Pribek

“Liberty City” Jaco Pastorius and The Word of Mouth Big Band.

I remember, back in the 80s, going to the flea market in San Jose with my brother and a friend of his. It was kind of cool for San Jose that day and, I guess there weren’t a whole lot of folks drinking beer for that reason. The three of us were so, the beer guy just followed us around all afternoon.

There were all these different booths with merchants and it seemed like every one had a big boom box blaring music that crossed a lot of cultural and stylistic boundaries. Latin music, Korean folk music, reggae, rock and roll, Native American flutes, blues, Japanese Koto, Grateful Dead, African music…it was this huge mish mash of sound and human activity.

Every once in a while, as you walked along, you would come to an area where, if you stood still; all of the music seemed to make sense together rather than competing with the others. It was like there were little “zones” where everything made sonic sense and you could just stand there for a while watching all the people milling around. It was a blast. Then, the wind would shift or something and the sound would again be this rude, glorious, cacophony and it was time to move on.

That’s what I think about when I hear this song.

As always, keep an eye out for Belgian, chromatic harp players then, click pause on the music player located in the side bar before playing the YouTube.

Soloing is a form of composition. Whether you are playing over a twelve bar blues, constructing a clever eight measures over a piece of techno pop, wailing on a prog-rock manifesto, improvising or executing a carefully structured part, a solo is a composition.

Tension and Release
Tension and Release; these are integral to composition and thus, soloing. You create tension and give release. The listener feels tension and craves release.

Tension is often achieved with dissonance and release with consonance.

Outside Playing
Outside Playing is the great mystery to many. It can mean playing notes that are outside of a certain scale or, a certain chord or, series of chords. There are a vast amount of theories, ways to think about how to play outside. These theories can be very personal, individualized and, when individuals talk about their way of doing it; it can be difficult to understand what they are thinking.

Outside/Inside
Here is a simple concept:

Outside=Tension
Inside=Release

When soloing, you can play something outside to create some tension then…play something inside to give release.
These things, tension and release are like ingredients in a sauce. So, the amounts of the ingredients used are a matter of taste. Consider tension to be ground red pepper. If you use to much, it’s overbearing. The right amount really gives the sauce some zing.

That’s one reason why trying to explain outside playing gets convoluted; the quantity used is smaller than the explanation. For instance, if I tell you to play an arpeggio from the harmonic minor scale, starting a half step above the root note of the five chord, over the five then, return to the major scale on the one and the five chord is only played for a single measure; that’s a lot of thought process to go through for four beats.

The Beauty Of The Chromatic Scale And How It Applies To Guitar
The chromatic scale is all twelve notes. Every major scale, minor scale, harmonic minor scale, minor7 flat5 arpeggio, augmented triad, diminished chord is contained within those twelve notes. All outside playing, all inside playing is contained within those twelve notes.

Here is a simple way to play a chromatic scale, starting on the G string, fifth fret, on the guitar.

Four notes per string and a one fret shift for the e string. The beauty of this for the guitarist is, all of that power is available over the span of five frets with one simple shift. And, this pattern can be moved anywhere on the neck. A good deal of soloing is done on the top three strings and, the chromatic scale can be accessed at any time.

There is really only one chromatic scale-it’s all twelve notes. The chromatic scale is particularly useful for outside playing and can be accessed using this form from anywhere on the neck at any time.

Outside=Tension

Since tension is often used sparingly, because the opportunity to use tension often goes by pretty quickly, knowing that you can access this formidable group of notes at any time from any place on the neck makes it a very powerful tool. Since every possible arpeggio, scale, substitution, every theoretical device that an advanced musician would use to create tension is contained within this form, it’s extremely powerful.

But, like any scale or form, selecting which notes to play, what order to play them in when soloing, rather than just running up/down the scale ahh….there’s the rub.

Arnold Schönberg and the Twelve Tone Row

What is a Twelve Tone Row?
From Classical Music Pages…

Music constructed according to the principle, enunciated by Hauer and Schönberg independently in the early 1920s, of 12-note composition. According to the Schönbergian principle, the 12 notes of the equal-tempered scale are arranged in a particular order, forming a series or row that serves as the basis of the composition.

More simply put, a twelve tone row is any series of the twelve notes, played in succession, without repeating any of them. Take the above form and play each note once, in any order and that is a twelve tone row.

Twelve tone rows are a way to play chromatic ideas without just running up and down the scale.

Twelve Is A Magic Number

Twelve is divisible by 2, 3, and 4. This is remarkably convenient. As I said earlier, tension is often used sparingly, because the opportunity to use tension often goes by pretty quickly. In other words your very advanced outside phrase, often will need to fit within the space of one or two measures, then you need to be back inside; back to your major, minor or blues scale, pentatonic runs and riffs that are comfortable and familiar.

12=six groups of two, four groups of three, or three groups of four.
This is tailor made for 8th note or 16th note phrases played over one or two bars.

Here is a simple twelve tone row, starting on the G string, fifth fret, that sounds good over the five chord (E7) in an A blues.

Play it as a group of four triplets, and you end up on the G note which you could bend up to the tonic or, easily work in to first position blues scale stuff; familiar turf.

There are tons of mathematical possibilities for simple twelve tone rows using that three string form. Do some trial and error. Find some that make sense to you. Trust your ears as you train your ears. Try the same ones at different spots on the neck. Play your regular licks from the trick bag and, stick a random twelve tone row convenient to where you are located on the neck; suddenly you are cracking the Outside/Inside code.

It’s really a shortcut to an evolved style of soloing, over blues, rock, jazz, country whatever your particular cup of meat.

Probably not what this guy…

…had in mind for the twelve tone row but, all is fair in jailhouse spades and guitar solos, I always say.

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.