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.
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