Pentatonic Scales

Unlike most guitarists, I've never really spent much time learning the common major and minor pentatonic scales. So I thought I'd better start. Even though I've not yet studied this area in depth, several things seem worth focussing on:

-the potential for creating musically exciting ideas based on a pentatonic scale beyond cliche blues licks, achieved through:
-->fluent linking of the common 2-note per string (NPS) shapes
-->creating 3nps patterns to help break out of the above
-->use of wider intervals and irregular rhythmic/accented groupings
-->use of all 3 pentatonic scales present within a key

-the explanation of more 'advanced' scales or modes through the idea of 'altered' or 'added to' pentatonic scales

Although initially building on the common 2nps patterns, I aim to keep this area of study as free from learning shapes as possible in a conscious effort to familiarise myself with and internalise note positions and intervals. As I think this area will provide the foundation for the explanation of many concepts considered to be more 'advanced' (and perhaps something of a 'safety net' for future improvisation), it is something I feel I should understand as fully as possible before considering more 'complex' (and sometimes academically favoured) approaches.

Triads as Building Blocks

14-04-09
Breaking down complex chords into more ‘manageable’ chunks.

This is a very simple concept which many musicians/guitarists will be familiar with, but some won’t be, or won't be used to thinking in this way. It seems pretty obvious, but then most things are once they’ve been explained to you. I use this for simplifying more complex or extended chords, but thinking-wise this concept assumes only that you know how to construct major and minor triads (if you’re not sure, there’s plenty of stuff on the internet).

This concept came about simply from exploring what would fit musically over one chord – in this case an Am7. What this turned into is a method I find really useful for breaking up more complex chords – seeing them as a stack of basic major or minor (or diminished) triads rather than a ‘big scary jazz chord’ with lots of extensions.

As daft as it seems, this approach didn’t occur to me until it was pointed out a couple of weeks back and I’ve been exploring it and having fun with it ever since – it’s an approach that really ‘clicks’ with me. I think it’s the way it helps the transition between a very simple idea and a more complex chord – I find it really gets ‘inside’ the ‘parent’ chord and gets me thinking in terms of scale tones, and also in terms of similarities between chords that might not seem to be closely related at all.

Edit 1 - the following are some points I drafted at the end of the above. For the sake of remaining concise, I've left them as bullets.

-If you’re working with just major and minor chords, you can now imply some new flavours or colours simply by adding the 7^th

-Clearly there are many voicings or inversions even for a triad, so there’s a lot of room for exploring this concept.

-You can bring out different flavours of complex chords without crazy hard-to-play shapes.

-You can now play major ideas over minor chords and vice-versa.

-If you’re getting into jazz, even sticking with 7^th chords you now have two ideas for each chord instead of one.

-Can be a useful way of achieving some ideas and separation if you have more than one guitarist to consider

-Setting out the notes of a key in this way is also useful because it effectively orders the notes in importance in relation to a chord – there’s more ‘space’ between notes now, and it looks less crowded than a scale à this sets out more of a useful order for the notes and how they relate to each other in the context of a chord.

Edit 2 - as yet I haven't figured out how to add diagrams to these blog posts. If anyone can help with this I'll gladly upload some scribblings to clarify my thoughts.

Four Note Chords

16-04-09

I first learnt to play seventh chords using chord diagrams, giving shapes with the roots on the 6th or 5th string. For the most part, I found these shapes contained more notes than I knew what to do with, and it took a while to become familiar with the order of the notes and their relation to the root. In some ways, this seems like an odd starting point to present students with, as these shapes invariably contain some notes that aren't 'necessary'.

Simply memorising (as opposed to 'learning') chord shapes means I wasn't actively engaging with the notes I was playing at all.

A useful way of breaking out of this, for me, is to instead concentrate on just four notes - once you have a four note chord built R 3 5 R it provides a handy framework within which to start shifting other notes about. Using four note shapes rooted on the 4th string provide some nice clear-sounding voicings that make it easy or 'logical' to see what you're doing as you start moving notes around - especially if you start with just a major or minor chord and then move through different chord types altering one note at a time.

I also like the idea of a four-note shape as being relatively 'compact' - you know it contains all the important bits, so you can kind of forget about it. If you can avoid barreing or muting the two strings not being played, then these are open to be used to add further extensions on higher strings or further up the fretboard, or in reverse you can start to think about selecting an interesting bass note to play underneath. This can lead to some interesting two-handed ideas, or allows more sonic space in which to construct parts for more than one guitarist.

I concede barre chords and 'bigger' shapes have their place, and some sound really great but it seems that there is an awful lot of emphasis, and perhaps a reliance, placed on these types of chords given that they a) are often not the most logical iterations of many chords, b) are not always the best sounding and c) often 'hog' quite a lot of the fretboard by playing a note on each string. These voicings also make no allowance for the part of the bass player. Whether you’re playing with one or not, it seems careless not to consider this when choosing a chord voicing – many 5 or 6 note voicings are simply doubling the same notes the bassist might choose an invading their sonic ‘space’.

Take Two

So, like many bloggers, I fell victim to the habit of not keeping my blog updated. So let's try again.

I think the problem I found with writing entries for a blog such as this, is that it can be difficult to break up concepts into smaller pieces without feeling like you're offering a set of thoughts that are half-baked or incomplete - even though it's necessary to study things in some sort of isolation for the sake of practicality. Thusly, I have several half-written entries - coming from a handful of sessions that ran into one another - that have escaped upload because I didn't feel like they were 'finished'.

Clearly this makes for a very empty blog, and does nothing to help clarify any understanding which may have been found when looking at the constituent parts initially. With this in mind, I shall aim to make future entries much shorter and more concise. This may result in entries that offer a more 'complete' description of a smaller piece of a concept, or just in a collection of thoughts which need further investigation.

The first task will be to go through those entries already written and to edit them into something more rounded that can be uploaded soon, and then more user and writer-friendly entries will follow. Watch this space...