Pribek

I love sitting around with other guitar players and talking guitar stuff. You could take two guitar players who are from totally different musical mindsets, put them in a room together and they would find common ground.

In the last couple of months I have been subscribing to feeds from several different guitar oriented blogs. I am really enjoying the conversation with these players from all over the world. Beginner or pro, death metal or country blues, electric or acoustic-there is common ground.

I have never presented a guitar lesson on this blog before. One reason is that there is a tremendous amount of guitar information on the web. But, if there is something that I might have a unique perspective on, I’m going to put it out there.

One of my new, web guitar friends is Ovidiu. He is from Romania. You may have seen some of his comments here. I have also left some fairly lengthy comments over at his place. We had a discussion that involved, among other things, improvising and the use of chromatics. It got me to thinking. So, today I am going to get into a few of the things I have stumbled around and figured out with chromatic scales and how they apply to the guitar.

What Is A Chromatic Scale?

Simple answer; all twelve notes that are used in our European/Western music system. The chromatic scale is every note.

The chromatic scale mystifies a lot of guitar players precisely because they are thinking of it as a scale. Here is what a two octave chromatic scale, starting and ending on A, looks like.

e|——————————————————————————1-2-3-4-5-
B|—————————————————————2-3-4-5——————
G|————————————————2-3-4-5———————————
D|———————————3-4-5-6————————————————
A|——————4-5-6-7—————————————————————
E|5-6-7-8———————————————————————————

The above chromatic scale doesn’t lay very naturally on the guitar neck. There are awkward shifts going from string to string. It may be a great physical exercise to practice this, especially if you want to get proficient at awkward shifts. But, as it sits, it isn’t very musical.

You need to think shapes instead of scales. I heard an interview with Chet Atkins a long time ago. He was asked; “What are your hopes for the future of the guitar?” Chet replied; “I hope they don’t change the standard tuning”. Within the standard tuning, there are many, many shapes that allow you to bypass awkward hand shifts. These shapes contain complex musical ideas depending on how they are applied. They are like loopholes. Sometimes things are overlooked because they are so simple.

Here is a very useful chromatic shape.

e|—————————————————————————————–
B|————–2-3-4-5——————————————————————-
G|2-3-4-5———————————————————————————
D|—————————————————————————————-
A|—————————————————————————————-
E|—————————————————————————————-

The problem a lot of players have is they are thinking of the chromatic scale as a whole. For practical playing purposes, you would not be using all twelve notes. You use parts of the chromatic scale.

Which parts? Here’s a simple trick for starters-if you are improvising, use your chromatic ideas (shapes) starting on any note but the root note of the chord you are playing over.

Contrary motion is a musical concept that people like to hear. It makes sense to the ear. If you in a chromatic space, which is a bit radical to some listeners, you can put them more at ease with a little contrary motion. So, take the above shape and play 2,3,4,5 on one string and 5,4,3,2 on the next. Or, 5,4,3,2,-2,3,4,5. Two very simple ideas that can become a complex sounding phrase.

Here is an example of how to apply these principals in a blues context in the key of A.

e|8-7-5———————————————————————————–
B|———5—————————–4-5-6-7-8-7-6-5———————————
G|————-7-5——-7-6-5-4——————————-5-6-7-8-5—————–
D|——————-7——————————————————————-7
A|—————————————————————————————-
E|—————————————————————————————-

So, I took our simple shape, started somewhere other than the root note, applied a little contrary motion then, slid the shape up one fret, applied some contrary motion and ended with a very familiar, flat 3 to root note blues phrase.

If you start messing around with this, you will find that you can apply these types of ideas from anyplace on the neck. You will find things that work for country songs, blues, rock, and jazz.

Moving In Thirds

Here’s another little secret about our simple, chromatic shape. If you just play the orignal idea without the contrary motion…

e|—————————————————————————————–
B|————–5-6-7-8——————————————————————-
G|5-6-7-8———————————————————————————
D|—————————————————————————————-
A|—————————————————————————————-
E|—————————————————————————————-

…it is a four note phrase and then, the same thing played a major third higher. Jazz players use this kind of thing a lot; moving in major thirds-it’s augmented substitution stuff. An augmented chord is a root, a major third and another major third. If you play a phrase, then play the same thing up a third, then the same phrase again up another third-you have played a complex series of augmented chords.

Our phrase above ends on the B string/8th fret which happens to be a G note. If you are on G and wanted to move up a third you would need to start your next phrase on the note B.

Rather than thinking in an ascending manner, slide your hand down the neck to the fourth fret. 4th fret/G string is your B note. So, if you play the above phrase then, slide down a fret and repeat it, you have moved in thirds. You can keep sliding down a fret and continue to move in thirds. So, you don’t need to know about augmented subs, or think about moving in thirds but, every time you slide our little shape down a fret and repeat it, you are executing these complex principles.

e|—————————————————————————————-
B|—————-5-6-7-8——————-4-5-6-7——————-3-4-5————-
G|5-6-7-8——————–4-5-6-7———————3-4-5-6——————–5-2-
D|—————————————————————————————-
A|—————————————————————————————-
E|—————————————————————————————-

Back in the 80’s I was on the road with a country band. We had a piano player named Bob Brown, who was from Winterset, Iowa, that played with us for a few weeks. Bob was totally blind from birth. He was a truly amazing and intuitive player. He could improvise over anything. For the first couple of nights he was with us, I was telling him the key we were playing in before each song. It didn’t dawn on me that he had no concept of key signatures. He had no idea what the key of D was. He told me that he thought in patterns. He recognized that there were patterns of notes that appeared in all music but, he didn’t apply names to the notes.

He could play very theoretically, complex jazz and classical things. But, to him, they were no more complex than a George Jones song, just different patterns.

That was when I started thinking more seriously about these simple shapes on the fretboard. It’s the same kind of thinking.

A lot of players get hung up on the theory. A lot of players get hung up on trying master difficult fingering.

Sometimes a simple idea, a simple shape or pattern is the key to unlocking the understanding of the theory. If you can master difficult fingerings-good for you. They aren’t always musical though. Sometimes there is a logical way to do something very musical, that may appear to be complex, right under your fingers.