Theory of Ethos: Scale Contstruction

"That's why we learn this 'theory' stuff.  It's kind of useless by itself, but as a way of describing sounds and identifying sounds it starts to become really helpful."  Guthrie Govan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=ZlkGcFbdPJc

Let's talk about rules and language.  There's a narrative that plays out in every beginning theory class everywhere.  Teacher starts talking about rules. Imaginative/Rebellious/Contrary student begins questioning the rules.  "Why can't I write perfect fifths? Beethoven/Debussy/Led Zepplin did!"

Here's what seems to be lost in the mix.  There are no rules in music theory.  Music theory is description.  "Do X, and Y will happen."  "The word for this thing is this word."  It doesn't mean you can't do Z. You can even call a major chord a "Slartibartfast" if you like.

It's like language in general.  You can say whatever you want to say, but if you say it in your own made up language, then no one will understand you.  All language does is give you a way to get the things in your head into the head of the fellow sitting next to you.

It all basically comes down to conventions.  Some people figured out ways of getting the sounds they wanted, and over the years we as musicians and theorists have agreed on conventional names for them. That's it.  And...think about it imaginative/rebellious/contrary students among you...this is a good thing for you.  1) It provides means of quickly accessing the sounds you have in your head.  If you want something to sound like a major chord, you don't have to go mucking about with trial and error until you find the notes you want - you just play the notes that you already know make up a major chord.  And here's the interesting one - 2) If you want to create new sounds, then you know which rules to break.

So let's start talking about some basic conventions, and along the way I'll make sure to mention ways you can bend "da rulz."

When musicians talk about scales, we compare everything to a major scale.  We talked about major scales in the first theory lesson on scales and modes.  If we number the notes in a major scale 1 through 8, we have what are called "scale degrees." (note the whole and half step intervals between each note. See Scales and Modes for a more in depth discussion of those.)

To "flat" a note is to lower it by one half step - to "sharp" a note is to raise it by one half step.  Raising and lowering certain notes will result in other scales.  For instance, the minor scale has a flat 3, flat 6 and flat 7 in relation to the major scale.

Now, there's nothing to stop you from calling the notes in the minor scale "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8," or "Q Z Duck Bowling Ball Tennis Shoes 42."  But this idea of relating scales to the major scale is conventional, and more than that, it's a useful way of thinking about new scale.  

For instance, let's take a look at a more exotic scale.  1 b2 3 4 5 b6 b7 8.  Without knowing what it's called, or even playing it, you can know quite a lot about it just by looking at those scale degrees.  

1) It's quite similar to the minor scale, only the 2 is flat instead of the 3.  

2) Whatever other weirdness a scale might have, if it has a 1, 3 and 5 left alone, those should be easy to latch onto with your ears and find familiar ground.  

3) If you look at the intervals between each note, you'll find that between b2 and 3 is neither a whole step nor a half step.  It is a step and a half, also known as a "minor third."  This is where the weirdness is going to be.  

The scale is called Phrygian Dominant.  Let's hear what it sounds like. 

"So what does that mean to me as a musician?" you might ask.  Good question.  Glad you asked.  Well, tons of things.  For one, it can open the door to experimentation.  Take a major scale - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 - flat a note here, sharp a note there.  Play the scale on your instrument and see if you like it.  

What else?  Well, why don't you try writing something in a weird scale.  Take phrygian dominant that we talked about today.  It has this weird "snake charmer," psuedo-middle-eastern vibe to it, especially if you highlight the Db-E interval.  For the guitar players, here's a scale box of C phyrgian dominant to experiment with.  

But, what if you didn't emphasize the weirdness about the scale?  What if you downplayed it, but still included the weird notes?  Then you might get something that sounds more familiar, but with a slightly different flavor.  You might end up with a heavy riff that no one even knows is in a bizarre scale.  

...You might end up with this:

Guthrie Govan puts it in another video that instead of an on/off switch to styles - as in, you are playing pentatonic blues.  Stop. Now you are playing shred - to instead treat them as a dimmer.  That there can be gradients to styles, and by introducing new notes or ideas and then emphasizing or emphasizing them you can blur the lines between things.  Brilliant.  

 

Woodshed Boot Camp Part 4: Right Hand Accuracy continued

Last week we discussed how to differentiate between three ways to divide a beat into thirds.  The triplet, the gallop, and the pop triplet.  If you need to review the difference between those, take another look at last week's lesson.

Right Hand Accuracy

This week we're going to put some melodic motion to those rhythms.  Introducing left hand movement creates two new snarls, one obvious and one not so obvious.  Having two things to focus on is more difficult than just chugging away on one note.  However, we're also going to encounter all kinds of less apparent problems dealing with moving from one string to the next.  None of it will be terribly difficult, but failing to identify the problem and overcome it could lead to bigger problems later in your development as a kick-ass guitarist.

In the first lesson of the Boot Camp series, I used a scale fragment in A minor.  Let's take another look at it (this time in A minor instead of the original E minor).



It is just a pattern of six notes, repeated over and over again.  If you've been practicing your triplets from last week, the first three notes should be a breeze.  Just add in the additional notes in your left hand.  Remember, if it doesn't come naturally to you, then take it annoyingly slow and work it with a metronome.

The trouble is going to come in when you go to play note 4 - the D on the A string.  Like I said the last time we looked at this fragment, make sure you are not using two consecutive downstrokes.  Stick to alternate picking.

Now that you have that under your fingers again, lets take our three rhythms and apply it to this exercise.  Here are the other two.





Take our usual practice to these three: start as slow as is necessary to play them perfect, and increase the tempo to a desired goal.  We'll set the goal at 120 BPM.

Once you have those three under your fingers, let's extend the exercise to a full minor scale.  There are several ways to play scales in one position - what guitarists often call "a box."  The way I play them is somewhat uncommon.  I started experimenting with a slight shift when moving to the B string a few years ago, and then fully applied it to my practice regime when I saw Rusty Cooley doing the same thing.  So here is my "box" for A minor in 5th position.

If we take this scale box and play our three rhythms over it, we have a much more interesting way to practice scales while simultaneously working on the accuracy of our right hand.  Here are all three versions written out.  In order to facilitate picking, you repeat both the highest and lowest pitches.









Much like with the scale fragment above, the problems are going to arrise when changing strings.  We've already seen what happens when the last note on one string is a downstroke - you are tempted to play the first note on the next string as a downstroke.  Make sure you maintain alternate picking to avoid problems later in the scale.

When we move from the A string to the D string, we encounter a new problem.  We discussed it in the briefly in the more advanced etude from the first Bootcamp lesson.  An upstroke followed by a downstroke on a higher string - sometimes called "inside the string picking," because it can feel like your pick is "trapped" between the strings.  In picking patterns like these, your range of motion is restricted and you must be more precise with your right hand.  So practice just that scale fragment until the picking feels more natural.  Same as always, start slow and build it up with a metronome.  Here is a good starting point - try playing along with this before using your own metronome. Make sure you are playing the indicated picking - it starts on an upstroke. That is vitally important.



These are two huge potential "gotchas" that you should be aware of any time you have a linear passage like a scale: avoiding consecutive downstrokes and inside the string picking.  They stem from the same problem, which is using an even numbered thing (up and downstrokes) to play an odd numbered thing (three-note-per-string scale boxes).  There are several alternative solutions to this: play pentatonic boxes that are two notes per string, use various picking patterns like economy picking, and many more.  However, I find all that to be counterproductive.  I want to play the most efficient fingerings with the most efficient picking, and that is three-note-per-string boxes with alternate picking.  In my opinion, and the opinion of a number of famous shredders, the problems with that combination are minimal compared to the advantages.

So break out the metronome, clean up your picking, and next week learn an exercise that can work on either your right or your left hand (say what? Stay tuned to find out).

BTW, have you seen Chico's Instrumental?  Check it out and let me know what you think and if you'd like to see more.



Chico's Instrumental is freely available on YouTube. Doctrine's self titled EP is available at all your favorite music stores.