Musical Musings

Rhythmic Groupings - Part 2: Changing the Base Time

2010-05-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

After getting the basics down from Part 1, the next step is to change the base time in which each note grouping is played. As a side note, if you have trouble playing through a particular pattern from Part 1 (i.e. Sixes), try playing each group of six 4 times before moving on to the next grouping of six.

Anyway, groups of three, for example, naturally lend themselves to a triplet feel. However, this sound can become very predictable. It can also become limiting if you restrict your note groups to their most natural-sounding divisions (i.e. threes as triplets, fours as sixteenths). If every time you migrate to a different division you also change the note grouping, your playing will quickly sound like changing speeds with a push-button blender rather than interesting music.

The easiest way to begin breaking out of this rut is to change the base time. Instead of triplets, trying playing threes as sixteenths. You’ll quickly notice that each new grouping does not always start on a whole beat, but shifts to different subdivisions within the beat. As you play this to a drum track or metronome, try accenting just the first note of each new group and listen to how it sounds. Then try accenting just on the whole beats. This is a great way to get two different sounds out of one pattern.

In addition to threes as sixteenths, try playing fours as triplets, fives as sixteenths and triplets, and sixes as sixteenths.

Notation (pdf)

Rhythmic Groupings - Part 1

2010-05-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, largely due to an array of distractions over the past year. Anyway, after getting some inspiration from a Shawn Lane clinic on YouTube, I thought I’d start back up with this series on using rhythmic groupings in your playing.

Rhythmic groupings is a subject I think many guitarists have pursued, but most go no further than the basics, leaving the rest to the metronome. This is unfortunate because the basics tend to lead to a very predictable and cliché shred-like sound. But when you really take the subject to the next level, it can become a tool for great diversity and interest in your lines.

However, in this first installment, I really want to look at just the basics, which we'll build on later. It is absolutely essential to have these under your belt before moving forward. There are four basic groupings we can start with: threes, fours, fives, and sixes. Fives will be a bit more of a challenge since you have to subdivide the beat a little differently than normal. I've notated these out in a 3-note per string C major scale (see link below), but you can play these in an scale and fingering you choose.

When practicing these basic patterns, make sure to accent the whole beats (1, 2, 3, and 4) in each measure. Also, if you want more of a challenge, play these with a swing, accenting only beats 2 and 4; it will likely cut at least third off of your fastest speed and cause you to focus much harder on your technique.

Notation (pdf)

Soloing Over Blues

2009-02-02T17:30:00.000-08:00

They say the foundation of jazz music is the blues. There is an easy way to play blues, and then there is a right way. The easy way is to use one blues scale over the entire progression. It is often a very effective way of teaching a new guitarist to solo. However, even in its most basic form, blues contains three chord/scales. In its most basic form, the blues contains three dominant chords: I7, IV7 and V7. Each of these chords represents a dominant (or mixolydian) scale built from the root of the chord. For example, Bb blues contains a Bb7, Eb7, and F7. The corresponding scales would be Bb dominant, Eb dominant, and F dominant.

Before going to much further, let’s review. First, make sure you know the five positions of the major scale inside and out. Here is a chart of these 5 positions with the notes of the relative dominant scale marked with open “O’s”. If you don’t know these well, I highly recommend you practice each one through the cycle of fifths until you know them inside and out.

I think one of the hardest things for a newer jazz guitarist is getting comfortable with learning to change scales over each chord. This is certainly the case for me. For example, I know the patterns, I can locate their roots, and I can even comp through the progression with walking bass added. However, changing scales on the fly in the song seems to happen faster than I can visual the fretboard, even for basic blues. Toss in the fact that you should have a chord tone on beats one and three, and everything seems a bit too much to manage at once, especially if you are used to using one diatonic scale and shredding through a song.

One way to make this task easier is to think of the blues changes in positions just like the major scale. In each position, build a one-octave dominant scale starting on the root. Your results will look like fragments of the 5 positions of the major scale:

After a lot of personal frustration, I decided to throw together some patterns to help learn the blues. I had several goals with these patterns: First, I wanted them to highlight chord tones throughout; second, I wanted to make sure that each pattern had a chord tone on beats one and three (the only exception is the descending full scale); third, I wanted to make sure I had patterns with both upward and downward motion so you don’t get in the rut of starting on the root and playing up an arpeggio; fourth, I wanted to create a variety of patterns; and fifth, I wanted to create patterns that can easily be translated into real musical lines. Here are 50 patterns to help you start learning blues on guitar.

50 Patterns for Soloing over Blues

For starters, pick one position that feels the most comfortable to you. Play these patterns with a metronome until you feel comfortable playing them with a background track. As you start to feel your lines come more naturally, try a new position. And when you really start to feel comfortable, find some jazz blues solos to transcribe.

Using patterns in real musical contexts – Part 1

2008-09-10T18:47:00.000-07:00

Practicing patterns are great because they add variety to your lines, helping to prevent you from sounding as if you are just running up and down scales. But there is a lot to be said for selecting the right patterns. Certain patterns function as a more logical division of the way a particular instrument plays (i.e. what is easy to play on guitar) while other patterns function as a logical division of the notes, regardless of instrument. The first group works well for speed, while the second group generally tends to contribute more to creativity and variety. Guitarists such as Guthrie Govan are masters of this second group.

So let’s say you have an assortment of two dozen patterns you’ve collected from your favorite solos. Speaking from my own experience, I’ve wondered why all my favorite patterns just don’t sound as magical in my own solos. Worse yet, it’s pretty bad when you want to incorporate them into your sound, but you always sound like you are stealing from someone else. I think this has led some to completely ditch the idea of using or practicing patterns at all, but I think there is a middle ground.

The magic in using patterns is not so much the pattern itself, but sewing it into the fabric of what you are already playing. In other words, the magic is just as much in the seams as it is in the patterns. Consider the following excerpt from Guthrie Govan’s solo at in his song “Erotic Cakes”:

Guthrie is great at using patterns to create interest, but making them sound improvised rather than rehearsed. This particular section of the solo contains several different patterns, but I’d like to focus just on the one that begins on beat 3 of the second measure. At faster speeds, this particular pattern is technically challenging because it involves jumping back and forth between adjacent strings. Here is the basic pattern isolated along a simplified version using the major scale box pattern:

The key to making patterns such as this one sound musical and natural in your own solos is to play them as an extension of the lines you are already playing. In other words, don’t pause right before you start a pattern because doing so will make it sound rather cut-and-paste. Instead, find a way to connect it to the line you just played, possibly even using leading or approach notes to set up the pattern itself. Check out Guthrie’s use of this pattern in Erotic Cakes again:

Notice two things: first, he leads into this pattern almost functions as the “answer” to a previous pattern, which is part of a long phrase that begins with a bluesy bending lick; second, his pattern leads into several pickup notes for the following phrase. The resulting effect is that this pattern is in the middle-to-end of a phrase, but is no way does the ear hear a precise beginning and end of the pattern itself because there are no rests or pauses immediately before or after the pattern.

Now let’s try to incorporate this into a new phrase within a solo.

The pattern works really well in this phrase because it has no clear beginning or end, and the transition to and from lends to a very seamless connection. The nice thing about this pattern is that it can be used in various styles. But remember, the key is to practice patterns like this one in a way that fuses them into the lines you are already playing. In order to sound convincing, focus on the seams and the transitions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Iu93dihRF4

Back to the Woodshed

2008-05-31T11:21:00.000-07:00

I think there is an on-going tension between technical skills and creativity. It is definitely an area where find myself struggling to find a balance. On the one hand, I very much relate to the heavily structured technical exercises in John Petrucci’s Rock Discipline video. I think this is one of the best technical instructional videos and is superbly organized and structured. But too much of a good thing can lead to nonsensical shred.

On the other hand, I like the creative and spontaneous edge in jazz music. First, I like that most music in that genre is created on the spot. Second, I like that there is much more attention to things such as rhythm, articulation, dynamics, harmony, and other interest-creating concepts regarding solo lines, especially when improvised. Developing these skills tends to lend one focus on practicing patterns over progressions, which is also very helpful for ear development. However, while you can definitely develop technically through such practice, it does seem like that progress is much slower.

Last week I planned to write about my favorite warm-up exercises. Today, however, I decided to expand this slightly after browsing my backup external hard drive and finding an old recording I did several years ago. My playing was not just faster, but much cleaner. Now, I don’t want to advocate speed for speed’s sake, but I do think that there is a perfectly legitimate reason to spend time focusing on technical exercises even if the phrasing of the exercises will not be used in a musical context. With that said, here are my core technical exercises that I have found the most helpful over the years. Every time I have been at my best, I was also playing many of these exercises daily.

Percussive Picking

I originally started using this exercise in order to isolate and focus on my pick hand. After a few weeks of regular practice, this exercise always seems to whip my pick hand back into shape. The key to the exercise is two-fold. First, make sure you use the same picking technique throughout. For example, don’t pick with your wrist at the beginning and then use a locked-arm elbow technique just to get an extra 5-10 bpm at the end. Keep the same technique and stay relaxed. Second, accent all down beats throughout. This will ensure that you are not cheating, but actually stay on beat.

I highly recommend playing this exercise on all six strings. With my own playing, I’ve found that I can play cleaner on the middle strings, but sometimes I’m a little choppy on the high E. Playing on all strings remedies this problem.

Finally, there are two ways you can practice this exercise. First you can use a static metronome click and start off slowly at 70bpm, gradually increasing by 5-10bpm until you reach your peak speed. Second, I prefer using a midi sequence such as Cakewalk to create a click or snare hit on quarter notes with the speed gradually increasing by 5bpm every four measures. I prefer this method because it keeps you playing, and I think endurance aspect of the exercise is critical to maximum results.

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Chromatic Warm-up Exercise

This exercise is sort of a next logical step to the percussive picking exercise. The advantage to this exercise is that the position changes naturally lead to longer lines on single strings. You can also practice this to the increasing metronome as well. As your speed increases, pay close attention to which finger combinations tend to become the first points of struggle. For example, you may find that you rush your third finger following the fourth one when descending.

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“Steve Morse” Adjacent String Exercise

I remember the first time I saw Steve Morse play this exercise. My jaw hit the floor! His ability to alternate pick across adjacent strings is comparable to none. This exercise will strongly improve your picking accuracy. I recommend listening to Morse’s “Tumeni Notes” to hear an excellent demonstration of this technique in a musical context.

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Steve Morse’s Personal Picking Warm-up

This is an exercise that Steve Morse has said he uses as a guide to know when he is adequately warmed up and ready to hit the stage. It takes his trademark picking skills and applies them in a classical etude fashion. I find this more technically demanding then the previous exercise, but very rewarding.

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Moto Perpetuo – Part 1

This is one of my personal favorites. It is the first section of Paganini’s “Moto Perpetuo” or “Perpetual Motion”. It can be a chore to memorize, but once you have leaped that hurdle it will really trim the fat off your picking. This exercise includes nice splashes of different technical chores in a very real musical context. For example, you will pick across adjacent strings, string skip and start with an upward picking motion, stretch for notes, etc., but they all seem to fly by in four notes or less.

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There many more exercises that could be added. However, I think it is best to select a couple of the ones you find the most rewarding, and then fill in the rest of your playing with an attention to creativity. The balance is different for each of us depending on our goals and time restrictions. For me, I think I will try to incorporate at least three of these daily in hope of getting back to the top of my game and minimally maintaining that level of performance.

Breaking out of the creative straightjacket

2008-05-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

I think a lot of us get stuck in a rut trying to coming up with new chords for songs. A lot of times our minds want to gravitate toward a basic variety of seven diatonic chords and maybe a couple of “special” chords at most. With this in mind, here are some concepts that can add a little variety to your pallet.

For this “exercise”, I decided to use a very basic chord progression that everyone knows: G-D-Em-C. I think this progression is typical of the theoretical and creative straightjacket in which we often find ourselves. But what if we applied some basic substitution techniques that jazz musicians often use? We can use these principles, regardless whether we want to sound “jazz” or keep things in a somewhat mainstream context.

The first thing we need to do is change how we think about these chords. A classical approach tells us that we must view these chords as I, V, vi, and IV from the key of G major. But what if we viewed each of these chords as individual tonic chords? If you close your eyes, you can hear all the classical purists begin to gripe and complain! But if we view them as four separate tonic chords, then we can use some basic substitutions concepts to really spice things up.

In jazz, there are really two main sources to derive substitutions: cycles and chromaticism. I acknowledge that this is perhaps a little reductionist, but a vast majority of substitutions and progressions share one of these two at its basic core. The most common cycle is the cycle of fifths, where each chord is preceded by a chord a fifth higher. The cycle starts with C and moves to G, then D, then A, etc. Therefore, if you have a C chord, you can precede it with a G chord, which functions as a dominant chord. This is called a V-I substitution. You can take this one step further and precede the G chord with a Dm7 chord, which functions as a IIm7. This is called a II-V-I substitution and is the most frequently used substitution in jazz. The cycle can be expanded to include III-VI-II-V-I and even #IV-VII-III-VI-II-V-I.
A lot of jazz musicians use chromaticism to approach target notes or chords. For example, you could take a II-V progression and precede it with another II-V progression a half step below. If your original II-V was Am7 – D7, the this progression would become Abm7 - Db7 – Am7 – D7. John Coltrane used this all through his song Moment’s Notice on the Blue Train album.

Before applying these concepts to the basic progression, I should make a note on my chord notations. The primary purpose of the chord notations below are function and not quality (although both are applicable). For example, when seeing the progression Am7 – D7 – G, the “7” after the D is intended to communicate its function as a dominant chord (i.e. V7) rather than just a triad with a flattened seventh extension. Further, the m7 extension is designed to communicate a chord functioning as a II chord (the III-VI progression can be understood to function as a II-V of the actual IIm7 chord that it immediately precedes). Also, chords without extensions (i.e. G and Em) are intended to communicate their function as tonic chords. So, let’s get to it!

Basic V-I Substitution

The most basic form of substitution would be to precede each chord with its own V chord. If we do this, then the basic G-D-Em-C becomes:

In measure 3, the B7b9 has the “b9” extension because the chord that it precedes is minor. Minor tonic chords are often preceded by a V7alt, of which the b9 is one of the most common.
Let’s take this one step further…

Basic II-V-I Substitution

What if we expanded this progression out further to precede each tonic chord not only by its V, but also the V by its II, therefore making a series of four II-V-I progressions? In doing so, let’s expand each mini progression into two measures.

As you will notice, measure 5 includes a m7b5 chord. This is because the minor II-V-I progression often starts with a half diminished chord rather than a regular minor seven.
Okay, let’s get a little more adventurous.

Tri-tone and Fully Diminished substitution

Another common cycle is the tri-tone cycle, which splits the octave in half. Therefore, each tri-tone cycle only contains two chords. In jazz, you can replace any dominant chord with another dominant chord a tri-tone away. In measure 1, the D7 becomes a G#7. Also, in measure 3 the A7 becomes a D#7.

Further, you can build a fully diminished chord from any note within a V7b9 chord except the root. Therefore we could substitute a D#dim7 for B7b9 in measure 5.
If we put this all together, we get:

Basic Turnaround

Let’s go back to the original II-V-I reharmonized form for a minute. A common substitution on the last four measures of a song is to superimpose a I-VI-II-V to lead back to the original I chord in measure 1. This is called a turnaround and looks like this:

Jazz musicians often change the VI chord of a turnaround to function like a dominant chord, which looks like this:

Coltrane Superimposition

John Coltrane was known for superimposing major third cycles over chord progressions (check out his Giant Steps album). This concept can be used as a turnaround in the last two bars, in which we superimpose two II-V progressions a major third apart, which continue to descend a major third back to the original II-V progression in measure 1, which looks like this:

Applying Coltrane's "Moment's Notice" Substitution Concepts

Now it’s time to get a little crazy! Since we’re on the topic of John Coltrane, let’s use some of the basic concepts he used in his song Moment’s Notice from the Blue Train album. Before we go any further, let’s review our original II-V-I reharmonization:

In Moment’s Notice, Coltrane used chromaticism to approach a II-V progression with a II-V a half step below, which he did in measures 1-2 and 5-6. From there, he extended the II-V in measure 8 to form a III-VI-II-V from the cycle of fifths. I’ve chosen to do this in measure 13 as well. Here is our new progression:

But we still have a lot of space in measures 4, 8, 12, and 16, so let’s have some more fun!

First, in measure 4 we will add a II-V progression that is a tri-tone away from the II-V in measure 5. Second, we will use measure 8 to extend the cycle progression in measures 9-11 to a full #IV-VII-III-VI-II-V-I. Third, let’s do the same thing in measure 12. Finally, let’s use a II-V to create a III-VI-II-V progression with measure 1. All together, this is what we have:

We sure have come a long way from the original G-D-Em-C progression! You may not wish to be this extreme, but it at least shows you the possibilities, hopefully helping you get out of that creative straightjacket.

Billie's Bounce, Part 1

2008-03-29T13:06:00.000-07:00

In my quest to learn jazz and expand my overall phrasing, I decided to start studying Charlie Parker. I thought I’d start out with his solo from Billie’s Bounce, which is essentially blues in F. I chose to start with this solo for several reasons. First, the chord progression is one that is very familiar to guitarists, regardless whether you play jazz. Second, Parker’s solo is very straight forward and simple, yet employs some creative devices that I’ve found helpful for expanding my own playing.

I’ve decided to divide this 48-bar solo in 12-bar sections, so I’ll be covering it over four different posts. Here's the transcription of the first 12 bars:

Chord Progression

As mentioned above, the chord progression to Billie’s Bounce is essentially blues in F. However, there are a few minor reharmonizations or chord changes I’d like to note. Compare the two progressions:

The first seven bars are standard F blues. However, the bar 8 has an Am7 followed by an Abm7, which chromatically sets up the Gm7 in bar 9.

In standard blues, bars 9 and 10 would normally contain a C7 followed by a Bb7. However, Billie’s Bounce essentially extends the C7 over both bars and then reharmonizes it as a standard ii-V7 progression (Gm7 to C7) to create a full ii-V7-I progression with the F in the last two bars.

Solo Analysis

To understand the basics of this solo, I highly recommend learning a simplified version of it, which can be found here:

This version has all of the articulations such as trills and slides removed from the transcription, which will help prevent you from getting bogged down in the details before understanding the basics.

Here is the complete solo analyzed:

I really like this solo because of its simplicity. One of the biggest hurdles for me is sounding authentic to the jazz style when I play. I’ve ran through a good number of exercises over various standard progressions, but when I solo over an actual song I still sound like a rock guitarist hacking his way through jazz. I think this solo will help bridge that gap.

Parker starts out the first part of the solo on the root of the first chord, F. Next, he uses a simple chromatic passing device to walk up to the third of the chord, A. He uses this device again to continue walking up the scale to a C (the 9th of Bb7) on the first beat of bar 2. Note throughout this solo how many times Parker uses basic chord tones to establish a sense of place and structure. With few exceptions in these first twelve bars, almost every note that lands on the beat is part of the basic seventh or ninth chord.

Basic musical creativity

2008-03-22T00:15:00.000-07:00

As I recently started reading through Guthrie Govan’s Creative Guitar 1, I was both humbled and inspired by a comment he made toward the beginning of his book. Guthrie, who is among the most daunting technicians of the instrument, writes,

“I guess honing your technique for its own sake is as valid a hobby as the next, but I put it to you that there’s no point in being able to play any faster than you can think.”

Having been guilty of a disproportionate emphasis on technique, while largely neglecting creativity, I thought this would be the perfect place to start my first substantive post.

Early on, I dedicated a lot of time to honing my technical skills, always having the metronome nearby. I remember many days of practicing all seven major scale three-note-per-string modes/patterns consecutively through the circle of fifths. I’d start with the Ionion/1^st pattern and run it through all twelve positions. When finished, I would immediately transition to the Dorian/2^nd pattern and repeat the process until I completed the Locrian/7^th pattern. However, I never recognized the subtle irony that my improvisation skills during that time were about as interesting as the metronome click! For example, my phrasing typically sounded like this:

Besides being absolutely boring, I think licks like this demonstrate an area where I strongly fell short: having an active mindset while playing. An active mindset is one that is conscious of the actual chords/harmony, especially in regards to how each note in a solo interacts with that harmony, and how both align with the rhythm of the song. Much of the music I was playing allowed me to bypass this active mindset because entire songs were largely composed of exclusively diatonic progressions (much of which was only triadic).Therefore, virtually any diatonic note would sound good as long as I made sure that longer held notes were generally chord tones.

Perhaps a slightly more interesting lick over the same progression would be something like this:

Whether or not this lick fits into your particular style, the reason it works better is because the notes over the G7 emphasize chord tones, which lead into a pattern over the C chord that also contains a good number of chord tones.

Let’s look a little closer at the G7 lick. First, the lick begins on a B, the third of the chord. Then it descends chromatically to a series of notes that includes the root (G), fifth (D), and flat seventh (F) of the chord. The result is that the tonality of the G7 is strongly established in this lick.

But what if that G7 became a G7b9, perhaps for better voice-leading? I would have been stuck, especially at faster tempos. That same shred lick just doesn’t work because this altered chord is no longer diatonic (the key of C does not have an Ab). Worse yet, due my passive thinking, I probably would have played the lick anyway because I wasn’t thinking about the actual chords. After all, the chord harmony would have only sounded for maybe one second.

But what I really needed to do was: first, recognize my scale options (altered dominant, diminished scale, etc.); second, identify key chord tones (G-B-D-F); third, use those chord tones on the down beats, followed by some creative use of other key tones (minimally Ab, the b9) from the chord/scale, maybe even incorporating chromatic approach notes and passing tones. That’s a lot of thinking for someone who is used to just shredding away!

Am I there yet? No, but I can definitely see progress, though ever so slowly. Sometimes I feel like my playing is more like that specialized uni-tasker tool hanging in the garage when my playing should really be more like an entire workshop with all the tools necessary to build everything from a bookshelf to an entire house. I still find myself in major ruts when jamming with the band, especially when trying to write new material.

What’s a good, practical solution? Perhaps it is the doing the one thing which I’ve generally been too lazy to do: transcribe other musicians, including non-guitarists. With that in mind, one of the things I have decided to do is create a lick library. I think I’ll look at some Greg Howe stuff from the Extraction album, but I think I’ll also tackle some Lester Young and Charlie Parker for a little variety. I’ll try to post some of my favorite licks from time to time, so check back!.

About Musical Musings...

2008-03-20T19:33:00.000-07:00

There are tons of books on how to learn an instrument, covering every style and genre imaginable. But those books always present themselves as very impersonal and often stale. As a musician who is deeply intrigued by music, the one thing I would like to see is more of the real struggles in the process of learning something new on an instrument because I think that is where other musicians relate and find encouragement.

Learning something on an instrument is more than just reading about it in a book. Actually, most of the time is spent on what is not in the book: the actual wrestling with and ironing out the nuances before you can add a particular technique or skill to your musical arsenal.

I also think a lot of creativity in music is found in those moments of just pondering a new idea or concept.

That is the whole purpose of this blog. I wanted to create a place where I could jot down my own personal musical journey, focusing primarily on the process.

With that in mind, welcome to my blog, "Musical Musings"! In the coming weeks and months, I anticipate using this space to chronicle my otherwise scattered thoughts about all things music. I plan to touch on many different aspects ranging from theory application to revisiting the basics such as alternate picking. I may even toss an random rant in here and there.