: I play this with a modified sweep picking pattern

E string: up-down-up

B string: up-down-up

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The picking pattern is the same for each string – but when I switch strings – it’s two up picks in a row.

Here it is  ascending:

Sextuplet Ascending

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* Ascending Picking Note: I also play this with a modified sweep picking pattern

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E string: down-up-down

A string: down-up-down

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The picking pattern is the same for each string – but when I switch strings – its two down picks in a row.

If you’re used to alternate picking  – you can use that approach as well but I try to apply the same picking pattern to all three-note per string patterns.

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Practicing the pattern

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In addition to focusing on the timing of the notes – it’s very important to practice slowly and only increase speed when both the timing (are all the notes being played with rhythmic equivalence?), tone (i.e. can you hear all of the notes clearly?) and hand tension (is your hand should be as relaxed as possible?) are all working together.

I’ve written a whole series of posts on practicing  (Post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4, post 5, post 6 and post 7) that I’d recommend checking out if you haven’t already done so – but the simple principle here is to pay attention to what I call the 3 T’s in Performance: Timing, Tone Production and Tension.

This particular approach is challenging – particularly if you’re not used to the stretch.  Just remember to practice in small focused increments and try to increase steadily over time.

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The Tones:

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For those of you who are interested, tone on this recording was the same AU Lab/Apogee/FNH combination that I detailed here:

Here’s a screen shot of the Pod Farm setting (The tone can be downloaded from line 6 here):

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That’s all for now

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

Recycling Shapes or Modular Arpeggios for Fun and Profit

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When improvising, I need to be able to access sounds immediately.  One tool that I use for this is Sonic Visualization (which is really a cornerstone of the GuitArchitetcure concept).  In Sonic Visualization – I associate shapes with sounds so that I can make changes, modify  or develop ideas in real-time.  Here’s one example of this in action and has some cool ramifications for application.

For the audio examples – I’ll be using a Line 6 variax AC 700 strung with D ‘addario .012 phosphor bronze strings – to show that this can be performed on an acoustic guitar.  I used the line 6 as I could record it direct into the laptop in AU lab and not have to use a microphone.

First:  Here’s an example of this approach played at tempo.

Now let’s start slowly and see how to get to that point.

Let’s say we were going to solo over an A5 chord.

Since there are only 2 unique notes (A and E), you could play almost any type of scale or arpeggio over it – but for a moment – let’s look at a minor tonality.

If I was playing straight up metal, I might just play an A minor arpeggio over it.  There’s nothing wrong with this sound – but I want to spice it up a little.

One thing I’ll do as a starting point is to extend the arpeggio. Instead of just playing an a minor triad (A, C and E) – I’m going to add a G and a B to the arpeggio creating an A minor 9 sound.  Here’s the form I’ll be using:


Some quick notes:

Fingering – basically I view this as a positional form so I’m using the 1st finger for notes on the 5th fret, 2nd finger for the E on the 7th fret, 3rd finger for the C on the 8th fret and the 4th finger on the B on the 9th fret.

Hand tension – As your playing through this shape – you want to keep your fretting hand as relaxed as possible.  The more tense your hand is – the more difficult this will be to play.

Picking – you could play this with alternate picking or all hammers – but I’m going to recommend a specific picking pattern for this arpeggio:

Notice that it starts on an upstroke and then uses all down strokes.  This picking pattern will become very useful as this process continues – but if you don’t have a lot of experience sweep (or rake) picking, you’ll need to keep your picking hand relaxed and work on getting the attacks all happening in time.

Timing – you’ll notice that this is a group of 5 (i.e a “Quintuplet” or “Pentuplet”) which means that you are playing 5 notes to the beat.  The  key here is to make sure that you are playing the notes in an even division – (i.e. the same length of time for each note and each space between the notes).

Here’s an audio example of just the arpeggio – first played slowly and then at tempo.

Note: in some browsers (Safari in particular)  the audio doesn’t always load properly in the new window.  If you just refresh the window it usually comes up the second time.

Obviously a metronome will help with consistency – but it you’re having trouble with hearing the division of 5 try the following.

Set up a metronome.

Set the click at a slow enough level that you can play 1 note per click.

Accent the first note and tap your foot to the first note only

Play each note of the arpeggio on a metronome click.

On the repeats – accent the first note and tap your foot to the first note only.  If you can – try to figure out the tempo of the first tones only (a tap tempo feature will help a lot here) and now try playing the arpeggio with only the first accent.  This is annoying to do for long periods of time – but can help a lot for short practicing cycles.

You may want to just start with this one arpeggio and work on synchronizing both hands – that alone could take some time if you’re unfamiliar with this technique.

From a performance perspective – you’re looking for uniformity of attack with regards to both timing and volume.

 

Recycling shapes

Here’s an interesting observation – If we play the same minor 9 shape we just used but this time move it to the 5th of the chord (In this case the pitch E or an E minor 9 arpeggio ), we get the notes E, G, B (which were also in the last arpeggio)but we get 2 added pitches D and F# which here act as the 11 and 13. This creates an over all A minor 13  or A Dorian sound.

Short cut #1 – when playing over a minor or minor 7th chord – you can play minor arpeggios from both the root and the 5th of the chord over it.

 

Short cut #2 – A minor 9 + E minor 9 = A minor 13 or an A Dorian sound.

Let’s look at this in notation and tab:

Notice that by using the same picking pattern –  the upstroke of the B in the first arpeggio leads right into an upstroke on the E of the E minor 9 arpeggio.  The fingering pattern is the same as before.  Once you get the A minor 9 form down – you may need to practice the transition between the A minor 9 and the E minor 9 forms.

Here is an mp3 of the transition played at two tempos.

Finally, we can repeat the same thing on the last A of the A5 chord (although the fingering pattern will have to be adjusted by a fret for the G-B string tuning).

Here’s the top A minor 9  arpeggio played by itself – first slowly  and then faster.

As before, the same picking pattern is utilized to add continuity between the forms.  You could end on the B or pick another pitch the end the form on depending on what chord you’re playing it over.  Here I’ve chosen E.

Here’s the full arpeggio played at tempo.

You say Tomato I say Major

So now that we’ve looked at a minor example let’s use a major example.

If I sharp the C and G notes of the A minor 9 arpeggio –I have an A Major 9 arpeggio – which also works over A5.

Here’s the A major 9  arpeggio played slowly  and then faster.

Here’s another interesting observation – If we play the same major 9 shape we just used but this time move it to the 5th of the chord (In this case the pitch E or an E major 9 arpeggio ), we get the notes E, G#, B (which were also in the last arpeggio) but we get 2 added pitches D# and F# which here act as the #11 and 13.  This creates an over all A major 13 augmented 11 or an A Lydian sound.

Short cut #1 – when playing over a major or major 7th chord – you can play major arpeggios from both the root and the 5th of the chord over it.

 

Short cut #2 – A major 9 + E major 9 = A major 13 (#11) or A Lydian tonality.


Since I’ve broken this process down a great deal with the A minor 9 process – I’ll just highlight the lick idea here.  You could end on the B or pick another pitch to end on depending on what chord you’re playing it over.

Here’s the full arpeggio played at tempo.

Here’s the A major 9  arpeggio played slowly  and then faster.

Taking it out

As a final idea – let’s apply this concept to extending the overall tonality.

Here’s a transcription of an improvisation working off of this idea – but using a B minor 9 for the third chord of the sequence.

First let’s look at the A5 chord again:

Now – let’s realize that instead of building these structures off of the Root – 5th – root of the chord – that we could use other tones – for example here I’m going to use the Root, the 5th and the 9th:

Here’s a transcription of an improvisation working off of this idea – but using a B minor 9 for the third chord of the sequence.

Here’s the full arpeggio played at tempo.

Here’s the  arpeggio played slowly  and then faster.

C# is obviously not part of an A minor tonality – but by sneaking it into the arpeggio sequence it gently nudges the overall tonality to me in a pleasing way.

The point is to not get too hung up on rules or shortcuts – but instead to have a series of modular sounds and approaches that you can use as the need comes up.

I’ll be posting more about these types of approaches in the weeks and (more likely) months ahead.  Just remember in general to keep your hands loose, your rhythm tight and your attention focused – but if this is your first time to the site I’ve posted a number of things on practicing in general which may be helpful to you.

I’m always looking for feed back on these posts!  If possible – please take a minute to comment or drop me a pm @ guitar.blueprint@gmail.com to let me know if these are useful to you.

Thanks for dropping by!


Building Blocks – or more examinations of a laptop guitar setup.

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If you’ve ever seen the American dubbed version of Mad Max (the whole movie plays very differently with the original voices – I’m just so used to the original American release’s versions of Night Rider, Toecutter and the Goose –  that that’s the only one I can watch), there’s a moment where The Goose realizes that the person they’re about to arrest is an associate of ToeCutter, and the camera closes in on his face as he says,

“Well well well…”


I wanted to go a little more in depth with the laptop guitar rig I’ve been toying around with.  I’ve posted a couple of things about this but I realized that it may be more beneficial to examine each component and see how it fits in the puzzle.  I tend to focus these on distorted sounds as those to me are the most difficult to replicate.  Even Logic has some decent sounding clean amps built in – getting a useable dirty sound is still the challenge at least for me.

So what I did was improvise a little idea in a C# minor tonality and then played a series of versions of it through different versions of the laptop set up – to show the evolution of where I have things now.

There’s still a great deal more work to do in this area, but at least these are some starting points and may at least shed a light on the process I’m using.

As a starting point you may want to look at the gear page or my previous entries on this topic here or here.

The (salt) lick


To begin with, here’s an mp3 of the first thing I improvised:  C# min improv .

* Note:

occasionally mp3’s don’t load properly when I check them in Safari.  When I refesh the page they come up.  If you have this problem – it may work for you.  If you still can’t hear the mp3 just leave a comment and I’ll re-post it.

And here’s the notation

The first part of the lick is somewhere between a scale passage and an arpeggio which makes it a little interesting to me.  This approach is something I use a lot in my soloing to get away from the temptation to go on autopilot and just run scales up and down the whole time.

Visually, I’m initially thinking “G#min arpeggio”, and then dropping the lowest notes by alternating 3rds to extend the tonality.  This is an arpeggio trick I use all the time to get new sounds out of old shapes.  I’ll detail this process here:

Here’s a G# minor arpeggio:

When I look at the distance between the G# and the B – that’s a minor 3rd.  By alternating 3rds ( either major-minor or minor-major) I can extend the tonality.  A major 3rd down from G# would be E.

If I drop the lowest note to the “E” on the A string – I’d have an E maj 7 arpeggio. (E G#, B, D#).

If I drop the lowest note to the “C#” on the E string – I’d have a C# minor 9 arpeggio. (C#, E, G#, B, D#).

(If you wanted to go further you could continue the process to A, F#, etc.)

The next thing I do is to add the F# on the A and G string.

This makes G# min7 / E maj 9 / C# min 11 depending on the chord it’s being played over or how you’re visualizing it.

Now that I have the larger shape – I fill in some 3 note per string patterns on the G and high E strings.

There’s a slight 2 string variation on the A string that’s hammered instead of picked, but otherwise the picking pattern discussed on the swept pentatonic lesson is the same approach that’s used here.

This is very similar to the 3 note per string / 1 note per string pentatonic patterns that I’ve been exploring in the online lessons area of the blog (you can see a pdf here).

The process that I’m detailing is how I began to practice these things and then develop them into more complex ideas.  I tend to see sounds like this as one large pattern now ( note:  the GuitArchitecture process is all about sonic visualization – i.e. associating shapes with sounds so that sounds can be created and manipulated in real time) .  So when I improvise, I’m not really too conscious of exactly what’s happening theoretically – only sonically.

This ends in a pretty pedestrian B major (C# Phrygian) scale run.  In soloing I would typically try to develop it into something else – but for the purposes of a sound demo – it makes sense to have a short lick with a definitive ending.

The sounds

First I’ll play the lick with the sound used at the ending point of the process.  Here are some screen shots of the set up.

The FNH guitar on the neck pickup goes into the Apogee duet into AU LAB:

I run PSP Vintage Warmer

into Pod farm 2.01 Ilok version

I’m using the Marshall side of this rather than the Soldano – so I’ll show the signal chain there (it’s the same for both setups shown).

I’m going to start with the mixer and then go from there:

Since I’m only running a single line in- I’ve set both inputs to left.

There’s a little tonal secret hiding in plain sight here as well.  If you look carefully – you’ll see that the DI is set to about 18%.  This allows some of the dry guitar signal to come through as well.  This give the tone a little body and clarity that’s lacking from just the straight signal.

You might find that to completely not be the case – and again – this is just one person’s process detailed here.

Here’s the gate.  I tend to keep the levels low so it doesn’t kick in when I’m playing – but kills the noise when the volume is off.

The gain on the Marshall is set around 22%.  I tend to crank the mids a little to help make sure the sound cuts through in a live mix (note the use of the term “help”.  In reality – sound at any live gig is only as good as the sound person.  I just do what I can on my end to make sure I can hear myself on stage.).

Before the Marshall for the “lead” sound I’ve put in a tube screamer.  Here are the settings for that:

Here’s the lick with the tube screamer (same as above): with tube screamer

Here’s the lick without the tube screamer:  without tube screamer .

To give you a sense of how important the amp gain is to the overall sound – here’s a variation of the lick above with the amp gain set around half:

Here’s the lick with the tube screamer (same as above): TS_ON_50%_gain .

Here’s the lick without the tube screamer:  NO_TS_50%_gain .

I actually like this amount of saturation for lead lines – but the reason I’ve gone with the lower gain is that chords (outside or Root-5th diads) – tends to just crap out and turn to sonic mush with higher gain settings.  So to balance the 2 I’ve been working on lower tweaks.


WHY THE CABINET IS TRANSLUCENT.

Oh that’s easy.  It’s because I’m not using it.

Instead I’m using Impulse Responses from Recabinet in LA Convolver (See the links above for more info).

Here are the settings:

The IR’s are from the Recabinet Modern 2.02 Mac and PC-> 1960 4×12 cabinet settings.  You’ll notice that I don’t have anything fancy in terms of mikes set up on the cabinet,

Here is a major component of this process.  Recabinet comes with something like 2000 IRs.  I could spend weeks doing nothing but checking tonal variations on all the different cabs mikes.  Someday when I need to get really deep into this – I will.

In the meantime – to cut down on the number of parameters and just get to a tone – I went with the KISS (keep it simple stupid) approach.  I thought about what cabinet could be a constant for all my sounds clean and dirty – and the 4 x 12 came to me.  I’ve heard a DeVille through one and it sounded good so I decided to use that as the standard and tweak the amp around the cabinet.  Live, a 57 on the grill sounds good to me.  I tried 2 different variations of the same thing and went from there.

To contrast this:  here is the sound of just PodFarm – with the PodFarm cabinets but with the PSP and post preamp off.

Here’s the lick with the tube screamer (same as above): NO_IR_YES_TS .

Here’s the lick without the tube screamer:  NO_IR_NO_TS .

Some of you may prefer these sounds.  I happen to think that “initial” mp3 – has a bit more character than these.

Here’s the rest of the signal chain:

Here’s the pre-amp (post amp! – this is a very useful tweak!):

Here’s the delay:

Here’s the reverb:

So to quote the Goose, “Well well well…”

It’s still a work in progress.  I’d like to work on tweaking the preamp after the cab to carve the tone a bit more and experiment with using an outside delay later in the AULAB signal chain – but for now this is where it is.

I hope this helps!  If you have any questions or comments please fell free to leave them on the blog – or e-mail me at guitar.blueprint@gmail.com .

Thanks for dropping by.

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Glass Noodles – adapting a Philip Glass arpeggio approach to guitar

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I tend to get a lot of playing ideas from sources other than guitar.  A primary source of influence is film and one of my all time favorites is Mishima. To me, Philip Glass’ score works brilliantly with the subject matter and helps create a powerful experience.

Here’s a lesson post on some cool approaches I borrowed (read: stole) from Glass that might provide you with some inspiration.

I’ll post the exercise first and then add some color commentary.

A link to an mp3 is here:  Glass Noodles122bpm

First thing’s first – the  triadic* chord progression (see note at the bottom) is  G Major, G# diminished, A Major, A# diminished, B Minor, G Major, B minor, B Diminshed, B Minor, G Major, B minor, B Diminshed. (Note: The second bar repeats – I just forgot to put the repeats in).

I’ll start with a technical issue and then go into the theoretical things to grab.

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If you want it hypnotic –   you’ll have to lose the pick.

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Part of the sound of this is the hypnotic repetition and a large part of that sound come from a uniform attack.  You can sweep pick all of these arpeggios as well – but for a more legato sound it’s best to approach all of these with fret hand tapping (i.e. all hammer ons and no picking).  From a technical standpoint the real challenges here are 1. keeping the attacks uniform (i.e. all of the note volumes are even) and 2. playing it in the pocket rhythmically.

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Getting the maximum effect of something like this requires  sequencer like articulation and timing – and that alone makes this something worth studying.

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As a starting point you’ll probably want to mute the stings to prevent open notes from ringing out (I just use my picking hand – some people use a hair tie or a piece of cloth.)

For uniform attacks – you’ll have to have very clean hammer-on technique with the fingertips hitting the strings instead of the pads of the fingers.   If there’s any slop there – it will come out in the arpeggios.  One other thing to note is that the notes should be lifted off and not pulled off.  If the only sound created is by the individual fingers hitting the strings – you will have a more uniform sound (which is totally the goal here).

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Here’s a good way to visualize the fret hand finger motion you’re looking for.

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Put the palms of your hands on a table.  Now without lifting the palms up, tap your fingertips one at a time on the table starting from the pinky and ending on the index.  You’ll notice that the fingers stay curved and that the large knuckle of each finger is responsible for the tapping.  This motion is what you’re looking for in this process.  You should also notice that you don’t need to hit the fingertips very hard against the table to get a crisp attack.

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You should strive to get volume with the minimum amount of finger pressure.

The more relaxed you can keep your hand, the easier this will be.

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You can add some compression to make help make the attacks more uniform as well.  I typically don’t use a lot of compression as I like to play very dynamically and find myself adjusting volume and tone a lot when I play – but a compressor plug in will make all of this easier to play.

This approach gets counter-intuitive at the G major arpeggio (the second arpeggio of bar 2).  For a technical stand point this is the trickiest part of the passage. (Note:  The numbers under the notes indicate fret hand fingerings.)
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I am used to playing the G major arpeggio as a 5 string form – which usually uses the 3rd finger as a barre on the 12th fret, but barring the B and G on the 12 fret completely breaks up the sound and makes it impossible to get the tapped sound of the other notes.  To get around this – I use the index finger to fret the G  so each note gets a unique attack.

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This is one of those deceptive exercises.  Playing it at 60% will not take very long – but the difference between 60% and 100% is HUGE.

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Playing everything  with correct timing and really articulating every note will take a while.  Don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t happen right way.

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The key here is to plan on spending a lot of time playing the arpeggios really slowly to make sure that the timing and volumes are 100% from the beginning.  You can read some of my posts on practicing to get a sense of the best way to start working on something like this.

Now some theory observations:

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If you sharp the root of a major arpeggio – you get a diminished arpeggio.
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This doesn’t sound like much – but look at the first 3 arpeggios.  By making the G a G#, you get a nice chromatic motion on the B string leading into the A Major Arpeggio.  You can also notice that the A# in the diminished arpeggio after the A major arpeggio leads right into the B Minor arpeggio.  This is a great way to sequence between 2 Major Arpeggios a step apart (Like G major and A major).

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If you sharp the 5th of a minor arpeggio – you get the root of a major arpeggio.

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Again a small thing – but by using this you get  a nice voice leading between the B minor/G major arpeggios in bar 2.  Also notice the chromatic motion on both the G and the high E string.   This continues the chromatic movement that occurred on the B string between the first 3 arpeggios.

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If you flat the 5th of a minor arpeggio – you get the 5th of a Diminished arpeggio.

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Check out the last arpeggio in bar 2!  By continuing the downward chromatic motion through the  G Major – B Minor – B Diminished – a sense of urgency is created and then the last point –

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There’s mystery in keeping it unresolved.


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In the Mishima soundtrack (you HAVE put the movie in your Netflix Queue yes?) there are a number of moments where at the end of the arpeggio flurries – it ends on an unresolved chord.   Here I’ve repeated the last arpeggio fully and then ended on the lower F on the last repeat.  If I was making a song out of these ideas – I would continue with the type of figures and ideas that have already been presented here and possibly resolving them.  But here in this context – ending on the F – just leaves a giant question mark and makes it interesting.  If you don’t believe me – watch the film!

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*Note: If you move away from triads – there’s another analysis here:

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The notes of G# diminished are can also be seen as the 3rd, 5th, and b7 of an E7 arpeggio.

Therefore: If you sharp the root of a major arpeggio – you also get the 3rd of a dominant 7th arpeggio (with no root).

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This would make the chord progression   G Major, E7, A Major, F#7, B Minor, G Major, B minor, B Diminshed, B Minor, G Major, B minor, B Diminshed.

The bass motion would be what determines the actual chord progression.  I believe the bass motion followed the chromatic motion but the E7->A and F#7-Bm are pretty standard analysis for a chord progression like this.


More posts soon.  Please feel free to post any questions or comments you might have or e-mail me at guitar.blueprint@gmail.com.

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A brief thought about music theory

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One of the reoccurring  areas of concern that comes up in lessons is the issue of music theory.   This is both in terms of people who don’t want to be taught any kind of  theory, (as in, “No – don’t show me that!  It’ll mess up my playing!”) to people who have been exposed to terms that they have questions about. Usually both scenarios involve a lot of trepidation and discomfort (much of which is needlessly inflicted).

I would guess that the only people who have ever leapt for joy at the sight of a musical note on paper without hearing it are composers.  For most people, music is an expression solely existing in an aural form (i.e. it’s something we hear).

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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.  A term like “C major” is just musical jargon.  When “C Major” is said, 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).

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In other words, theory and/or analysis should always be in the service of sound.

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I think theory should have two functions – first to help us realize sounds that we want to reproduce and (to me the much more exciting option) to expose us to sounds we didn’t know were there.

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The entire concept of GuitArchitecture (presenting applied theory as a set of approaches that can be used to help access both known and unknown sounds) is why a lot of the book material is less about licks and more about approaches.  

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From a teaching perspective, it probably doesn’t matter if you can sound like me (unless that’s what you’re striving for), the important thing is developing your individual voice and being able to replicate sounds either intuitively and/or with theory is a major component of any player’s individual sound.

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Theory, then,  is just a tool.  It really isn’t anything to get tripped up on.

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