Zhille's Guitar Blog

Drop 2 seventh chords in P4 tuning

noreply@blogger.com (Zile Kondic) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:28:00 +0000

Introduction

Hi, this time I will be a little shorter than usual. I’ll talk about drop 2 chords, in particular – Drop 2 seventh chords. Most of the lesson is meant for people playing in Perfect Fourths Tuning, all fourths tuning, whatever you wish to call it. I call it P4. In the previous lesson I talked about how perfect fourths tuning eases the learning of all those shapes and their inversion by diminishing the number of shapes to learn by two thirds. Now I’ll show that to you in practice by giving you 15 of the most important seventh chords in their drop 2 form, along with all three inversion – on three sheets of paper :) Those are the same sheets with diagrams I still use, to learn the shapes of those most important chords.

Why are these chords important?

Well, for starters, you’ll be able to play any chord anywhere on the neck, and know which one it is, only by it’s fingering. You will also begin to connect the visual shape and the sound you get, as the same fingering will always produce the same sounding, as opposed to the standard tuning. This kind of chord is mostly used as a comping *accompaniment* chord I can never stress enough that knowledge of these chords is one of the essentials of a complete guitarist. Also, it’s a full chord, in every shape you have all 4 chord tones, 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th. Feel free to omit the fifth in some cases(where a chord has a perfect fifth) as it’s common practice of some jazz guitarists.

How it’s made

Drop 2 shapes are really handy for guitarists because the shapes are all possible to finger, and are visually consistent. They are made from basic seventh chord piano voicings by taking the second note from the top and lowering it one octave down. That also applies for all the inversions. And when you make all four drop 2 chords, you sort them by the note they start from, never mind the original root.

Here is a simple example of how the root inversion of C7 is converted to a drop 2 chord. Note how it becomes the 2nd inversion after the change, since now the root note is G, the fifth of the chord.

I separated the drop-note from the chord and colored it, just for easier reference. I hope it’s not so confusing :)

The Chords

Here are 15 most important seventh chords for you to know. Note that you can use the same shape on every string set if you’re using all fourths tuning, if not, you’ll have to wait until I decide to scan over 15 pages of diagrams used for the same thing for the standard tuning.

Since the shapes are movable, you must use the outlined circle that signifies the root note of the chord to find your way. It’s really easy. As for the inversions, they start from the 3rd, 5th, and 7th of the chord desired, so if you want C7’s first inversion, the root of the inversion is E, the third of C7, which is located on several positions over the neck, you choose. The shape stays the same on all string sets.

People with guitars in standard tuning can also use these diagrams, but they will have to make two more variations of every fingering, as this will work only on the bottom 4 string all tuned in fourths.

Conclusion

I think this is a pretty valuable and useful resource, since there is hardly any P4 resources out there, and the only thing we can do is adapting the standard tuning resources, and that’s a pain. But someone has to do it :) Have fun, learn some chords, and don’t mind my sloppiness. Also, I’d really like you to leave an impression, comment, suggestion. I know that only few people will ever read this, but I’d like to get feedback anyway.

Have Fun!

Technorati Oznake: guitar,tuning,all fourths,fourths,p4 tuning,drop 2 chords,chords

Perfect Fourths (P4) Tuning – Basics and examples

noreply@blogger.com (Zile Kondic) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:15:00 +0000

Introduction

In this post I will try to explain some things about a tuning not being used very often, which gives advanced and medium-to-advanced guitarists a few great advantages over the standard tuning. I switched to it some time ago, and I want to share the experience. I found very little material related to P4 on the net, and I think I will dedicate some of my time to making some resources myself. But before I strart – a few short notices:

Who can benefit from P4 Tuning?

People who are tired of remembering chord and scale positions depending on which string is the starting point.
People who use drop-2 chords, or three to five-tone chords.
All of you who are into “comping”.
People already comfortable with note names, note positions, intervals.
People who play on the lower strings a lot.
All of you who want to experiment, to try something NEW.
Metalheads :) as the power-chord shape is always the same, ideal for rhythm guitar in metal and rock/hard rock.
People who want to try out two handed tapping style and can’t afford a Chapman Stick or Warr guitars.
Bass players learning guitar.
People with two or more guitars – you can keep playing in your tuning while learning P4 on your other guitar.

P4 tuning may not be a solution for:

Beginners (some basic chords are much harder to play).
People using 5-6 string chords can also find a lot of them harder to play.
Soloists who don’t want to change their fingerings, or are comfortable with the standard tuning.
People who play on high strings a lot.

How to tune in P4?

You tune all strings like you tune the first four, making the open above string sound like the note on the 5th fret of the lower string. Thus, in “standard P4” you get E, A, D, G, C and F. So, notes on the open top two strings are a hafl step higher then on the standard tuning. It’s like playing in ordinary tuning, but when you play on the top 2 strings, you move everything one fret back. My current tuning is B P4, and the notes are B – E – A – D – G – C, that is why I called the E P4 tuning – Standard P4

It needs time to get used to, but I will explain the reasons why this tuning can become a very nice thing in further text.

So, what do I gain by tuning my guitar in Perfect Fourths?

1 – Intervals are consistent visually.

All intervals are fretted the same on every string set. In standard tuning you have two variations of every interval, that are dependent on whether the second string is involved, and often variations of different intervals look the same. In P4 that is not the case. The fifth of the current note is ALWAYS two frets up on the higher string. Minor 3rd is always two frets down on the higher string, and so on. Here are some pictures, to show you what is it like visually. Download these charts and feel free to print them and use for referrence

It’s always a good thing to be sure that the note will sound exactly as you imagined it in your head, without thinking about where you are on the neck, on which string, and which string is next.

2 – Chords are consistent string-wise.

If you use 3-4-5 note chords, or best of all – drop 2 chords, you know what a pain it is to learn all positions and inversions on all string sets. Here is an example. A while ago I got interested in the Drop 2 system, and in order to master the system all through the neck, you have to learn 12 (yes, TWELVE!) fingerings for every chord, including it’s three inversions. Four forms per chord. Three sets of strings. Bottom four, middle four, and top four strings…all with different fingerings. So, to begin, I made sheets for 15 seventh chord types. On each sheet – 12 fingerings…so do the math. And different inversions of different chords looked the same…so confusing, discouraging and time-consuming.

In P4 tuning, if you use triads, four and five-note chords, they keep the visual shape, no matter which string has the root note, no matter which string set! For example - that makes the ammount of drop 2 chord fingerings to learn smaller by TWO THIRDS! For those 15 chords I had 180(!!!) fingerings, and when I rearranged the sheets for P4, I got 60 fingerings. It gets a lot easier when you have shapes for 5 different chords on one page, all 15 on 3 pages, instead of searching through 15 pages.

Here are the examples for a triad, a 4-string drop 2 chord, and a few more. For the sake of saving space, I put different string set variations on the same diagram graphic, I hope it’s not confusing :) and I’m sorry for the messy handwriting.

3 – Scales are consistent all over the neck.

This is maybe the most important thing to gain with transfering to P4. Your scale shapes will always be the same, no matter from which string you begin the scale. You will play the major scale on the top strings exactly the same as you play them on the lower strings. It’s a great thing, consistency. If you’re into jazz, it must be a great pain to remember all the scale variations that are used in combination with the B string in standard tuning, every shape has three or more variations, and multiply that by the number of possible chord scales. Again, the P4 tuning divides the number of scale shapes by two thirds, by making all the shapes look AND sound the same. Visual/Aural consistency is a very important thing when learning, playing, jamming. At least to me it is.

The basic thing is – take the form you are using on the bottom four strings on the normal tuning, and use it on the top 2 strings too. It’s a great thing to have some diagrams as a starting point, and I will provide you with some basic diagrams, I don’t want to give you everything on the plate, because it’s much more fun if you get encouraged to make them yourselves, in a manner that you feel is adequate to you. By doing those diagrams yourselves, you’ll get familiar with your new tuning, and you will get more familirar with your instrument. I made all of these myself, and it was fun, and I now have original study material and a defined way of making it. I am sharing this in hope that someone will maybe learn something.

Here are some scale examples. Remember that the string set is not important, the scale will sound as it should, wether you start it on the E, A, D,or G string ascending, or E, B, G and D descending. The examples are given in one octave, ascending, on the middle string set, starting from the A string, and I encourage you to make your own descending shapes, it’s fun :). As you already saw in previous examples, the outlined dots are root notes, as these patterns are movable. Try it by playing the shape on a random root note all over the neck. As an exercise – you can play the ascending shape up to the seventh, and then shift and play the same shape from the other root note, octave above the starting note. Try to visualy associate the shapes with the major and minor sound, that will help with modal playing, as all modes are somewhat modified major and minor.

Have fun with these diagrams, and please, don’t be lazy, make some on you own, that will really help you to familiarize with your new tuning. Also, you can try making fingerings for some exotic scales, symmetrical scales, pentatonics…there is so much material to learn.

Conclusion of this lesson

In conclusion, I will be short. If you read the list on the top, and if you are one of those people who would benefit from this, and if you liked my examples and methodology, try this, especially if you have another guitar. I did this on my second guitar before I tuned my Ibanez in P4. Now my second guitar is in a more extreme tuning, the New Standard Tuning. Since I don’t have the intention to go back to standard ebgdae tuning, all my future lessons will be for P4 and NST, as there is really a small amount of material that we can learn from. Let’s fight that.

I really hope I managed to motivate someone to at least try this interesting new tuning, and these examples were an interesting thing to make.

See you all! Take care, and don’t overdo it :)

Technorati Oznake: guitar,perfect fourths,tuning,P4,fourths,alternative tuning

Transcribing for Guitar - Part 1 - Piano

noreply@blogger.com (Zile Kondic) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:29:00 +0000

Hi, nice to be writing something again. In this article I want to help you better understand relations between guitar and other instruments, and help you to learn to make your own classical music transcriptions in no-time using simple tools as Guitar Pro.

First thing's first - for understanding this, you'll need to have at least basic music education, and you have to know how to read notes, but I will try to make it understandable to people who are not much into theory. You'll also need to know note inputing in Guitar Pro.

OK, let's get started. As some of you already know, guitar is a transposing instrument, that means it is notated different than it really sounds. In guitar's case, the transposing interval is an OCTAVE, so it sounds an octave lower than it's written, or it's written an octave higher than it sounds, choose your definition :). That transposition gives us the possibility to correctly transcribe music from various other instruments that fit the range of a guitar. If it does not fit the range, we can easily transpose a few semitones up or down, and get it right. That is why we need Guitar Pro for easy input of notes, and some stuff that's guitar specific, and a little complicated to do in other software, or manually. Some instruments we will deal with and talk about are: piano, violin, viola and violoncello. In the first few lessons I will focus on piano, in the next few I'll do the other instruments one by one.

Transcibing piano pieces

We'll start with the piano, as it is most easy to find sheet music for the piano. You can download it for free or buy it on the Internet, browse for it on various P2P networks like Soulseek(free software for file sharing with a looot of users)...there are tons of it. As some of you know, a piano uses the grand staff, a combination of a G clef system (also known as the violin clef) used to notate the right hand, and a F clef system (also known as the bass clef) to notate the left hand, and they're are one below the other. That is made because people are uncomfortable reading music with a lot of ledger lines. Here is a grand staff with reference notes in both staffs.

I will be focusing on standard E tuning in this and other lessons about transcription, even though my guitar is in D. The number of frets I will focus on is 24.

You can choose to transcribe the upper system for guitar, and lower for bass, but when there is possibility to transcribe for two guitars, it's a better solution, and you'll be playing in the right register. Here is how to determine that. The first step to do when transcribing a piano piece, or part of it, is finding the lowest note in the bottom system and the highest note in the upper system, to see if the piece fits the range of your guitar. The best thing is to show you this visually, so you can understand me better. The first example is a table of guitar ranges, to help you find out if the piece you transcribe is in range, so you can transcribe for two(or more) guitars. The bottom note is the open lowest string, and the upper note is the last fret on the highest string. You can extend the range by bending and harmonics, but these are the most basic ranges, because bending and harmonics limit the playability. Remember, a guitar is a transposing instrument, it sounds an octave lower than it's usually written! The ranges below are the REAL ranges of several used tunings. Click to show in full size.

If the piece you want to transcribe has notes that are way out of the range, it's best to make a simpler guitar and bass arrangement. That is also the case if the highest note in the piece is out of range and there are notes in the G clef system that are lower than E under the third ledger line. You can then just leave it as it is, just transpose both tracks until the lowest note in the G clef system is E. Additionally, you'll maybe need to use a 5 string bass setting when you first input the notes, if there are very low notes in the bass line. I'll get to that in some of the next lessons.

Transcribing simple piano pieces

Now we'll have a musical example, let's transcribe a few measures from a random piano piece out of the "simple" class. We'll take something a little more didactic, because some piano compositions tend to change clefs and have a lot of voices, and I'll write about that in another lesson. Carl Czerny's "Opus 821 - Short Studies" will do perfectly. Those are etudes(studies), small pieces for practicing and improving skills, mostly just melody over chord, or melodic counterpoint. I have selected a particular piece that is slightly out of range, and it will need to be transposed just to give you a hint of how that works. Here it is - Opus 821, No. 18(click to show in full size):

Now check the range of the composition, and you'll find that its lowest note - D is one step lower than our lowest - E, the same with the highest note. And now forget it for a while :) haha, we'll take care of it later. Next step is to open Guitar Pro application and start inputing notes. We make two tracks, one for the G clef and one for the F clef. Now adjust the second track for bass guitar, we'll change that later (click the track name, and change to 4 strings, it will automatically change to bass guitar and F clef). I made screenshots of the settings, for the guitar and for bass. Change you instrument by will, but for now, make second track a bass guitar of some kind. Now you got your tracks ready, change the key to G Major and the Time signature to 3/8, and start inputing notes. Do not care about tablature numbers and fingerings. You don't need to worry about that right now.

For those who are not skilled - position the "yellow spot" where the note should be in the system(with a mouse or up-down keyboard controls) and press Enter to input the note. Change the note duration with +, - and * on the keypad. You make rests by typing "R". You make a sharp note(#) by holding shift and pressing "+", and flat notes by shift and "-". Guitar pro has a "slight" problem with accidentals, sometimes instead of, for example, raising D and making it D# it will make Eb, but as long as you have a correct sound, it's not really important, because D# and Eb are the same on the guitar.

Once you completed the note input, save the file, just in case :) Now we return to the "lower than range" problem. This is a point where you decide what kind of arrangement you'll do. If you have a friend that play bass, you'll probably like to make something you two can play together. If that's the point, you're done, just arrange your fingering, tempo, instrument etc., and give the tab to your friend so he can arrange the bass line(which is quite cool in this piece). You can skip the next part and continue to the conclusion.
If you want to play all by yourself, continue reading.

We had a range that is one step, or whole tone ("W") lower than our lowest note on the guitar, and the same with our highest note. Which is actually good - very good :) We make a solution for the range problem by transposing the whole composition one whole tone higher making it a perfect fit, the lowest note in the composition will be the open low E, and the highest will be the 24th fret on the high E. In Guitar Pro, go to "Tools" menu, select "Transpose" and in the dialog box that appears select "+2" semitones(one whole tone = two semitones) and check the "transpose all tracks" box. That will do the job. Now press CTRL+Home to "rewind" to the beginning, and change the key to A Major (three #-s).

Now, since the guitar is a transposing instrument, and you'd want to play in the right register, you must transpose the whole thing an octave higher. Go to Tools/Transpose, select +12 semitones and check the all tracks box, and you're done. Now all we have to do is change the second track from a bass guitar to a "normal" six string guitar. Click the second track name to get the settings - change the number of strings to 6, this will automatically change the instrument back to a guitar. Click OK, and when the system asks "do you want to transpose..." click OK for that too. Now you have your second guitar right where you want it. In this particular piece, on the first track, some chords in the high register will maybe be tricky :)

Now the only thing left is to make a good fingering, and I leave that to you :) in the end of the paragraph I will give you a link so you can download finished guitar pro tabs, but with no fingering arrangement, I am really lazy sometimes hahaha.
It would really be of more use if you tried to make the guitar pro tab yourselves, to get to know the process a little bit more. If you did it yourselves and you never did it before - congratulations, you made your first transcription :)

Additional Material:
Guitar Pro Tabs and Sheet Music

Conclusion

Not everything can be transcribed for guitar. There are piano lines that are physically impossible to play on a guitar or bass, like some complicated jazz chords, succession of more difficult "shifty" chords, three notes that are a minor second from each other in the same chord, note clusters...good thing those are rare :)
Most of piano music interesting to guitar players has fewer of those tricky parts and is more about melody, so most of it can be transcribed using some simple software like Guitar Pro.
Some compositions like J.S. Bach's Three Voice Inventions need to be transcribed for a guitar trio, or bass and two guitars, I will "talk" more about that in following lessons. I plan to write a series of lessons on transcribing, with guitar pro, or manually :) and I hope I'll have the time (and nerves) to write it.

I am not very much obsessed with getting my lessons to be popular, because if even just one person reads it and benefits from it, I am happy :) hmm...maybe if I put a photo of a naked girl it will get more views hahahaha :) when you think about it - sad but true :)

I hope the lesson was not too confusing to "mere mortals" because it's targeted to a specific know-it-all-guitar-pro-using audience. Throw a brick on me if it is ^^.
See you next time :) and sorry for the lame humor.

Technorati Tags: guitar, transcription, lesson, piano

Chromatic Runs

noreply@blogger.com (Zile Kondic) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:08:00 +0000

This time I will write about another thing that I use a lot, and it will not be full of theory. I think this will really help you as I have never seen someone explain this in the way I will do now. The subject of my lesson now is the chromatic scale - more correctly - a couple of CHROMATIC RUNS.

All of us play the "Spider exercise" once in a while, to warm the fingers up a little bit, and for you who don't know what the spider exercise is, that's when you play 1-2-3-4, skip to the next string, 1-2-3-4 and so on until the fingers are a little warmed up. It has a big potential for warming up, but it's practically useless for your solos, because it's didactic, not musical. Well. I am here to straighten that up :) Let's make that usable, and even more developing for technique.
For starters, here you have the neck diagram and note/tab of the ascending Spider exercise:

Click on the image below to show in full size

The chromatic scale is made only with SEMITONES(h) so the scale contains 12 tones in equal half step intervals. On the guitar, that would be when you play all frets in line, one by one, starting from the empty string and finishing on the 12th fret of the same string. You can continue on the same string or transfer to another string, but the only important thing is that no semitone is skipped, left out or repeated. I think this is the most simple way to explain this. As said before, the MOST important thing is that NO TONE is left out or repeated, when you play the chromatic scale, and that's where the most people don't see the potential of the Spider exercise. Without further delay, I'll show you how you can "fix the spider" and make it a jaw-dropping routine and sometimes a great tool if you get confused and don't know what to play :).

If you get to examine the Spider more closely, you will notice that in order to "upgrade" it into a Chromatic scale, we need to make a few changes, insert a couple of missing notes and fix the fingering so we don't skip a single note. The C chromatic Scale is this: C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B, C. The first variant of the Chromatic scale I am going to show you, will be a four-note-per-string scale, perfect for alternate picking. In order to keep the 4 notes per string pattern, we'll need to make some position shifting, when transferring to the next string. We won't need the shift positions only between the G and B strings. The whole pattern moves one fret up when descending, and one fret down when ascending again. I worked all this out, and below you have the tab/notes of the scale ascending and descending, and then the neck diagram of both of them separately. You'll notice that this form is repeatable, so play your arse out :) The red note in the diagram is the starting note of the pattern. Click to enlarge the note/tab.

If you want to apply this to another scale, it's easy because the pattern is movable. Just find the desired scale's root note on the neck and start the pattern from there, keep the four note per string shape, and shift the positions as given, and you're bound to make it work :). Only watch out, because you can use this shape only from the 5th fret(A), not lower, just because of it's negative fret span (you move your hand down the neck while ascending). The next run I'm going to show does not have that limitation. *evil/menacing laughter*

Tapping Chromatic Runs

OK. let's get mean >:) For understanding this part of the lesson, you'll need to know some things. First - a QUINTUPLET is made when you play 5 notes in a beat, and second - you'll need some tapping and tap/pick-sliding experience. Other than that, everything is really easy. It's very important that you DON'T pick, but hammer on and pull off all notes in these tapping examples, to keep the line as fluid as possible. And regarding tap/pick sliding, it's recommended to use the pick, because the attack is more clear. If someone is comfortable to use his/her nail, or finger instead of pick, OK, this is just my way. I am not responsible if you cut yourself, hahaha :))).

In this part, we'll make 5 notes per string runs, by adding one tapped note, and by that, keeping the position like in the beginning Spider exercise. We'll only need to transfer one fret up when we move from G to B string, but that movement is really easy and I think it won't make much trouble. Try to change strings seamlessly, and play everything very legato. Don't pick the first note, hammer on the string. In the first example of tapping chromatics, you'll have an example of a pattern that covers all six strings, with just a few additional movements, to make it repeatable. In one moment you'll have to insert sextuplets(forgive me if I misspelled the name) instead of quintuplets. and that's all the "math". Without further delay, here are both note/tab and a position diagrams, click to enlarge the note/tab.

The descending part's diagram may be a little confusing without looking at the tab, but you'll get a guitar pro tab, so don't worry :) You can freely use the ascending diagram to descend, only reverse it, and make F the starting note. I started the desc. diagram from G only because G is the fifth/dominant of C.

This lick can be performed very fast, and I bet people will get pretty amazed if you play it in a fast tempo. I found some examples of it's usage in some of the music I listen to, and both of them are played by Michael Romeo of Symphony X. He performed chromatic/tapping licks similar to this in solos of one Symphony X songs from Paradise Lost (2007.) album, I really can't remember which one, and in one of Ayreon's songs (Dawn Of A Million Souls), where he featured a solo. Arjen Lucassen(Ayreon) described the lick as "unreal". They're not linear as this and the next example, it's up to you to use them as you like.

The "Mean" 3 octave chromatic lick

The next lick is very similar to the previous example, but more virtuous, as it employs some cool tap/pick sliding and covers 3 full octaves(from C on the 8th fret of the low E, to C on the 20th fret of the high E string). I made two possible fingerings, because someone may be uncomfortable playing chromatic patterns over 15th fret, like me :) Visually, the first fingering is more appealing and twice harder, because you have to tap/pick slide and change positions in the same time. and it's a bit tough, so try slow until you get it :) Try not to look as if you're barely managing to do it, make it look easy, and people will go "OMG this guy plays this like it's a piece of cake, he must be good". One important advice - when you tap/pick slide press the pick against the string really hard(because it's more clear when you slide from fret to fret) and KEEP IN TIME. Ok, here you go, I hope you'll enjoy as much as I did :) Click to enlarge.

Here is the alternate fingering version, with some more pick sliding, so you won't need to change positions. You'll have to be really careful to keep in time while returning the pick. Try to make the pick slide as seamless as possible.

This time I will not talk about usage for this, simply because the chromatic scale fits everything :) so it's up to you to find a good usage for all of this I just showed you. OK, I guess the 80% usage for this will be to show off to non-playing audience :) I hope you liked the lesson, and I apologize if there are some lame phrases, English is not my native. Feel free to bookmark this blog, but I don't write very often. Thanks for your time.

Download Guitar Pro and PDF notes + tablature

Technorati Tags: chromatic scale, guitar, chromatic runs

Whole Tone Scale - Theory & Usage

noreply@blogger.com (Zile Kondic) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 07:31:00 +0000

This time I am going to write to a great extend about a scale I use a lot in soloing, and which is in the same time a great finger exercise. The scale in question, as you figured out from the title, is the Whole Tone Scale. A lot of people haven't even heard about it, but if you are into Progressive Metal, or Jazz, you must have heard it a lot of times. Those of you who enjoy classical music can hear a masterful use of this scale in the music of Claude Debussy and the other Impressionist era composers.

I want to say that English is not my native language and I do my best to write in an understandable manner, so if you find a spelling error or a not-so-good phrase, don't blame me a lot :)

Some theory behind the scale

(a lot of this material demands at least basic knowledge of music theory, mostly intervals and triads/seventh chords, enharmonic substitutions, so I recommend reading on that first, there are a lot of guitar lessons on the Internet regarding basic theory. I don't want to make this post longer, just to explain something a lot of people already know.)

The Whole Tone Scale is made of DIATONIC WHOLE STEPS only, so there are no half steps in it, as is the case in other scales. The scale has six scale degrees(seven, if you count the I after the VI), one whole step apart. The scale is considered very fluid, and if used extensively - atonal, as it does not have a dominant(perfect 5th). That same lack of typical dominant makes it a very unstable scale, and asks for a careful usage.

Here is a diagram of C whole tone scale all over the neck, and below it in one octave in tablature and standard notation. I used Guitar Pro for some of this. Note: some software tend to use Bb, and some tend to use A# as this scale's sixth note.Those are practically the same notes on the neck. Don't get confused. Click on the image to enlarge.

I have made this in two variants, the lower one is Guitar Pro

The fact that there are no half-steps(thus no leading notes) in this scale causes constant melodic and harmonic tension with no resolution, so it's overuse results in monotony, because every melody tends to resolve, and WE expect it to resolve. It is recommended to use it with style, in limited amounts. But I think it's OK to overuse it if you are writing a song that is in a fantastic, surreal context, or if you use it to describe a particular emotion. Recommended listening is Debussy's Prelude no.2 Book I.

There is a variation of this scale that actually has a leading note, inserted chromatically between the VI and I, which stabilizes the scale a little bit, but the whole-tone-feeling is a little less expressed. Here it is:

Triads and seventh chords derived from the Whole Tone Scale

All the triads on all scale degrees in the whole tone scale are augmented (in further text: aug). This type of triad dominates in whole-tone passages. But, due to enharmonic reasons (M2=bb3, #4=b5, #6=m7, #7=8=1) there are two more types of chords available with the Whole Tone Scale. I will now list them for you and explain.

An augmented triad, aug or +, is the typical triad built on all scale degrees in a Whole Tone Scale. It's spelled 1-3-#5, and for example C+ is C-E-G#. I will continue using the C Whole Tone Scale for examples.
A double diminished triad is also possible to build on a scale degree of a whole tone scale, instead of an aug triad. It is spelled 1-bb3-b5 so in C whole tone we get C-Ebb-Gb. Some of you probably wonder what are those two notes doing in a C Whole Tone scale, which has E and G#. The answer is really simple - enharmonic substitution. Ebb=D, and Gb=F#, and we have both in our C whole tone scale. There probably are some other names for this triad, but I learned it like this, so if you have another name for it, write me and I will make a note about it.
A b5 triad is made if we keep the regular 1 and 3, and instead of a raised 4th(#4) take its enharmonic replacement- the lowered 5th(b5) - thus making a full chord by trick :D. It's spelled 1-3-b5 and if we apply it to C, we get C-E-Gb. That's a Cb5 or C-5 chord, some call it "altered b5" but for the sake of simplicity, we'll call it a b5 chord.

Now let's talk a little about seventh chord we can build on the scale's degrees. Because of enharmonic reasons (#6=m7, #7=8=1), we can only add a minor seventh(m7) to form a septachord (seventh chord) within a Whole Tone Scale. Shortly, we add a minor seventh to all three triad types I listed up there.

An augmented seventh chord is made when we add a m7 to an augmented triad. It's spelled 1-3-#5-m7, and a chordal example is C7#5 = C-E-G#-Bb(Bb=A#). Beginners, don't replace a m7 interval with a minor seventh chord, a m7 interval is a part of a Dom 7 chord, i.e. C7 = 1-3-5-m7.
The Scriabin Chord is made when we add a m7 to the double diminished chord explained above. The chord got it's name by a famous composer named Alexander Scriabin who used this type of chord very much. It's spelled 1-bb3-b5-m7. I really don't know how to call this chord, as I never encountered an English name and a chord symbol of it, but here it is: C-Ebb-Gb-Bb. It's symbol can be "o7" if you your dim chord symbol is "ø7". I will just call it a Double Diminished Seventh. If you happen to know the English naming system and symbol for this one, send me an E-mail, and I will rename it. In Serbian music language we have a strict delimiter for this type of chord and triad.
A 7b5 chord is made when we add a m7 to the b5 triad. It's spelled 1-3-b5-m7 and it's chord symbol is 7b5 - in example C7b5 = C-E-Gb-Bb.

All these seventh chords belong to the group of Altered Dominant 7th chords.

Of course we can go more complicated than this :) but I will be short. On top of two of three listed septachords - The 7#5 and 7b5 - we can add a M9 and make a highly typical 9th chord(nonachord) for the whole tone scale - Whole Tone Dominant 9th which has 5 of 6 different scale notes of the Whole Tone Scale in it. Those chords are: 9#5 (1-3-#5-m7-M9 | C9#5 = C-E-G#-Bb-D) and 9b5 (1-3-b5-m7-M9 | C9b5 = C-E-Gb-Bb-D). These chords are perfect fits for a Whole Tone Scale melody. OK, to make this yet more complicated :) you can make a chord that has all 6 different notes of a Whole Tone Scale in it, by adding the only left note/it's enharmonic substitution to 9#5 and 9b5 chords, thus making the whole scale fit into one chord. In the first case the 9#5, that note would be F#, making an 11#5 chord, and in the second - 9b5 case, we would add a #5 to the 9b5 chord, making it a 9±5 chord, which has both altered 5th's in it - 1-3-b5-#5-m7-M9. Don't try this at home, kids :), as these chords are not so beautiful for the ears.

Using the Whole Tone Scale

This will maybe be a little confusing, but I presume that people interested in something not so basic, have a basic theory and chord symbol knowledge. Beginners, you can freely move on to the patterns, diagrams and exercises if you don't dig theory much.

This scale can be played over any #5(+5) or b5(-5) chords and all the already mentioned chords in the theory part, but it's best fits are 9#5, 7b5 and 7#5 chords, because the Whole Tone Scale contains all the chord tones of those chords. So over a C7#5, a C Whole Tone would be a great fit. (C7#5 = C E G# Bb; C Whole Tone = C D E F# G# A#(enharmonic to Bb) C).
The scale is heavily used with "7+/-5 chords", and in combination with #9 and b9, fits ALL the altered dominant chords i.e. 7#9#13, 7#5b9 etc...

The Whole Tone Scale can very effectively be used as a tool for modulation, as it easily dismisses a tonality and opens a potential way to modulate to even a most distant tonality with a small melodic/harmonic movement. You can hear examples of that in music of Claude Debussy, especially in his Preludes. Beginners can skip the next part with small letters freely.
(You can try it out yourself right now, play any I-IV-V7-I for a few times, for example E major (E-A-B7-E) and then, once when you get to the V chord - B7, start playing a B whole tone scale from the 7th fret on the low E up to 14th fret on the B string...then hold the note for a bit, you'll see that there is NO clear tonal center, and then play, let's say - the 15th fret on the E string for a few seconds(we're still in the B Whole Tone scale), then move one fret up and play the 16th fret on E and B strings, and 17th fret on G string together, and let the E string note ring out. Congratulations, you've successfully modulated from E major to G# major!
What you really did there is: you dismissed the E Major by playing a whole tone scale against it's dominant - B, lost it almost completely by playing the whole tone scale almost two octaves up, stopped at C#, and than when you played the C#(14th fret, B str.) and the F##(F double sharp - same as G, 15th fret, E string) you actually played the seventh and the third of D#7 chord, and by that you silently entered the tonality of G# (D#7 is the V7 of G# major), now we just needed to confirm that tonality, and what better movement to confirm a tonal center than V7-I, and guess what you did :) That F## note is in fact G# major's LEADING NOTE, and by moving one fret up to G#, you confirmed the tonality of G# major, I added a few notes under it just you can get the point! Wasn't that easy. And may I mention that E major and G# major are pretty distant tonalities with very little in common., only the C# and D# notes) You can modulate back, applying the same principle. After this - definitely no more theory...

Scale patterns
This scale is very interesting to play on the guitar, because all the intervals are the same, and the fretting shape is same on all the strings, just moved one/two frets up/down the neck. here are a few patterns I use a lot, and find them really easy. Some of these start on the open low E, so it's a great finger warm-up. Also, it lets you move across the neck quickly and...um...weirdly. Click the link below to open the JPG file.

Whole Tone Scale patterns

Due to my lack of free time to dedicate to this blog, I must split the lesson in two parts. The next part will be more practical, with licks, patterns, chord diagrams of some chords you can play over, all with sound files and guitar pro tablature. It is taking too much from my free time to make it all for this post, and my PC is falling apart and screaming for an upgrade :).

I hope you found all this useful, feel free to bookmark my blog, subscribe to posts via RSS feed, and to show some support, click the advertising links, there are actually some really great sites that Google displays on my page :) and I get a small amount of money for every click-through from my blog.

Technorati Tags: Guitar, Whole Tone Scale

Carl Czerny - Part 1 - Intro & Etude Op. 299 No. 34

noreply@blogger.com (Zile Kondic) — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 07:48:00 +0000

One day, 3-4 years before, a friend of mine gave me a piano exercise book, about 40 years old (Carl Czerny - 100 Piano Etudes), but back then I didn't know my notes, so I stacked it out back somewhere until I can read the notes well, and understand it.

Well, actually I almost lost the book, until I found it a year ago, and realized that thee is an enormous amount of material in it to study. And the most interesting thing is that the music in that book is very interesting for guitar, even though it's made for piano! Some of the compositions can be arranged very metal-ish for guitar and an alternate tuning Bass (Czerny uses a lot of the very low tones in the bass line), or arranged for a guitar to play the piano left hand. You can even have some great software to play the midi bass line for you, that's really great, I tried it.

One very beneficial thing is that almost every guitar exercise out there is kinda all the same and follows a pattern...and by transcribing piano lines you have something new and different. In one Etude you have alternate picking, tapping, melody, speed licks, GREAT CHORDS AND POWERCHORDS that are more powerful! And the most important, you learn new stuff, new positions, harmonic lines, resolving tension tones...there are unlimited reasons to study classical piano music. One extra cool thins is that Czerny's Etudes I worked on until now, all have a range of tones in their left hand part playable by a 24 fret guitar, like my Ibanez.

For starters, I transcribed one of Carl Czerny Etudes form his "Op. 299 - School Of Velocity" that I find very attractive for playing, there is a tapping part and there are some really complicated chords in the second part. My guitar is tuned one step lower, so the backing track I made is that in D too. I also provided the Guitar Pro 5 file and the midi file. so you can try it out if you want.

Below are some instructions and links to files...hope someone likes this, I will have more soon, as I have finished one more Etude but I am working hard on the best fingering, since that Etude is very fast and alternate picking.

Instructions:

1. The backing track begins with two inserted notes, 1/4 value, just to give you the hint of the tempo, since there is no drum track.

2. There are no those extra notes in the midi...you will have to manage them yourself

3. I put a Viola to play guitar line, just to remind you what to play, and the bass line is Piano, software I used is Edirol Orchestral, which I strongly recommend.

4. You have extra instructions in the GP file, since I did the fingering all by myself, but only for the guitar line. LoL, where the heck can I get a 6 String Bass and who would let me detune it to A1 (that's veery low )...

Links:

Guitar Pro File, GP5 version:

http://www.divshare.com/download/2513962-08a

MP3 Backing track(in D):

http://www.divshare.com/download/2969809-273

MIDI file(in E):

http://www.divshare.com/download/2513964-8dc