Chromatics Day 3

The previous exercise used rhythmic displacement to add interest. For this installment we'll be using octave displacement. 

Simply put this is just a chromatic scale but every note is in a different octave from the previous one. Obviously this results in some technical challenges and obscures the sound of the chromatic scale. 
 What you end up with is actually a tone row of sorts as described by serialist music theory. Here's a link if you're interested in finding out more.

To deal with the large intervallic leaps I used hybrid picking technique. I found myself using all my right hand fingers to pull it off. It makes for an excellent right hand exercise. 

In the spirit of serialist compositional technique you could also play it in retrograde. In other words, backwards. 

There many other possible configurations of this exercise so it's worth spending time working them out. It will develop your fretboard awareness and open things up when improvising. Guitarist's tend to play few wide intervals and this is a good way to start think 'bigger'. You could also apply the same concept to 7 note scale within a diatonic framework.

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Chromatic 3rds - Putting exercises into practice

  At some point or another every guitarist will practice sequences. Usually the focus of these is the development of technique but there's a bit more to it than that. Or rather there should be...

    Playing with intervallic patterns can give you the raw material for improvisation. Short phrases that can be recombined in many ways to form longer musical statements that have their own internal logic and flow. At that point what started out as a dry, technical exercise becomes a creative act which is what all practice should ideally be. 

The genesis of this idea was hearing chromatic 3rds in the playing of Scott Henderson. He was clearly using them as a way of introducing an 'outside' kind of falling motion into his playing. I then set out to catalogue all the different chromatic 3rds patterns I could and notate them as part of my 'digital hell' series. The 3rd is a harmonically defining interval so it's good for creating 'outside' lines.

Here's some of the patterns I used in the video.

Here's a summary of the concept I explain in the video.

• Start any of these 3rds patterns within the chord tones. i.e. Over Bm7 you could start the pattern on D and F# (the 3rd and 5th of the chord) 

• Move it chromatically in either direction until you 'hook' back into the chord and resolve the tension created by the chromaticism. IN - OUT - IN again. 

It's a really simple concept and not the only way of applying these by a long chalk but it is very effective. The improvisation at the end is a little more repetive than I would have liked but I was really focusing on this one concept and as such it's a little unbalanced. Enjoy!

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Digital Hell # 1

  Over 30 years of teaching guitar I've created many exercises for developing technique. These have turned into a whole series I've dubbed 'Digital Hell'. 

Here's an extract from number 1 in the series. This particular one focuses on 'squeeze-release', left-right synchronisation and economy picking all packed into nutritious bite sized exercises.

Here's the extract 

and here's the video. Skip to 0.45 to see the examples notated above.

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