Pribek

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.

Yesterday, I wrote this thing, mostly about guitar tone and now, I’m going to explain a little bit of where my head was at; how it came about. First off, that was purely off the top of my head, a rant, a blogging improv. It was actually, at least partially, intended to incite, raise a little sand.

Something you need to know; I like guitar gear as much as the next guitar player. Matter of fact, I’ve owned and used, at one time or another, most of the sought after pedals, classic amps and electric guitars. And, I’ve used this stuff at gigs too. One time, I had this gig, a fly-in gig, where I was only able to take a guitar and carry it on the plane, put it in the overhead. So, I was asked to make a list of gear that would be provided for me. I can’t remember what I had on there but, I know that I had to make a first choice, second etc. So, I listed a bunch of high quality, channel switching amps, Boogie, Rivera, I don’t remember what else. I figured, if I can get a good clean sound, good overdrive, I’ll be good to go. I didn’t have any pedals listed, like an overdive because of this.

So anyway, I got off work (welding twelve hours) showered, drove to Kansas City and caught a plane to Toronto. Went through the typical Canada, work visa, border guard hassle for hours, finally got to the hotel and slept for a couple of hours before sound check.

Now, this gig was an afternoon thing at a hockey arena. So, there was maybe an hour to mess with after the sound check. I got up on stage and the amp waiting for me was a beat up, old Fender Twin Reverb. It’s really a great amp; 100 watts of pure clean tone. Twang to die for. But, you ever tried to get some overdrive out of one of those things? You turn it up and it gets LOUD, just more crystal clear and more twang. And, oh yeah, this gig is going to be in front of 18,000 people. And, a lot of the songs were these contemporary Christian Rock things that were all about saturated power chords and some had big screaming guitar solos. What to do? I talked to the promoter, who had an off duty cop working security and this guy drove me around Toronto, tires squealing, driving like a maniac (“It’s OK friend, nobody is going to mess with me, I’m a cop”) in search of a Tube Screamer on a Saturday afternoon. Ended up finding one music store that was open, all used gear and all he had was some crappy DOD thing (don’t remember what model but, worst ever) for $120, got a ticket for double parking (so much for “I’m a cop”) and, I went back, put on a smile, played a bunch of crappy fuzztone for 18,000 screaming Canadians and nobody said a word. Everybody just said; “Good show, eh”.

See, that’s a deal where you have to be comfortable with what you are playing. If your tone and/or technique rely on a sophisticated rig…then it’s not really a tone or technique, it’s a parlor trick.

I’ve been listening to a bunch of Wes Montgomery tracks the last few days. This is stuff from the Riverside boxed set. I burned a bunch of the Wes to one disc. So, it’s from different eras, different sessions, different types of musicians, some of it’s live…The guitar tone on each separate track is vastly different. Sometines it’s bright, almost twangy, some even almost sounds direct, some of it is warm as your Momma’s kitchen right after she baked a batch of Tollhouse cookies. None of it, by the way, has a cheesy digital delay plug-in like that abomination of a car commercial that featured “Bumpin On Sunset”. The thing is though, if I played any of these tracks for you, gave you the blindfold test, you would instantly recognize it and say “That’s Wes” with schoolboy glee and utter confidence. All of the stuff is there, all the licks, all the chords and all the tone that is Wes but, they all sound different. (And, that reminds me of another current gripe people, that I will have to rant about another day; Wes isn’t all about octaves and Duane isn’t all about slide).

Yes Sans, it does come from the fingers and no PD, there isn’t a Santa Claus.

B.B. King for years used Gibson Lab Series amps. You ever use a Gibson Lab Series amp? If you want a guitar amp that doesn’t enhance your tone in any way, makes you fight for each and every note, go get you a Gibson Lab Series. It may be hard to find one as I suspect most are now being used as crappie beds but, B.B. loved them.

So, it’s in your fingers, all of it. The tone, the soul and the secrets of the universe, the purpose of our existence and the unanswered questions. But, how does one get there?

You have to start somewhere. Wes started by picking out Charlie Christian solos note for note and B was wiggling his finger trying to imitate the sound his cousin (Bukka White) made with a slide. You got to start somewhere and find something that is yours, that you can play so well you own it and whatever you are playing through, wherever you are you still own it. Could be a three note lick, could be a California G chord that jangles, could be a Jimmy Nolan 9th, could be a slippery octave run whatever. Own it and keep doing it until you can feel the earth move when you play it. Then, find the next thing that trips your trigger and do the same. Keep doing that until other people want to make music with you. Always listen, always feel, always know that you got stuff in your pocket you can rely on.

I keep hearing about Medeski Martin and Wood but, for some reason I haven’t heard much of them.

I ended up on their website, this afternoon and found this record from ‘06.

Technically, “Out Louder” is not a Medeski Martin and Wood album because John Scofield is on it so, it’s a Medeski Scofield Martin and Wood record. Savvy?

Really cool stuff happening here, a lot of improv but within tight grooves and song structures. Scofield is just ripping on this thing. Raw and funky Scofield; brutal.

Check it out at the MMW site. I particularly liked “Miles Behind”. It’s like somebody took all of the information from “Bitches Brew”, distilled it and made a two minutes-fifty three second song out of it; nice.