New Lesson PT II – Improv(e) and Applied Theory

Posted on February 20, 2016 by GuitArchitecture

Case Study

In Part I of this lesson, I laid some ground work for the idea that improvisation can be utilized as a tool for practicing and composition. You might want to read that post here.

In this lesson I’ll use a real world example to demonstrate how improvisation and applied theory led me to develop a lick.

Ganamurti Melankarta

I’ve written before about how theory can not only help you understand what you’re playing but can also expose you to new sounds you never considered before.

I was fortunate enough to have some studies with Aashish Khan at CalArts in Hindustani (Northern Indian) Music – the Carnatic (South Indian) has been of interest to me as well. In South I have a photocopy of L Shankar’s 1974 AWESOME Wesleyan dissertation, The Art of Violin Accompaniment in South Indian Classical Music (typically available through interlibrary loan – Reminder – SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY) but as that text is not accessible to some people I’d recommend fellow Berklee alumni Charlie Mariano’s An Introduction to South Indian Music as a really good source for making South Indian melodic material accessible to people who wish to adapt the music.

One Melakarta (this is an oversimplified definition but for discussion purposes here – a 7-note scale) I got exposed to was called Ganamurti

(scale formula: Root, b2, bb3, 4, 5, b6, 7)

or with A as a root:

A Bb Cb D E F G# A (aka A Bb B D E F G# A).

I feel the best way to internalize new scale ideas is to write a new tune with them. Here’s an excerpt of a new tune based on this idea I’m playing with KoriSoron. You’ll be able to find it on our next EP.

What’s notated below is what I wrote for Farzad’s part on the A section of the tune. I’m playing a counterpoint line and doubling some parts of the tune.

Ganamurti A section

So this gives you a basic idea of the melody and vibe of the tune.

Han(d) Solo

There are a few other sections of the piece and then some sections to solo over. One of those sections has a repeating pattern like this.

Ganamurti Ost

Now this is the basic form. There’s a lot of melodic variation and fills thrown in on the last beat so it’s not played robotically but you get the general gist of one of the ostinatos being soloed over.

So what I’m going to do now is walk you through the process of how I approach improvising over something like this and how I generated a new lick to add to my vocabulary.

To review the process from Part I of this lesson:

Improvise. (Create)
Record everything.
Listen back and find the new things that you improvised that you like. (Assess)
Learn (and when possible improve upon) the best ideas you came up with when improvising.

Here’s the ostinato.

Ganamurti Ost

Thought Process #1.

I start negotiating the scale looking for melodic fragments to utilize.

I see D F G#

D F G#

aka D, F, Ab

D F Ab
which I recognize as a Diminished triad.

The scale also has a Cb (B) (This is going to be referred to as B from here on out for simplicity.)

D F Ab Cbb

Which makes it a Diminished 7th.

Thought Process #2:

This means I can play dimishished arpeggios over the ostinato.

As diminished arpeggios are made up of all minor 3rd intervals, the notes repeat over the same string groups every three frets. This is useful information because whatever I come up with melodically here:

D F Ab Cbb

Can be played at the 8th fret:

8th fret 4 note

And the 11th fret:

11th Fret 4 note revised

And so on to create a melodic sequence.

What’s your Position on That?

Before I look at developing a multi-positional lick I’m going to look at it in position. Since the intervals are made up of all minor thirds – this arpeggio:

D F Ab Cbb

will have a D on the G string as well:

D Dim 7 to octave

Thought Process #3.

THIS is useful information because if I have an arpeggio that’s contained on three strings (in this case using 2 notes-per-string, 1 note per string and 2 notes-per-string which I think of as a 2-1-2 form) then I can take whatever I’m using as picking and fingering for that shape and (with slight modifications to the fingering) apply the same basic idea (more or less) positionally.

So this:

D Dim 7 to octave

Becomes this:

Positional Ab

And this:

Positional D

**Note on playing with patterns: I find pattern playing to be extremely useful when improvising because it makes modifying those patterns (i.e. making music from them) in real time feasible. Having said that playing this as quintuplets (i.e. 5 notes to the beat)

Diminished 7th quint

will give you a very robotic feel. (This IS a really good way to practice getting quintuplets under your fingers but that’s another discussion). With arpeggios like this I typically play them as 1/16th notes to alter up the feel a bit.

With all this in mind – here is the lick I improvised initially:

four four sixteenth first

It basically involved:

Seeing a diminished shape
Seeing it on three strings
Manipulating it in position

While I’ve detailed a lot of the thoughts out BEHIND the scenes here, Once I saw the initial shape I arrived at this intuitively.

Then I just moved it up 3 frets:

four four positional sixteenth two

And three frets more:

11th Fret four four revised

Once I saw the whole thing – I tied it together into this monstrosity:

Ganamurti Diminished lick full

News Flash!

We play this tune around 100-110 BPM on acoustic guitars. What looks like a pristine metronomic moment of perfection in the example above was a train wreck when I first tried to pull it off.

In order to have it under my fingers (and at my disposal) when we play live I’m going to have to practice it and in Part III of this series, I’m going to show how I’ve been practicing this to get it up to tempo. If you’ve ever felt like practice lessons are not fruitful for you or wondered if you’re doing it the right way – Next week’s lesson will be an awesome one for you!

A call to action:

As always – thanks for reading. I hope that this helps!

I’d like to continue to keep the lesson content I put up here for free but, in addition to the amount of time it takes to generate lesson content this in depth, there are also expenses associated with putting any content online.

If you like this lesson, or the other material on the site, there are a number of ways you can contribute (and enrich your own quality of life) and help keep the information here free.

I have guitar books for sale here. $10 gets you a pdf of generally 200 pages or more (often much more). If you like the ideas in this lesson the Guide to Chord Scales, Melodic Patterns, or Harmonic Combinatorics books might all be helpful to you. The books are available in print editions as well.

You can schedule a private lesson. You can email me at guitar (dot) blueprint at gmail for information on skype or in-person lessons.

You can buy the KoriSoron ep or come out to a show.

Any and all support is appreciated. As always, thanks for reading!

-SC

A Lesson In Improvisation And Jargon From A Cooking Show

Posted on January 17, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

Improv lessons from a cooking contest show

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

The Challenge

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

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

So how do they get through it?

The Approach

Emphasis on fundamentals. The chefs have the confidence to execute because they have the basic skill set to do what they need to do. They have a command of knife skills, cooking techniques and have a developed palate to work from. These are basic things – using a music analogy – there’s no obscure chord scale or advanced reharmonization happening here – just using the fundamentals as a basis to establish an area of comfort and familiarity from.

Emphasis on repertoire. They have a number of other dishes that they’ve mastered to serve as a template for what they want to do. If you’ve cooked several thousand past dishes and someone says, “I need you to make me a pasta dish” you’re not going to freak out because it’s in a comfort zone. If you quote tunes in your solos or comping – you quote tunes that you know so well that you can adapt elements of them at will. Those trills you use on that klezmer tune you play every set – works their way into a phrase, etc.

Adaptability and creativity. This is really a combination of the two points above. There’s a constant stream of plays on things, “This is my play on mac and cheese.” Previous dishes that are mastered are used as launching points for new innovations. From a guitar standpoint – maybe those string skips you developed to get that piano solo under your fingers you liked are now being used in a different context for your thrash solo.

Being in the moment. They taste their food. They monitor multiple components and adapt as necessary. It may be the closest analogy to improvising a solo over a rhythm section for a tune you’re unfamiliar with. You listen to the drummer, and the bassist and whoever else is playing and while you create music that enhances that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Music and jargon

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

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

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

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

Is it music if no one hears it?

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

Music requires a performer and an audience.

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

Just a thought…

Thanks for reading.

-SC

Favored Curry Or Spicing Up Chord Scales And Triads Part 2

Posted on December 24, 2010 by GuitArchitecture

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:

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Here are the chord formulas that are generated:

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

Adding the spice

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

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.

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

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:

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

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

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).

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.

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.

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.

Here’s an mp3.

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.

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).

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.

C, E, G#- C Augmented
E, G#, B – E Major
G#, B, D# – G# minor
C, Eb , G – C Minor
G, B, Eb – Eb Augmented
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.

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

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!

Here are the chord formulas that are generated:

C, E, G, B – Root, 3rd, 5th and 7th – C Major 7
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.
E, G, B, D# – Root, flat 3rd, 5th and 7th – E minor (Major 7)
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.
G, B, D#, F# – Root, 3rd, sharp 5th, 7th – G Augmented 7
Ab, C, E, G – Root, 3rd, sharp 5th – Ab Augmented 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.

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

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!

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.

-SC

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

MAKING MUSIC OUT OF SCALES

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

.

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

.

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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Favored Curry Or Spicing Up Chord Scales And Triads Part 1

Posted on December 7, 2010 by GuitArchitecture

[This lesson uses material from The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Chord Scales which details all unique chord scales from 3-note cells to the 12-note chromatic set. You can find out about that book (and the other GuitArchitecture books) here.]

When improvising over a C major chord, the first thought for many beginning improvisers is to use the C major scale as a melodic resource. For example: here are the notes of a C Major triad (C, E, G) broken up into a sample 2 string arpeggio:

C Major Arpeggio

One related chord scale for this scale is the C Major (Ionian) scale. The reason for this is that all of the notes in the C major triad are found in the C major scale.

C Major Scale

While there is nothing wrong with this approach, in addition to being a fairly bland melodic color to utilize, it contains the 4th scale degree (F), which is often referred to as an avoid note because of its 1/2 step relationship to E.

Option B: Modal Interchange

One solution to this is to use modal interchange to find alternate scales that work over a triad. For example, C Major is a diatonic chord in the key of G. Playing a G major scale starting and ending on C produces a C Lydian scale.

C Lydian (Parent scale: G Major)

This scale works well with the triad. In addition to containing the C major triad, it also has a raised fourth degree (aka #11), which adds a nice tension.

But this is merely scratching the surface of what can be found from this approach.

Option C: Creating your own chord scale

Here ‘s a process for generating any chord scale based on a chord.

Step 1: Start with a chord and write out the notes of the chord in ascending order.

Note: the smaller the chord, the more scale options you will have.

Let’s now look at the C major triad as a chord formula. Since it’s made up of the notes C, E and G any parent scale for C major chord should contain these notes (at least for now).

Step 2: Between the notes of the chord, write in all possible notes for each additional scale degree.

For example, in the Ionian and Lydian chord scale examples above, the 2nd degree was D, but it could have just as easily been Db or D#.

Expanding on this idea, the 4th could either be F natural or F#, the 6th could either be Ab, A natural or A#, and the 7th could either be Bb, B natural or B#.

If we apply this idea to the all of the other scale degrees, we end up with a chromatic scale that looks like this in list form:

Scale Degree 1 – C
Scale Degree 2 – Db, D, D#
Scale Degree 3 – E
Scale Degree 4 – F, F#
Scale Degree 5 -G
Scale Degree 6 – Ab, A, A#
Scale Degree 7 – Bb, B

or this in music notation:

C Major triad with chromatic scale degrees

Note: If you are planning on harmonizing the scale, deriving modal arpeggios or pentatonics, I recommend you keep each scale degree unique (i.e. that you use either Db or D or D#, but not more than one type of D pitch).

Likewise, there are several enharmonic pitches (i.e. pitches that are spelled differently but sound the same) presented in the full chromatic. While you could use A# and Bb in a chord scale since they are the same sounding pitch the result will be a 6 note scale.

Step 3: Choose the scale degrees that sound the best to you.

Based on the above parameters, there are 32 unique chord scales for the C major triad. Let’s look at one of them.

For this example, I’m going to choose a #2 for the second scale degree, a #4, a b6 and a natural 7 scale degree for a very chromatic chord scale. Here it is in list form: