You May Need A Teacher Or Buying Something Isn’t The Same As Doing Something

Posted on March 16, 2014 by GuitArchitecture

Talkin’ Yourself Out Of A Job

There’s a study excerpt I read, (probably a link from a TED Talk page), that talked about new research that shows that when you talk to people about doing something that it has a similar chemical process in the brian as actually doing that thing.

You may have experienced this if you’ve ever gotten amped talking with your friends about something you’re going to do, resolve to start your life-changing journey the following day, and find yourself out of gas. (The band X has a great song line on the track, Lettuce and Vodka: “Last night’s judgment day is this morning’s cartoon…” that sums up this predicament well.)

Personal experience has shown me that it’s not just talk that has this effect. Education can often work this way as well.

For example, you get all excited because guitarist X has released a new book on the topic you want to know more about. You buy the book to study the material and after some initial examination of the material, you find it in the pile with the other materials that have gone neglected.

How many people buy gym memberships and then never go to a gym? It’s those same people who are often making statements like, “Yeah…I know I have a membership and everything, I really need to go….”

The Point of College

One thing that surprised me a lot about college was coming to the conclusion that what I learned at the time only accounted for a fraction of it’s value. Going to college:

Exposed me to new ideas
Honed my aesthetic and made me realize why I liked or didn’t like things
Exposed me to new players
Forced me to play with others on a higher level
Taught me how to learn.

That last one is the big ticket item in the list. You might not have to go to college to learn that lesson but you do need to devote a lot of concentrated study to learn what works for you.

For example, there were times in my life that a gym was a really good fit for me. There were times that a gym was a bad fit for me. Being a home owner now, and realizing that it was easier to clock in at home and put the time in made it a much easier decision to get a stationary bike and some weights because that worked better for me. Some people need to go to a gym to get in the proper mindset (and to have access to the right equipment) to work out.

So the first point is that everyone is different.

But, acknowledging that everyone is different, everyone starts from the beginning at multiple points in their life. In my experience, the big difference between people who stay with it and people who drop out is what and how they are learning.

A large percentage of the lessons I have taught have been correcting misinformation. For example, if left to your own devices and watching YouTube videos that tell you that even with two working legs that the “proper” way to run involves only using your left leg, you might get really skilled at running with just your left leg and be able to run with one leg faster than anyone that you come across, but not matter how much time or effort you put in, you are never going to outrun a trained athlete who runs with both legs.

It’s the same thing with technical things like picking, hand tension or fretboard attacks. Sure you can learn it wrong and get to a certain point, but you will invariably plateau and then wonder why you aren’t progressing any further.

The Flamenco Dance Master Class Lesson Scam

I’ve already posted about this, but I can tell you all about, what I believe to be, a brilliant scam that I’ve seen perpetrated by multiple Flamenco dance teachers in the states. It works like this:

A well known dancer who happens to be in town for a show advertises a master class for students through the promoter. While you might think that a master class would imply that only advanced students would attend, generally a lot of beginning and intermediate students show up and jockey for the best position in their class to see the teacher. Two things happen with this:

It automatically drops the level of the class to the lowest common denominator
It becomes very difficult to see the choreography

This is also the point in the scam to mention that typically ANY recording device will not be allowed in the class. Sometimes they’ll let you record the audio but video is generally forbidden.

Then the class is taken through some warm up exercises and then through the choreography.

Here’s the scam. Unless you’re a trained dancer familiar with the style, there is no way you will be able to get the choreography down without recording it.

Here’s the genius of this. Later, when the student is trying to figure out the choreography and getting it wrong they blame themselves for not having the ability to remember the steps.

The dance teachers know this. They’re profoundly protective of their choreography because they had to learn it the same way everyone else did. By working with their teachers repeatedly and learning the choreography slowly over time.

So, they either have two choices. They cross an item off their bucket list and go onto something else or they take more lessons and learn the pieces.

Now “scam” is a harsh term for this. The only scam aspect of it is that it presents a masters class that won’t offer a lot for most people to learn. Only a microscopic percentage of people who take an individual master class will walk away with something substantial. What this system does accomplish is perpetuating the need for a teacher.

While no one want’s to be out of a job here’s the thing:

A good teacher will teach you a skill.

A great teacher will teach you what you need to learn and a great teacher will ultimately teach him or herself out of a job because the student won’t need the teacher anymore.

While this might seem like a terrible business plan it works on numbers. Great teachers do this because there are always new students on the horizon who need to learn. And students who get what they need will refer other people to those teachers.

Buying Something Isn’t The Same As Doing Something

While there are some people who can teach themselves by picking up a book and working through the material, many people will need someone to help guide them and challenge them to get the material down.

If you pick up a book or a video and don’t make any progress, don’t despair! It may just mean that you need to schedule some lessons to get on track and have someone help guide you to get to your goals.

Buying something isn’t the same as doing something but it’s a great start!

The important thing is to figure out what works for you and then take the appropriate action.

I hope this helps!

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ps – if this applies to you and you feel like lessons may benefit you – feel free to send me an e-mail at guitar.blueprint@gmail.com for information about lessons.

The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Modes Part 12 – Getting Into Modal Arpeggios – Superimpostion

Posted on April 3, 2012 by GuitArchitecture

Hello everyone!

Greetings from NYC! While I’m still unpacking and waiting for instruments and boxes to make it here from South Pasadena I thought I’d mix and match a few ideas from my GuitArchitect’s Guide to Chord Scales book and modal arpeggios and talk about more ways to recycle things you already know!

2-string or not 2-string

(is that really the question?)

I’ve been talking a lot about 2 string arpeggios. They’re really useful things in soloing because you can take a figure like this:

and move it in octaves while keeping the same fingering.

It’s a really useful visualization tool, and a relatively easy way to cover a lot of range on the instrument.

The real secret behind this approach is how you use the arpeggio or:

“So what about this superimposition thing?”

Superimposition is simply playing one thing on top of something that’s related but not in an immediately direct way. Logic would dictate that you would play a C major 7 arpeggio over a C major chord. That’s certainly one valid use, but it’s really not superimposing the chord because their directly related (i.e. Cmaj7 and C major). Playing a C major 7 arpeggio over say a d minor or an e minor chord is getting more into what we’re talking about here.

In the examples below, I’ll be using a bass note to indicate tonality. If you have a recording of a chord (or a bass note) to play over – just play the c major 7 arpeggio over one of those – otherwise you can use your fretting hand to tap each of the notes of the arpeggio (see the glass noodles post if you’re unfamiliar with the technique) and use your picking hand to tap the bass notes in the figure (and to help mute the strings)!

If the C major 7 chord is created by stacking ascending 3rds (C, E, G, B) then we should be able to go the reverse direction using descending 3rds from the root. Going a 3rd below C gives us A which creates A, C, E, G, B or an A minor 9 arpeggio (no root):

Going a 3rd below A gives us F which implies: F (root), A (3rd), C (5th), E (7th), G (9th) and B (#4 or #11) or a F major 9 #11 arpeggio (no root, no 3rd):

(Note: This concept is explored in much more depth in the Harmonic Combinatorics book but you can get some information about the approach from the slash chords post or the recycling triads posts as well.)

You could continue on with this approach, and each time figuring out how the arpeggio functions over different chords, but there is an easier way!

The Chromatic Root Interval Chart

In The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Chord Scales, I devised a chart that would tell the reader how any chord scale would function over any root. I’ve adapted that chart and utilized it for arpeggios in this lesson. Here’s the full chart:

At first glance, this can look confusing but it’s REALLY useful for determining how scales and arpeggios (or chords) function over different tonal centers.

In the steps below, I’m going to outline every step that could be taken to visualize this, but once you understand the process, you can skip a lot of the steps and understand what’s happening almost immediately.

Let’s go back to the C maj 7 arpeggio. The formula for the arpeggio is Root (or R) 3rd, 5th and 7th. Here’s what it looks like superimposed into the chart.

I’ve taken the extra step of removing all of the information in the other columns of the chart to solely show how the Root, 3rd, and 5th of a particular chord functions over other tonal centers. It’s also important to note that this chart accommodates all possible root notes. So while sharped roots (#R) or flat roots (bR) are really heard as b2 (b9) or 7ths respectively, they’re listed here to show the functions of specific notes over tonal centers (e.g. C maj 7 arpeggio played over a C# tonality).

Okay – now let’s move the information in the chart to the key of C:

Presented this way, we can see how things function. Played over D for example – the C, E, G, B functions as a b7th, 9th, 4th (or 11th) and a 6th. As a D Dorian sound (C major over D implies D Dorian) you lose the minor 3rd but get the natural 6th flavor of the mode.

I’ll simplify the chart a little more:

Again, it’s also important to note that this chart accommodates all possible root notes. So while sharped roots (#R) or flat roots (bR) are really heard as b2 (b9) or 7ths respectively, they’re listed here to show the functions of specific notes over tonal centers (e.g. C maj 7 arpeggio played over a C# tonality). This also counts for b4 (which will be heard as a 3rd), and double flats (like bb7 which will be heard as a 6th or bb3 which will be heard as a 2nd).

From intervals to chord tones

Since this chart was initially created for chord scales, the intervals all exist within an octave. For the purposes of chords and arpeggios it’s more beneficial to think of:

2nds as 9ths
4ths as 11ths and
6ths as 13ths

I’ve converted these intervals to chord tones in the chart below:

One sound I get out of this immediately is the Ab which gives a Ab maj 7 (#5, #9 no root) sound. I’ve resolved it to Ab in the example below – but give it a shot – it takes a generic C major 7 arpeggio and gives it a shot glass of tabasco.

When I went to Berklee and got knee-deep into analysis, my teacher gave me this pearl of insight,

“Actually the whole point of harmony 1-4 [classes] is to show you how any chord can follow any other chord”.

The reality behind all of the charts and theory is, if you understand how an arpeggio functions then you’re more likely to be able to resolve it – regardless of what chord you play it over.

That’s a big picture concept – you may want to give it a second to let it sink in.

The thing to start to focus on is how things sound to you – specifically how various chord tones and intervals sound over various chords you’re using. How do you like the sound of a #4 over a major chord? Or a b9 on a minor chord? As you start to find chord tones that you like over those areas, you’ll start to find that you’ll seek those sounds out. The chart is just a shortcut for seeing how things function – but it’s reliant on what you hear.

My recommendation is take this arpeggio, play it (slowly at first) over all the tonal centers and really be aware of how the notes are functioning. And (here’s the step most people skip) if it sounds “bad” to you – find a way to resolve it (like going to the Ab in the example above). I call this the Van Halen approach, there are plenty of times that Eddie hits clams – but he finds cool ways to work them around so that you say, “wow what a cool idea” rather than “oh he botched that one”.

I’ll talk more about the importance of knowing how to “fix” things in a future post, but trust me – it’s worth spending some time on.

In the next lesson post, I’ll get into arpeggio modification slash chord stylie. It’ll be really cool and if I have my audio converters delivered in time I can even go back to posting audio clips again!

ah the joys of moving….

I hope this helps and thanks for reading!

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The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Chord Scales Is Out Now (As Well As The New 4 Book Pdf Bundle!)

Posted on March 23, 2012 by GuitArchitecture

The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Chord Scales

Update – 2/3/2013

Hello everyone! As of 2/1/2013, all of my books are available for order exclusively on my Lulu.com page and on Amazon which means that while I may run an e-book bundle offer directly in the future as of right now, unfortunately, no bundle options are available.

I’m leaving the page up for archival purposes but if you go to the Books link at the top of the page, you’ll find more detailed information about the books below and the other books in the GuitArchitect’s Guide To: series.

I’m happy to announce that the Chord Scale book is done (with the help of massive edits from John Harper and Doug Kearns – thank you both!)!

I’ll talk about it a little more below – but as a shortcut there are now 5 ways to buy the book.

(based on the 6/5/12 – pricing model)

If you would like to purchase the Chord Scales pdf (or any other individual book pdf) for $15 (usd) please click the PayPal link below. (Also, when ordering, please specify which book you’d like – The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Modes: Melodic Patterns, The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Harmonic Combinatorics, The GuitArchitect’s Positional Exploration, or The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Chord Scales).

Any 1 GuitArchitecture pdf for $15

If you would like to purchase any two book pdfs for $20 USD (and save $10 off of individual orders) please click the PayPal link below. (Also, when ordering, please specify which 2 pdfs you’d like – The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Modes: Melodic Patterns, The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Harmonic Combinatorics, The GuitArchitect’s Positional Exploration, or The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Chord Scales).

Any 2 GuitArchitecture pdfs for $20.

If you would like to purchase any three book pdfs for $30 USD (and save $15 off of individual orders) please click the PayPal link below. (Also, when ordering, please specify which 3 pdfs you’d like – The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Modes: Melodic Patterns, The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Harmonic Combinatorics, The GuitArchitect’s Positional Exploration, or The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Chord Scales).

Any 3 GuitArchitecture pdfs for $30.

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The Four-book PDF bundle (which includes The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Modes: Melodic Patterns, The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Harmonic Combinatorics, The GuitArchitect’s Positional Exploration, and The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Chord Scales) is available for $40 USD using the PayPal bundle button below. (A $20 savings off ordering the books on their own).

4 GuitArchitecture books for $40.

If you’d like a paper based version (and save yourself printing and binding costs), you can go to the link here ( Lulu.com ) to buy a nicely bound version of any of the books.

Please note:

I turn all orders around within the same day I receive payment notification.

Chord Scales is 190 pages of instruction and reference. It’s the shortest book I’ve written, but it’s just as deep as any of the other books. The big difference between this book and the other books, is that this book starts by taking one chord scale and really putting it through the ringer and demonstrating how to use it in ways that are intuitive and musical. Once the process for what to do with a chord scale is demonstrated, the book then goes on to outline all the unique chord scales from 3-12 notes!!!

The book has a lot of performance insights and presents the material in a way I believe to be truly unique (at least I’ve never seen it dealt with this way before). It’s incredible exciting to me, and while it’s been written as a soloing, compositional or improvisational resource for guitarists – it could be invaluable to musicians in general.

Here’s the front cover (more jpegs of the book can be seen below).

For more information about ordering, just skip to the bottom of the page. For those of you who want to know more about the book, just keep reading.There are a couple of posts that I’ve put up that excerpts and adapts material directly from this book. To get a sample of the book’s style you can check out :

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

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Making Music Out Of Scales

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The lulu.com page includes a preview option for the first 12 pages of the book, but I’ve included some additional jpegs of some of the Chord Scales book pages below. Since the jpegs were converted from the pdf of the book, there’s some pixelation in the jpegs that’s not present in the pdf, but these will still give you an idea of what’s in the book.

.: .

More Information:

If you’d like to find out more about the other books in the GuitArchitecture series, you may want to check out this post as well:

DIFFERENT PRICING TIERS ANNOUNCED FOR BOOK PDFS

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As I said about the books, I’m striving to create content that represents something I would be psyched to find on the web and hopefully it evokes a similar reaction in you as well.

Thanks for reading!

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GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes Part 10 – Getting into Modal Arpeggios – Triads

Posted on February 27, 2012 by GuitArchitecture

Hello everyone!!

I’ll be delving into individual modes in more depth in the coming weeks and months ahead but as a preliminary step, I wanted to get into modal arpeggios a bit as they’ll be important components in future lessons.

Scales = Chords

Since chords and scales are made up of the building blocks (notes), they are essentially 2 sides of the same coin.

For example, let’s look at an ascending C major scale on the B and E strings:

If we remove every other note of the first for notes we can see arpeggiated versions of the triads associated with those modes.

While 2-string arpeggios are often neglected by guitarists, they are certainly worth investigating for helping with visualization.

2-String Triadic Visualization

The major scale is made up of three types of triads: major, minor and diminished. Played as unique notes, any triad has three typical voicings:

Root position with the root as the bass note: (i.e. Root, 3rd, 5th)

1st inversion with the 3rd as the bass note: (i.e. 3rd, 5th, Root)

2nd inversion with the 5th as the bass note: (i.e. 5th, Root, 3rd)

Here are some sample fingerings of each of the chord types played as 2-string arpeggios in each inversion:

2-string Major Scale Triads

Now I’ll apply each of these arpeggio shapes to the C major scale starting with the root position.

As a reminder here are the triads of the C major scale.

Since the fingerings are on 2-strings, they’ll be the same on the E/A, D/G and B/e strings.

Here are the arpeggios in 1st inversion. Again, since the fingerings are on 2-strings, they’ll be the same on the E/A and B/e strings as well.

C major scale triads in 1st inversion ascending by scale degree

And finally, here are the arpeggios in 2nd inversion.

Putting it together positionally

At the top of the page, I showed how I extracted arpeggios from ascending 2 string patterns. This same process can be applied positionally. For example, here’s a 3-note per string C major scale played in 8th position.

Now I’ll apply each of these arpeggio shapes to the C major scale starting with the root position. To create a modal arpeggio, simply remove every other note. Doing so with this scale creates a C Ionian modal arpeggio.

Modal arpeggios are sonically cool because they convey the full sound of the mode but break it out of a scalar pattern.

Modal arpeggios are cool in this method, because if you can visualize a scale then making the arpeggio is relatively easy.

The trouble with Ionian

The “problem” with the Ionian mode in general is that the natural 4th is an avoid tone over major 7th chords with the same root. (i.e. C Ionian played over C maj7). For this reason, I generally avoid Ionian as a mode and instead focus on the major scale for visualization purposes.

With that in mind, here ‘s another approach for using this arpeggio.

I really dig playing this particular arpeggio over D minor – to create a D Dorian type of sound. In the example below, I’ve used the C and the E pitches on the low E string to encircle the D (one note above and one below) to help emphasize the D minor 13 sound of the arpeggio and end it on the 9th.

The final visualization trick

If we look at the positional arpeggio again:

Take a close look at the positional modal arpeggio! If you look at it as a group of 3-note shapes you’ll see that it’s actually made of of 3 triadic arpeggios: C Major, B diminished and A minor.

C Ionian = C maj + B dim + A min

Going back to the 2-string scalar observation in part 3 of this post, as the pitches ascend, the related arpeggios descend. This is true of any of the modal arpeggios – so it might be a cool way for you to visualize it! Try it with your own arpeggio forms!

In the next post, I’ll go through 7th chord arpeggios. In the meantime, try practicing the 2-string arpeggios over all of the chords of the C major scale:

C maj 7
D min 7
E min 7
F maj 7
G7
A min 7
B min7 b5

and then over whatever other tonal centers inspire youI hope this helps! As always, thanks for reading!

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PS – if you like this post, you may also like:

Books:

Lessons

The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Modes Part 9 – Visualizing Melodic and Harmonic Minor

Posted on February 4, 2012 by GuitArchitecture

A while ago, I had posted that given an hour, I could get almost anyone at an intermediate level to visualize any of the Major, Melodic Minor or Harmonic Minor modes anywhere on the guitar. In this overdue return to the serialization of the guide to modes book – I guess this is my put up or shut up moment. ; ) Since this is print as a pixel based medium – I’m going to cover it in a lot more detail than I might normally in, say a 1/2 hour lesson.

As a precursor, all of the information here works off of the 2-string (3 note-per string) pattern visualization method that I’ve covered in parts 3a and 3b of this series, if any of the initial shapes (or connecting ideas) in this post seem confusing, just go back and review the following:

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 3B – Seeing The Six-String Major Scale

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 3A – Seeing The Six-String Major Scale

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 2 – Seeing The Two String Major Scale

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 1 – Seeing The Single String Major Scale

A Pedagogical note (taken from part 2)

Since the initial emphasis of this lesson series is on sonic visualization and making sense out of 2-string and positional fingerings, I’m only dealing with visualizing parent scales (Major, Melodic Minor or Harmonic Minor in this case) as a whole here.

While modes are always associated with a chord or a chord progression, I’m limiting harmonic options only to C Major/Melodic Minor/Harmonic Minor for now.

Extremely important elements in this process, such as harmony, modal interchange, arpeggios, individual modes and actual music making are the topics for other posts. Having said that, it is important to state again, that modes (or any scale), in and of themselves, are not music but are only a tool in making music. Anything I post here should always be filtered through your own aesthetic and utilized, adapted or even ignored accordingly (i.e. take what works for you).

With that in mind here’s a review of much of the information as it relates to C major. For the Melodic and Harmonic minor shapes – just skip down to the next section.

Major Scale/Modal Visualization Review

The guitar fingerboard can be divided into 3 sets of two strings. Any 2-string fingering pattern that starts on the B string can be moved to the same starting pitch on the D or the low E string and keep the same fingering.

The major scale can be broken down into seven two-string modes that follow a specific order based on its scale degree from the parent scale (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian). The two-string patterns are modular and can be adapted to positional playing (see rules above).

The modular 2 string modal shapes I use look like this (The numbers represent fingers).

Here’s a C major scale played on only the B and E strings:

Comparing the initial shapes to the ascending pattern, the positional patterns can be broken down into the seven 2-string modal fingerings that ascend in sequential order (i.e. C Ionian, D Dorian, E Phrygian, F Lydian, G Mixolydian, A Aeolian and B Locrian).

Since the two-string patterns are modular they can also be adapted to positional playing. So if we look at a C Major scale played in the 8th position and starting from C:

This 6-string fingering can be seen as containing three distinct patterns:

Two-string sets of C Ionian

Here are the important things you need to know for visualizing this:

As the fingering pattern ascends across the strings,

the six note modal fingerings descend to the next modal pattern.

Like wise, as the fingering pattern descends across the strings,

the six-note modal fingerings ascend to the next modal pattern.

This is true of any 2-string pattern.

Adapting Major shapes to create Melodic and Harmonic Minor fingerings

I’ve talked before about the modal microscope and seeing things on the parent major level. The advantage of this comes into play right here. First, let’s take another look at a C major scale played in the 8th position again:

Here’s the audio.

Note:

In all the audio examples, I’ve played the example first as sextuplets – then at a slower tempo (i.e. 16ths) – then as sextuplets again.

Each mode is associated with chords as well. Here’s a chart of the triad and 7th chords for C Major:

In all of the chord examples below, I’ve taken sample diatonic 7th chord shapes for the E, D, G and B strings with the roots on the low E string. These are certainly not the only way to play these chords, but if you’re not familiar with the voicings they’re not a bad place to start. Also, while I’ve notated each chord as a 1/4 note, I’ve held each chord for 2 bar lengths (i.e. 8 beats) to be able to play the scale patterns against.

Also, distortion tends to wash out chords with larger voicings, so for all the examples in this exercise, I’ve used a clean setting courtesy of Scuffham Amps.

Melodic Minor

To visualize Melodic Minor Patterns – simply flat the 3rd of the Parent Major scale.

(i.e. to visualize C Melodic Minor just play C major but change every E to Eb).

It’s important to note that all of the fingering conventions mentioned here are solely to assist with visualization. Melodic and Harmonic Minor really aren’t directly related to the Major scale sonically.

Melodic Minor short cuts:

Using the Parent Major patterns above here’s a list of short cut’s to help you visualize the patterns.

Note: in the F Lydian shape – there’s no change from the major shape since there’s no Eb in the 2-string pattern.

Here’s the initial melodic pattern with the modified major fingerings written above the 2-string shapes:

Here are the diatonic triads and 7th chords.

Try playing the initial C Melodic Minor shape over any of these chords..

Harmonic Minor

To visualize Harmonic Minor Patterns – simply flat the 3rd and the 6th of the Parent Major scale.

(i.e. to visualize C Harmonic Minor just play C major but change every E to Eb and every A to Ab).

Here are the pattern adaptations. In a situation like this, it can get confusing to remember a formula like “Dorian b2, b5” so as an alternative you may just want to try remembering something like “Pattern 1” for Ionian b3, b6, “Pattern 2” for Dorian b2, b5, etc.

Here’s the same scale pattern – I left off Pattern 6 by mistake but the sequence is Ionian b3, b6 (Pattern 1 ), Locrian b4 (Pattern 7) and Ionian b5, bRoot (Pattern 6). You can really see this if you compare it to the initial major patterns.

Here are the diatonic triads and 7th chords:

Try playing the initial C Harmonic Minor shape over any of these chords…

Performance Notes:

This whole process just a short cut for a visualization process to see C Major/Melodic Minor/Harmonic Minor on the fingerboard. In parts 3a and 3b of this series, I’ve provided every C major positional fingering. As a first step, you should consider adapting each of those fingerings to Melodic and Harmonic Minor. After you get the shapes under your fingers, try moving them to other keys as well.

In addition to using a time keeping device of some kind (like a metronome, drum loop, etc) playing along to a chord or a bass note will help establish tonality and help associate each pattern with a sound). I’ll get more into application in further lessons, but for now try playing the patterns over any of the bass notes or chords in the mp3s and once you get familiar with the chord shapes, try writing tunes or solos with the material.

Technical Notes:

While it’s natural to want to progress quickly, trying to play too quickly too soon results in excess hand tension which will increase the difficulty of what you’re trying to play. Fluidity comes from focused, relaxed repetition.

Fretting hand: When playing these patterns, practice using just the fingertip to fret the notes and use the minimum amount of tension needed for the note to sound cleanly. Additionally, try to keep the fingers down on the strings when playing and remove them from the string only when necessary.

Picking Hand: Try using the above picking pattern on the top two strings or alternate picking.

Practice the scale ascending and descending and really focus on clarity of notes, hand tension and timing. Even many intermediate to advanced players can gain something by really focusing on making clean transitions between the fingering shapes.

Isolate problem areas and work out. You’re not going to be able to play the sequence cleanly if any of the individual components aren’t 100%. This isn’t a bad thing. Things you develop over time are more likely to stay with you (and thus be accessible when you’re improvising).

Musical:

Making music from the patterns is a whole other skill set, but you need to know where to put your fingers on the strings while you bend, slide and phrase your way into making music. Having said that, since the visualization process doesn’t take that long, as soon as you get the shapes down I’d recommend to start manipulating them to try to make them more musical to your ear. See Part 2 of this series for more specifics or the making music out of scales post for some suggestions for how to do this.

Like I said before, I’ll be going deeper into using these scales (and using them in other harmonic contexts) in future posts. With any lesson material, I recommend you just go through the lesson at your own pace and return as you need to. Please feel free to post any questions you might have (or pm me at guitar.blueprint@gmail.com).

I hope this helps. As always, thanks for reading!

-SC

P.S. If you like this post – you may also like:

Books:

The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Modes: Harmonic Combinatorics “Pre-Release” Now Available

THE GUITARCHITECT’S POSITIONAL EXPLORATION PRE-RELEASE NOW AVAILABLE

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES: MELODIC PATTERNS BOOK “PRE-RELEASE” NOW AVAILABLE

LESSONS

Modes:

The Modal Microscope And A Sequenced Arpeggio Approach

Slash and Burn – Creating More Complex Sounds With Slash Chords

The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes Part 8 – Major Positional Modal Interchange and Complimenting Modes with Chords

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 7 – MINOR POSITIONAL MODAL INTERCHANGE AND COMPLIMENTING MODES WITH CHORDS

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 6 – THE CIRCLE OF 5THS AND MODAL INTERCHANGE

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 5 – MAKING THE MOST OF ONE PATTERN

The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Modes Part 4 – Modes and Chords

.

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 3B – SEEING THE SIX-STRING MAJOR SCALE

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 3A – SEEING THE SIX-STRING MAJOR SCALE

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 2 – SEEING THE TWO STRING MAJOR SCALE

The GuitArchitecture Guide To Modes Part 1 – Seeing The Single String Major Scale

Making Music Out Of Scales

Pentatonics:

Making Sense Of The Pentatonic Scale – Diagonal Forms – Part Two

MAKING SENSE OF THE PENTATONIC SCALE – DIAGONAL FORMS – PART ONE

Free Sweeping Pentatonic Minor Scale Lesson on Live4Guitar.com now online

2 STRING SHAPES OR MAKING SENSE OF THE PENTATONIC MINOR SCALE

THE BAKER’S DOZEN APPROACH TO PENTATONIC SCALES

GUITARCHITECTURE, SONIC VISUALIZATION AND A PENTATONIC APPROACH FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Chords/Triads/Superimposition/Arpeggios:

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

AUGMENT YOUR KNOWLEDGE: SONIC SHAPES AND GETTING MORE FROM AUGMENTED CHORDS

Slash and Burn – Creating More Complex Sounds With Slash Chords

GETTING HIPNESS FROM A MAJOR TRIAD OR MORE CHORD RECYCLING PART 3

Getting Hipness From A Major Triad Or More Chord Recycling Part 2

GETTING HIPNESS FROM A MAJOR TRIAD OR MORE CHORD RECYCLING PART 1

.

Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 3

Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 2

GETTING THROUGH THE GIG – NEGOTIATING A CHORD CHART PART 1

RECYCLING CHORDS PART II: TRIAD TRANSFORMATION

RECYCLING CHORDS PART I OR WHERE’S THE ROOT?

.

FAVORED CURRY OR SPICING UP CHORD SCALES AND TRIADS PART 2

FAVORED CURRY OR SPICING UP CHORD SCALES AND TRIADS PART 1

RECYCLING SHAPES OR MODULAR ARPEGGIOS FOR FUN AND PROFIT

GLASS NOODLES – ADAPTING A PHILIP GLASS ARPEGGIO APPROACH TO GUITAR

.

Practicing:

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

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

Visualizing Video Game Licks Or An Intro To Symmetrical 12 Tone Guitar Patterns

Posted on January 14, 2012 by GuitArchitecture

Hello everyone!

Update: My updated 12-tone pattern book is out! I want to give you a precursor by showing you a cool approach to working 12-tone ideas into your playing. This is a really long lesson because it’s tough to distill 200+ pages of material into a web post, but just take it in bite sized chunks and come back to it as you need to and I’m sure you’ll get something from it.

First, a little bit about the book!

The physical book and the e-book pdf are available on Lulu.com or on Amazon.com (or any of the international Amazon sites).

Symmetrical Twelve Tone Patterns is a 284 page book with a large reference component and about 100 pages of extensive notated examples and instruction.

What makes this book different (apart from the cover) and what I’m most excited about offering is a bundle of files that will help readers maximize material in the book. The bundle contains:

Guitar Pro files of all the examples in the book (in GP6 and GP5 format). For those of you unfamiliar with this musical notation, tablature platform and playback program, having Guitar Pro files means that the reader can hear the examples without having a guitar handy and can work as a phrase trainer to help the reader get the examples to up to speed.

MIDI files of the musical examples.

PDFs of the musical examples.

MP3s of all the musical examples (again, exported from the same material).

Symmetrical Twelve-Tone Patterns presents 12-tone patterns in both improvisational and compositional contexts. It shows how to create various intervallic lines and creates the outline of a tune and dissects how all the parts were created using this method. If you’re looking for ways to explore new avenues in playing or in your writing this is the book for you!

Fire up the video game

When I heard the Praxis Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis) record, I was blown away with Buckethead’s playing. It also came at a time that I was getting into a lot of 12-tone music and trying to figure out how to adapt those things to guitar and his intervallic/atonal tapping ideas in particular seemed to go in a completely different direction that the 12-tone ideas I heard Jason Becker and Marty Friedman throw into their playing.

Public Service Announcement (i.e. a brief note about playing out):

Playing out just means playing note choices outside of a given tonality. By its very nature, playing out requires an ability to play “in” because it requires a contextual contrast. So my suggestion is that you make sure you develop your ability to play in a tonality as well as outside of it. (Also as a FYI – playing out is easy, but musicians are often judged by how musically they get back in).

Every once in a while, I get a hankerin’ for what I call “video game licks” (or symmetrical interval legato licks with a lot of gain and an unclear harmony). Shawn Lane could veer into that territory when he wanted to but for me, Buckethead is pretty much the king of this approach.

In the lick below, I’ve worked all 12 tones into a two-handed idea that uses pick and fret hand tapping. I’ve kept it short so that you can focus on the coordination between both hands, but I’ve included a longer version of the lick after it. As the lick uses all 12 tones, it doesn’t belong to any one key so try playing it over various chords or riffs of your choosing.

Technical Notes:

If you want to get this lick under your fingers, pay attention to the 3 T’s (hand tension, timing and tone) as you practice this.

Try to make sure that the motion from the fingers for striking the strings comes from the large knuckle of the hand (for more information on this see the glass noodles post).

The pattern is a variation on the tapping figure Greg Howe uses in kick it all over. It’s written in groups of 6 to fit into one bar – but just practice it slowly as triplets to get the initial speed and coordination down.

I never got into muti-finger tapping on phrases like this one (I just use the middle finger of the picking hand while I hold the pick with the index finger and thumb), but using the ring, middle and first finger on the picking hand for the upper register tapping you could probably work the phrase up to a tempo 30 bmp faster than this one.

Short lick faster

Short lick slower

Here’s an extended variation that moves the fingering pattern to the B and D strings. While the pattern doesn’t keep all of the same intervals as the first example, it has enough continuity to sound like the same 12 tone idea. One recommendation I have is not to get into the dogmatic practice of having to use all twelve tones. If 10 notes work well, use ten notes. In any process like this, use the rules that work for you and discard the rest.

While not notated, this pattern uses all of the same fingerings and note attacks as the first example.

Longer lick faster

Longer lick slower

Here’s how I’m visualizing this and how you can generate a lot of ideas from this one approach.

The 12-tone pattern vs the 12 tone row

When I first got into 12 tone music and tried to think of a way to incorporate it into improvising, I grabbed some Webern and Berg tone rows (in an over-simplified description – a tone row is a restructured chromatic scale that is used for melodic and harmonic material) and tried improvising with them.

It was pretty dismal.

I found them really hard to improvise with because the row material was difficult to memorize and the number of notes made it difficult to use in an improvisation and then I thought about generating 12-tone patterns instead of working with rows.

Patterns can be useful in improvisation because:

they can be used to generate motifs, or themes
they can be manipulated in real-time and
they can establish recognizable elements of control in an improvisation.

The other advantage of a pattern is that its intervallic consistency adds an internal drive to melodic ideas. The notes of the pattern move in and out of various tonalities, so it sounds “out” but not random (although you can modify it to be as random as you’d like.

In the 12 tone pattern book I wrote, I used a chromatic scale as a template for generating symmetrical patterns for improvisation. Intervallically uniform, the 12 notes of the chromatic scale are evenly divisible by the numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12. Since divisions of 1 and 12 do not divide the row into a more useable set, they can be ignored. This leaves:

6 equal divisions:

(of a descending chromatic scale staring on C)

C B / Bb A /Ab G /Gb F / E Eb / D Db

Taking the first note of each division gives us:

C, Bb, Ab, Gb/F#, E, D

aka: Whole tone scale (any note root)

A 12-tone pattern can be created by putting notes in between the notes of the whole tone scale. Note that the intervals between all the 2-note divisions are symmetrical.

C B / Bb A /Ab G /Gb F / E Eb / D Db

C A / Bb G /Ab F /Gb Eb / E Db / D B

C G / Bb F /Ab Eb /Gb Db / E B / D A

C F / Bb Eb /Ab Db /Gb B / E A / D G

C Eb/ Bb Db /Ab B /Gb A / E G / D F

C Db/ Bb B /Ab A /Gb G / E F / D Eb

One advantage to symmetrical patterns is that they work off of divisions you probably already know. If you can visualize a whole-tone scale, for example, filling in the other notes of the pattern becomes relatively easy.

4 equal divisions of the row:

C B Bb /A Ab G / Gb F E / Eb D Db

aka: C, Eb, Gb, A (Bbb)

aka: Diminished 7 chord (any note root)

3 equal divisions of the row:

C B Bb A /Ab G Gb F / E Eb D Db

aka: C E G#

aka:Augmented triad (any note root)

2 equal divisions of the row yields:

C B Bb A Ab G / (Gb/F#) F E Eb D Db

aka: Tritone interval either note could be root

Using the divisions to create a 12-tone pattern

Here’s how I came up with the original example. Using a diminished 7th chord as a starting point, the rest of the twelve tones could be filled in by playing three additional notes off each chord tone. Let’s say you have D diminished 7th chord (since any note in a diminished 7th chord can be a root it’s also a B, F and Ab diminished 7th chord).

B D F Ab

By adding 3 notes not already in use to each starting pitch you can create a 12-tone row. If you work out the same intervals on these notes you get a symmetrical twelve-tone pattern.

B (Perfect 5th down) E, (minor 2nd down) D#

D (Perfect 5th down) G, (minor 2nd down) F#

F (Perfect 5th down) Bb, (minor 2nd down) A

Ab (Perfect 5th down) Db, (minor 2nd down) C

Adapting it to guitar

Where this gets cool part 1:

If we restructure the order of the first notes we get two tritones a minor 3rd apart. Since the E and G strings are a minor 3rd apart this means that the fingering pattern will be the same on both sets of strings.

Where this gets cool part 2:

As I’ve mentioned before, using standard tuning the guitar can be visualized as three sets of strings tuned in 4ths. So this means that the same fingering can be used to generate the same intervals on the G and D strings.

From here, you can see where the approach for the first lick came from.

Taking it further

Another nice thing about patterns is that they’re easy to manipulate and draw other ideas from. Let’s take a look at the first 12 notes:

You can change the last four notes to create new lines.

Here are these two ideas in notation and tab.

You could apply the same two-handed idea we’ve been looking at to any of these patterns or, better yet, apply your own!

Here are the last two patterns starting with F-Bb

The next step is to change the middle notes of the pattern.

This creates 4 new patterns that start with F-E-A, F-E-Eb/D#, F-E-C and F-E-F#.

Here’s the same idea applied to F-C#/Db

And finally, patterns starting with F-G.

To sum up, that’s 16 very different licks all pulled from one approach and one initial pattern. This is really the tip of the iceberg for this concept but as you can see, you really don’t need more than one approach to get the ideas flowing and use them on your own.

Note:

Sometimes you get an idea and think that you’re doing something unique. You get all excited about it until (if you’re me) you realize that Dave Creamer addressed many of these points back in the June 1989 issue of Guitar Player. Dave’s article inspired me to continue to research this book and try to present similar material my own way.

* (I should also mention in passing that (with the better part of a year’s worth of research) – The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Symmetrical 12-Tone Patterns shows all possible symmetrical patterns for the 2, 3, 4 and 6 note divisions above.)

I hope this helps and thanks for reading!

-SC

The physical book and the e-book pdf are available on Lulu.com or on Amazon.com (or any of the international Amazon sites)

Symmetrical Twelve Tone Patterns is a 284 page book with a large reference component and about 100 pages of extensive notated examples and instruction.

What makes this book different (apart from the cover) and what I’m most excited about offering is a bundle of files that will help readers maximize material in the book. The bundle contains:

Guitar Pro files of all the examples in the book (in GP6 and GP5 format). For those of you unfamiliar with this musical notation, tablature platform and playback program, having Guitar Pro files means that the reader can hear the examples without having a guitar handy and can work as a phrase trainer to help the reader get the examples to up to speed.

MIDI files of the musical examples.

PDFs of the musical examples.

MP3s of all the musical examples (again, exported from the same material).

I like physical books and the softbound version looks really good on my music stand – but I understand that some people like pdfs. The softbound copy GuitArchitect’s Guide To Symmetrical Twelve-Tone Patterns is $35 (though it’s currently selling for $31.50 on Amazon) and the e-book pdf is $15. Both are available from The GuitArchitecture Product page on Lulu.

Creating Chords And Lines From Any Scale – A Harmonic Combinatorics / Spread Voicings Lesson

Posted on December 18, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

Hello everyone!

I wanted to post a lesson up that uses one of my approaches to harmonizing scales from my Harmonic Combinatorics book. It’s a cool way to not only get away from stock voicings but also to generate new lines as well!

I’m using C Major as the tonal center for this lesson but the approach can (and probably should be) be adapted to any scale.

A couple of lessons ago, I talked about the modal microscope – which was a term I used to discuss examining modes on multiple levels and the advantage of viewing modes as subsets of a parent scale. Before I get into the harmonization approach I want to expand on this idea of the microscope analogy and apply it to harmony.

The Harmonic Microscope

If I harmonize a parent major scale in the key of C, I’ll end up with the following chords on each scale degree.

So if you’re playing in the key of C and want to get into more harmonic depth on an E minor chord, it’s time to reach into your chord bag and pull out your stock minor 11 (b9, b13) voicing. Oh, you don’t have one? Don’t worry – most guitarists don’t. Learning stock voicings and inversions for this specific chord form probably isn’t the best use of your time anyway.

Using the microscope analogy, this is really looking at the chord on a 2x setting.

Here’s the 1x setting for this example:

playing any combination of the notes from C Major over the root E creates some variant of an

E min / min7 / min7 (b9) / min 11 (b9, b13) chord.

And here’s the bigger picture:

Once you are aware of the types of sounds that are created from various chord types, you can start thinking about chords and chord voicings on the macro (i.e. parent scale) level. This means that if I’m playing over a D minor chord and using notes from the C major scale, I don’t have to analyze each indidual chord because I know it’s all under some type of generic D minor 7/minor 9/minor 11 or minor 13 umbrella.

Harmonic Combinatorics

Harmonic Combinatorics refers to a process of identifying “countable discrete structures” harmonically. In other words, it examines unique combinations of notes on all of the possible string combinations for the purposes of develop harmonic and melodic possibilities. One way to do this is through a method that I use to generate unique ideas through a process that some people refer to as spread voicings.

A Systematic Method For Harmonizing Any Scale Or Mode On The Guitar

It’s important to state at the outset that the method I’m employing is only one possible way to approach this exploration. I’ve taken this approach to maximize the number of unique voicings, but you should feel free to take any of the rules that I’ve applied to this approach (like eliminating octaves) with a grain of salt. The object is to gain new sounds – so change the patterns here in whatever ways necessary.

Here’s an approach that will give you more voicings and lines than you might have thought possible.

Step 1: Write out a scale and write the scale degree under each note.

(Example: C Major)

Step 2: On a blank chord sheet – write out the scale degrees on each string up to the 5^th fret.

(To clarify: The numbers on the left hand side of the diagram are the fret numbers ).

Step 3: Starting with the lowest note on the lowest string, write out all the initial voicing of all possible 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 note harmonies by scale degree on different string sets.

For example, if I was looking at the G, B and high E strings, some sample initial voicings would be

573, 574, 576, 513, 514, 516, 523, 524, 526, 534, 536

673, 674, 675, 613, 623

713, 723

173, 174, 175, 176, 123

You may have noticed that I skipped some voicings:

If you want to save some time and increase the number of unique chords try the following parameters:

No doubling of chord tones (Ex. 363). (Again – if you like that sound – use it! but the point of this process is to generate unique voicings with unique notes.)

At least one note in the voicing has to be the lowest on a string. If you look at 614 on the G, B and high E strings you’ll see that it’s really the second voicing of 573 on the frets below it. Having at least one note be the bottom note on any string will help ensure that you’re not just working out voicings that you may have already done.

The highest fret to be used in the first voicing is the 5^th fret. This last step is going to produce some voicings that aren’t playable on the lower frets, but might work in the upper registers.

Step 4: Select a string set and move the voicing in scale-wise motion up the strings to the octave.

For the purposes of this lesson – I’m going to focus primarily on 3 string groups, but this idea is applicable on any 2-6 string set of strings. (It’s worth mentioning that – Harmonic Combinatorics does all the work for this process for all string sets – (it’s also why it’s over 400 pages long!!)).

(Again, while this book follows this process through the key of C Major, this process can be applied to any tonal center.)

I’ve written out an example based on the D, G and B string set (i.e. 432) and gone with an initial voicing of a F, G and D (or 452).

(Note: The reason I start with numbers instead of notes is 1. It’s a lot easier to see if I’ve missed a number in a sequence when working these things out and 2. It eliminates the initial step of wondering what harmony I’m creating. This is simply a process that I’ve used with good results. If the numbering is weird for you, just use what works for you.)

This creates seven different voicings which could be played as a modal chord progression, used as the basis for a melodic idea or even isolated into individual chords. If this process yields even one chord that you like it’s worthwhile.

The function of the voicings will depend on the root. If you want to dig deeper into this area, you can use other notes as a root (note Harmonic Combinatorics includes a chart which shows all chord tones based on scale degree). I’ve posted the sound of the chords being played against an A root below. A was picked as a root because it’s an open string, but you could just as easily tap any note from the C major scale to create various modal sounds:

Playing C as the bass note will give you C Ionian sounds
Playing D as the bass note will give you D Dorian sounds
Playing E as the bass note will give you E Phrygian sounds
Playing F as the bass note will give you F Lydian sounds
Playing G as the bass note will give you G Mixolydian sounds
Playing A as the bass note will give you A Aeolian sounds
Playing B as the bass note will give you B Locrian sounds

Check out these chord sounds over A. In addition to possible comping ideas, these can be arpeggiated for melodic ideas as well.

A few notes on working with voicings

Here are some additional points to consider when using this process:

Common sense is your friend. If a chord seems difficult to play:

there is almost always an easier way to play it on another string set.

.
Since the voicings presented are in the key of C Major with no sharps or flats, the information (and approach) here is easily adaptable to other scales, modes etc…

If you find a voicing in C Major you like, just move it to whatever other key you’re playing in.

To create all of the C Melodic Minor (i.e. Jazz Minor) voicings – just change any E to Eb.

To create all of the C Harmonic Minor voicings – just change any E to Eb and any A to Ab.

Now I’ll talk about making melodic lines from this material.

Melodic Variations

As I mentioned earlier, these voicings can be played as melodies simply by playing the notes one at a time. In The GuitArchitect’s Positional Exploration and the GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Melodic Patterns, I’ve outlined a series of methods for generating melodic variations. But since this approach is about combining things, it makes sense to at least look at some melodic possibilities with regards to note choice. I’ve decided to take a three-note voicing as it offers enough possibilites to be interesting, but not too many to be over-whelming and have chosen this pattern simply because I like the first voicing.

It sounds a little deceptive if you play it as is. This is because the first voicing is actually a G major chord in 1st inversion (i.e. with B in the bass). Here it is with the root of each chord added to the low E string (Try working them out and playing them!! There are come challenging chords there.)

but when you play it with the B as the lowest note it sounds like a B minor with the b3rd on the B string.

If you play it without harmonic backing, try changing any F natural to F # and it should sound more pleasing to you.

“Variety is the spice of life”

There are six unique melodic variations of any three-note chord or pattern.

These numbers represent note order. Assigning 1 as the lowest note and 3 as the highest – here are the unique variations on the first three notes.

Applying this idea, one possibility for 123 looks like this:

Two things to consider:

1. I’ve notated this as triplets for ease of reading, but the very first thing you should probably do (after getting the notes under your fingers is look for a more musical phrasing).

2. Again, if you play this without harmonic backing this may sound more “right” to you:

Alternating groups of 123 and 321 for each chord produces:

Combining the first 2 chords into a 6-note pattern allows even more flexibility. Here, I’ve moved the number order around and made a more interesting line.

One part of this phrase has caught my ear:

When I add a low E root, I get a cool little Phrygian phrase (with a couple of notes snuck in on the high E string).

The GuitArchitect’s Positional Exploration and the GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Melodic Patterns, has a systematic approach to exploring these types of variations. Having said that, those of you who want to do the work, could just write down a collection of numbers and apply them to different ideas and see what happens.

The first important thing, however, is to experiment with different rhythms (including rests!), phrasings (like slides, hammer-on/pull offs) and make some music out this raw material.

The second important thing to consider is that with any approach like this you should:

take the things you like

use them in what you’re currently working on (songs, solos, etc)

make what you keep part of your sound and discard (or ignore) what you don’t use.

I cover some other approaches and break down the theory a little more in depth in Harmonic Combinatorics but I hope this lesson here helps and if you like this idea – you should check out the book (if you haven’t already)!

Thanks for reading!

-SC

If you like this post you may also like:

.

Books:

The Modal Microscope And A Sequenced Arpeggio Approach

Slash and Burn – Creating More Complex Sounds With Slash Chords

Making Music Out Of Scales

.

Chords/Triads/Superimposition/Arpeggios:

AUGMENT YOUR KNOWLEDGE: SONIC SHAPES AND GETTING MORE FROM AUGMENTED CHORDS

.

GETTING HIPNESS FROM A MAJOR TRIAD OR MORE CHORD RECYCLING PART 3

Getting Hipness From A Major Triad Or More Chord Recycling Part 2

GETTING HIPNESS FROM A MAJOR TRIAD OR MORE CHORD RECYCLING PART 1

.

Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 3

Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 2

GETTING THROUGH THE GIG – NEGOTIATING A CHORD CHART PART 1

.

RECYCLING CHORDS PART II: TRIAD TRANSFORMATION

RECYCLING CHORDS PART I OR WHERE’S THE ROOT?

.

FAVORED CURRY OR SPICING UP CHORD SCALES AND TRIADS PART 2

FAVORED CURRY OR SPICING UP CHORD SCALES AND TRIADS PART 1

.

RECYCLING SHAPES OR MODULAR ARPEGGIOS FOR FUN AND PROFIT

GLASS NOODLES – ADAPTING A PHILIP GLASS ARPEGGIO APPROACH TO GUITAR

.

The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes Part 8 – Major Positional Modal Interchange and Complimenting Modes with Chords

Posted on October 15, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

Welcome to the part eight of the GuitArcitecture Mode Visualization lesson series.

If you see anything unfamiliar here, you may want to check out:

part one,

part two,

part 3a

part 3b

part 4

part 5

part 6 or

part 7 of the series

In the last lesson, I took a look at adapting minor chords to modes and modal interchange. In this lesson – I’m going to apply the same process to major chords.

Note:

I’ve outlined this process thoroughly in part 7, so if you have questions – just check the instructions there.

One Chord Modal Interchange Exercise – Major

Of the parent major scale modes I’ve been covering – there are 3 that can be used over an A major chord:

A Lydian (E major):

A Lydian – Click to enlarge

A Ionian (A Major):

A Ionian – Click to enlarge

A Mixolydian (D major):

A Mixolydian – Click to enlarge

Here’s the major-based chord progression:

Repeat each bar 2-4 times ** Click to enlarge**

Here are the steps (repeated from Part 7):

Record or loop the pattern in time

Playing over the loop practice switching modes each bar. I’ve outlined the fingerings above (see earlier posts in the series if you want to see how I derived them) with a sample rhythm. As an initial step – just practice ascending and descending the patterns in a scalar fashion.

As the level of familiarity with the modal interchanges increases, try removing the repeats and increasing the tempo (thus increasing the difficulty level).

Note:

Make sure you don’t start every bar with the low A root!

The goal of this is to be able to switch between modes “mid-stream”. As a first step, when playing these ascending and descending make sure that wherever you are in the pattern ascending or descending that you transition into the next mode smoothly. The initial goal here isn’t speed – it’s fluidity and being in control of switching between modes.

(See the melodic note below for some other tips once you get comfortable with the transition).

Now let’s examine each chord (and mode) individually:

First measure: A Major

A Major – Play A Lydian, A Ionian or A Mixolydian – Click to enlarge

The modes could be played over this chord are:

A Lydian (recommended), A Ionian (be careful of the 4th) and A Mixolydian

Measure 2: A Major 7

Lowering the root to G# creates an A major 7 chord – which works with either A Lydian or A Ionian.

A Major 7 – Play A Lydian or A Ionian – Click to enlarge

Measure 3: Lowering the G# to G produces an A7 – stick with A Mixolydian for this one.

A7 – Play A Mixolydian – Click to enlarge

Measure 4: I’m going to start the process of chromatically ascending certain pitches rather than descending. So I’ll go back to A Major here.

Measure 5: Raising the 3rd (C#) a 1/2 step to D produces an Asus4 chord. The #4 in Lydian will clash with the natural 4th – so go with Ionian or Mixolydian for this one.

A sus4 – Play A Ionian or A Mixolydian – Click to enlarge

Measure 6: Raising the 4th another 1/2 step results in an A major (add #11) – a chord firmly in the domain of A Lydian.

A Major (add #11) – Play A Lydian – Click to enlarge

The chord progression then goes back to A major where any of the 3 modes could be used.

Notes:

Harmonic – If you’re playing with another musician try taking this one chord vamp idea and using your ear to change the chord when the soloist changes modes. You can make other chordal alterations as well creating melodic movement in the voicing – is a great approach to use both in comping on a single chord as well as creating melodic movement between 2 chords (more on that in another lesson).

Melodic – As the soloist in this approach – try to change modes then the rhythm player changes chords. As soon as you get comfortable with the shapes – try making melodies and taking them through each modal change. (See part 5 for an example of that process with one modal shape).

The nice thing about playing with human beings (rather than sequences) is that people can introduce random factors into playing. A person can make all kinds of melodic or harmonic decisions that require the other person to change and adapt. It develops a dialog and allows people to become more attune to playing with other people (and ultimately more musical).

The next lesson will cover a go a little deeper into modal chord progressions and offer some new challenges. As before, just go through the lesson at your own pace and return to it as you need to. Also please feel free to post any questions you might have (or pm me at guitar.blueprint@gmail.com).

I hope this helps and as always, thanks for reading!

-SC

P.S. If you like this post – you may also like:

.

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 7 – MINOR POSITIONAL MODAL INTERCHANGE AND COMPLIMENTING MODES WITH CHORDS

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 6 – THE CIRCLE OF 5THS AND MODAL INTERCHANGE

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 5 – MAKING THE MOST OF ONE PATTERN

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 4 – MODES AND CHORDS

.

Making Music Out Of Scales

A BRIEF THOUGHT ABOUT MUSIC THEORY

.

PRACTICE MAKES BETTER AKA PRACTICING PART I

PROPER POSTURE IS REQUIRED FOR PROPER PERFORMANCE – PRACTICING PART II

TENSION AND THE SODA CAN OR PRACTICING PART III

DEFINITIONS AND DOCUMENTS OR PRACTICING PART IV

PRACTICE WHAT YOU PLAY OR PRACTICING PART V

TESTING YOUR VOCABULARY OR PRACTICING PART VI

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

SOME USEFUL ONLINE PRACTICE TOOLS

.

GETTING HIPNESS FROM A MAJOR TRIAD OR MORE CHORD RECYCLING PART 3

Getting Hipness From A Major Triad Or More Chord Recycling Part 2

GETTING HIPNESS FROM A MAJOR TRIAD OR MORE CHORD RECYCLING PART 1

.

Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 3

Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 2

GETTING THROUGH THE GIG – NEGOTIATING A CHORD CHART PART 1

.

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

.

The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes Part 7 – Minor Positional Modal Interchange and Complimenting Modes with Chords

Posted on October 8, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

Welcome to the seventh installment of the GuitArcitecture Mode Visualization lesson series.

If you see anything unfamiliar here, you may want to check out:

part one,

part two,

part 3a

part 3b

part 4

part 5 or

part 6 of the series

In the last lesson, I took a look at the modes and the circle of 5ths. In this lesson, I’m going to:

show how to modify a minor chord to cover minor modal interchanges and
show how to switch modal patterns in position

Complimenting Modes with Chords

A lot of print has been used to describe how modes fit with chords but substantially less has been written about modifying chords to fit various modes. I’ve developed this approach as an introductory way to work on modal interchange it does three things:

Limits harmonic content to simplify the modal interchange process
show a way to modify chords to work with modes and
develops the skill set for changing modes in position.

(All useful skills to have – btw). Since I’ve been dealing with C major – I’m going to look at A minor (the relative minor chord) first.

One Chord Modal Interchange Exercise – Minor

Before we get into the exercise, let’s make sure we’re clear about the modes we’ll be using. Of the parent major scale modes I’ve covered – there are 3 that can be used over an A minor chord:

A Dorian (G major):

Click to enlarge

A Aeolian (C major):

Click to enlarge

A Phrygian (F major):

Click to enlarge

Here’s the accompaniment pattern:

Repeat each bar 2-4 times ** Click to enlarge**

Here are the steps:

Record or loop the pattern in time

Playing over the loop practice switching modes each bar. I’ve outlined the fingerings above (see earlier posts in the series if you want to see how I derived them) with a sample rhythm. As an initial step – just practice ascending and descending the patterns in a scalar fashion.

As the level of familiarity with the modal interchanges increases, try removing the repeats and increasing the tempo (thus increasing the difficulty level).

Note:

Make sure you don’t start every bar with the low A root!

(See the melodic note below for some other tips once you get comfortable with the transition).

Now let’s examine each chord (and mode) individually:

First measure: arpeggiate a minor chord in 4/4 time (in this case A minor).

A minor – Play A Dorian, A Aeolian or A Phrygian – Click to enlarge

In order of increasing darkness, the modes could be played over that chord are:

A Dorian, A Aeolian and A Phrygian

Measure 2: adapt the chord to a specific mode using the mode’s characteristic note.

The first mode explored in this example will be A Phrygian. Since Phrygian’s characteristic note is the b2, I’ll change the 2nd root (A) with the b2 (Bb) creating an A minor (add b9).

A minor add b9 – Play A Phrygian – Click to enlarge

Measure 3: I’ll continue the chromatic motion on the G string changing the Bb to B natural. This produces an A minor (add 9).

A minor add 9 – Play A Dorian or A Aeolian – Click to enlarge

Measure 4: Now the 5^th of the chord (E) will move chromatically to F, emphasizing the b6 of the Aeolian mode creating an A minor (add 9, b6) chord.

A minor add 9 add b6 – Play A Aeolian – click to enlarge

Measure 5: The 6th of the chord will now move chromatically to F# emphasizing the natural 6 of the Dorian mode and creating an A minor (add 6, 9) chord.

A minor add 6, 9 – Play A Dorian – Click to enlarge

The chord progression then goes back to A minor where any of the 3 modes could be used.

Notes:

Harmonic – If you’re playing with another musician try taking this one chord vamp idea and using your ear to change the chord when the soloist changes modes. You can make other chordal alterations as well creating melodic movement in the voicing – is a great approach to use both in comping on a single chord as well as creating melodic movement between 2 chords (more on that in another lesson).

Melodic – As the soloist in this approach – try to change modes then the rhythm player changes chords. As soon as you get comfortable with the shapes – try making melodies and taking them through each modal change. (See part 5 for an example of that process with one modal shape).

The next lesson will cover Major chord variations in this same style. But if you want to get a head start the process is the same as what I just covered, the characteristic notes for the major modes are:

Lydian: #4

Major: Natural 7

Mixolydian: b7

As before, just go through the lesson at your own pace and return to it as you need to. Also please feel free to post any questions you might have (or pm me at guitar.blueprint@gmail.com).

I hope this helps and as always, thanks for reading!

-SC

P.S. If you like this post – you may also like:

.

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 6 – THE CIRCLE OF 5THS AND MODAL INTERCHANGE

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 5 – MAKING THE MOST OF ONE PATTERN

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 4 – MODES AND CHORDS

.

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 3B – SEEING THE SIX-STRING MAJOR SCALE

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 3A – SEEING THE SIX-STRING MAJOR SCALE

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 2 – SEEING THE TWO STRING MAJOR SCALE

THE GUITARCHITECTURE GUIDE TO MODES PART 1 – SEEING THE SINGLE STRING MAJOR SCALE

.

Making Music Out Of Scales

A BRIEF THOUGHT ABOUT MUSIC THEORY

.

PRACTICE MAKES BETTER AKA PRACTICING PART I

PROPER POSTURE IS REQUIRED FOR PROPER PERFORMANCE – PRACTICING PART II

TENSION AND THE SODA CAN OR PRACTICING PART III

DEFINITIONS AND DOCUMENTS OR PRACTICING PART IV

PRACTICE WHAT YOU PLAY OR PRACTICING PART V

TESTING YOUR VOCABULARY OR PRACTICING PART VI

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

SOME USEFUL ONLINE PRACTICE TOOLS

.

GETTING HIPNESS FROM A MAJOR TRIAD OR MORE CHORD RECYCLING PART 3

Getting Hipness From A Major Triad Or More Chord Recycling Part 2

GETTING HIPNESS FROM A MAJOR TRIAD OR MORE CHORD RECYCLING PART 1

.

Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 3

Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 2

GETTING THROUGH THE GIG – NEGOTIATING A CHORD CHART PART 1

.

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

.

The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Modes Part 6 – The Circle of 5ths and Modal Interchange

Posted on October 2, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

Welcome to the sixth installment of the GuitArcitecture Mode Visualization lesson series.

If you see anything unfamiliar here, you may want to check out:

part one,

part two,

part 3a

part 3b

part 4 or

part 5 of the series.

In the last lesson, I took a look at using one fingering pattern to play all of the modes. I wanted to get the sounds under your fingers a little bit and then start to explain a context for them a little more.

In this lesson, I’m going to go into modal interchange more in-depth. To get deeper into modes, we need to talk about Relative Modes versus Parallel Modes, examine tonal centers and keys and talk about Modal Interchange.

Organizing the sounds of the different modes:

While the different modes of a parent major scale all contain the same notes, each mode has a unique sound.

For the purposes of this lesson, modes of the major scale will fall into one of two (overly general) categories (Major or Minor) based on their third scale degree.

The sounds of the modes are based on their scale formula. Their scale formula is based on their relationship to their parallel major mode.

For Example:

To determine the scale formula of, say, C Mixolydian, the notes of C Mixolydian would be compared to the notes of a C major scale.

Since C Mixolydian is spelled C, D, E, F, G, A, Bb, and

C Major is spelled C, D, E, F, G, A, B,

the scale formula of C Mixolydian is b7.

Relative versus Parallel Major

C major is the relative major scale to A natural minor (A Aeolian) because both are part of the same parent major scale

C major is the parallel major scale of C natural minor (C Aeolian).

In this case they share a common root, but C natural minor has a different parent major scale than C major.

Here’s a table that shows the parallel modes of C Major and their scale formula.

The Tonal Cycle of 5ths

Listing the modes in order of scale degree (Ionian, Dorian, etc.) is one way to work through the modes but a more logical way to see the relationship of the modes is to place them in a tonal circle of 5ths. So first let’s talk about the circle of 5ths versus the tonal circle.

The circle of 5ths:

The circle of fifths is a way to see all of the major and minor keys and key signatures in a logical order. The Wikipedia page on it offers an excellent detailed explanation – but seeing the actual circle will help clear things up.

: Circle of 5ths taken from Wikipedia.com

From the pitch C :

moving in clockwise motion, the number of sharps in a key signature increase sequentially with each tonal center a 5th away. (C, G, D, A etc.)

moving in counterclockwise motion the number of flats in a key signature increase sequentially with each tonal center a 4th away. (C, F, Bb, Eb etc.)

This is a very handy and compact way to see tonal centers and relative major/minor scales – but adapting it to a tonal circle of 5ths will help clarify modes in a very unique way.

The Tonal Cycle of 5ths:

In a tonal circle of 5ths, the circle moves in diatonic 5ths (and thus stays in a particular key). In the key of C it looks like this:

The next note in a circle of 5ths after B would be F#, but keeping it in a tonal cycle of 5ths the key of C major, the next note would be F natural.

Now that we have a tonal cycle of 5ths in C Major, let’s fill in the modes associated with each note of C Major.

Now let’s insert the scale formula of each mode:

.
Note:

the scale formula is listed as a series of cumulative alterations rather than sequential.

In general, the more flats in the modal scale formula, the darker the sound.

Modal Interchange

The key to using these to create modal sounds is what is called Modal Interchange.

As a simplified definition – a mode associated with a specific chord will work over the same chord in any other key. In other words, D Dorian could be played over any D minor 7 chord in any other key that has a D minor 7 chord in it.

Rather than thinking of modal ideas when I play, an easier way (for me) to think about modal sounds is to think of parent scales since all the modes are derived from a parent scale (and it’s less to keep track of).

If I’m playing a song in the key of F major:

soloing over a Dm7 chord
and playing the notes from the C parent major scale over that chord
I’m playing in D Dorian.

If I use notes from the F major scale, I’m playing in D Aeolian.

If I use notes from the Bb major scale, I’m playing in D Phrygian.

Since I’ve been dealing with C major – I’ll give a C parallel mode example:

If you want a C Lydian sound – you’re really talking about playing a G parent major scale over a C Major / C Major 7th) chord or a C major chord progression. Here’s a shortcut:

Note (repeated from part 5):

This is a tricky area. While I use a parent scale approach to visualize how I solo over chords, I am aware of the chord tones (and tensions) and tend to focus on those melodically.

Just running up and down a scale isn’t going to help you really nail changes in the long run, it’s just going to fill space that often doesn’t need filling sonically.

That being said, the first step in any playing process is knowing where to put your fingers – so working through scales is as good a place to start as any….

For beginning or intermediate players new to this – like I said before, just worry about associating the modes, fingerings and sounds for now.

Next Steps

In the next part of this series I’m going to give some major and minor positional approaches and talk about a cool way to use modes to modify chords. In the meantime you may want to familiarize yourself with the shapes in part 3b of the lesson series.

As before, just go through the lesson at your own pace and return to it as you need to and please feel free to post any questions you might have (or pm me at guitar.blueprint@gmail.com).

I hope this helps and as always, thanks for reading!

-SC

P.S. If you like this post – you may also like: