Arpeggios or Licks?

[pamosmusic]

As players I think we have very different views on shifts in general. I would rather use more of them all the time, for musical reasons as much as anything. But there's a smart ergonomics to it too that I think people overlook.

How this goes for pedagogy - no idea. There's part of me that feels teaching children any other way than the orthodox, positional way is tantamount to malpractice. But it's not how my favourite jazz players play, by and large.

Maybe. I’m very positiony but I’ll also take a shift over a stretch any day of the week.

[Mick-7]

Someone may have more or less trouble with them but it’s hard to say that putting an augmented second between your second and fourth fingers is no harder than putting a major second between the same.

Yes, because that's an awkward way to finger it, I'd use the 1st, 3rd and 4th fingers instead (on the same string).

Maybe. I’m very positiony but I’ll also take a shift over a stretch any day of the week.

Make that "positional," fortunately, your guitar playing is much better than your grammar.

I would think it's more about the length of your fingers? (stretching that is, not grammar).

[pamosmusic]

Make that "positional," fortunately, your guitar playing is much better than your grammar.

Golly gee, thanks Mick.

[henryrobinett]

Talk about awkward. I trained myself from HS days to make that big leap from b6 to 7th with my pinky. Or I shift to the next scale pattern. But HM was always so crucial to my playing I just got over it.


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[pamosmusic]

Talk about awkward. I trained myself from HS days to make that big leap from b6 to 7th with my pinky. Or I shift to the next scale pattern. But HM was always so crucial to my playing I just got over it.


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Yeah that’s fair enough.

[Mick-7]

So, I come at it more from the other angle. So I practiced the B minor on the Dmaj7#5. I am, however, at the point where that's completely intuitive for me, because I practiced it a lot.

I would agree that your way is theoretically simpler - the chord and the scale are almost the same thing. But, OTOH, you have to learn a lot of different scales, one for each chord quality, and the patterns and lines and so on are all different from chord to chord - at least until you get well practiced at constructing these things on the fly. (There's other practice implications as well.)

OTOH you can have fewer scales to learn - but you have to master and internalise a lot of rules of application (like Barry Harris or Allan Holdsworth, for example.) So that's a more "theoretical" approach, but it reduces the amount of material you have to learn. A given melodic line can be applied on pretty much any chord quality with this knowledge. So there's a huge medium term pay off there.

I think I disagree with both of your points: (1) You don't have to learn a a scale for each chord quality, just understand scale harmony, e.g., the III chord in the melodic and harmonic minor scales is a maj.7#5.

(2) You don't have to learn a lot of rules of application, just learn to play what you're hearing. I think the creative process should precede the analysis of it.

[pamosmusic]

(2) You don't have to learn a lot of rules of application, just learn to play what you're hearing. I think the creative process should precede the analysis of it.

It’s like Groundhog Day, but here goes …

Mick, people are describing the process by which they learn to play what they hear.

It is not insightful or interesting to tell people they should just do that. That’s the obvious part. What everyone finds interesting is HOW.

[Christian Miller]

I think I disagree with both of your points: (1) You don't have to learn a a scale for each chord quality, just understand scale harmony, e.g., the III chord in the melodic and harmonic minor scales is a maj.7#5.

You do need to learn to construct intervals and chords etc on the guitar.

I'm really talking about improvisational technique, which is different to fretboard mapping. I know a lot of people conflate the two.

(2) You don't have to learn a lot of rules of application, just learn to play what you're hearing. I think the creative process should precede the analysis of it.

I think this statement misunderstands the nature of creativity in the arts. Painters don't just daub on a canvas. They study colour, perspective, the human form, composition etc.

[Christian Miller]

Talk about awkward. I trained myself from HS days to make that big leap from b6 to 7th with my pinky. Or I shift to the next scale pattern. But HM was always so crucial to my playing I just got over it.


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Awkward? I don't know, I don't feel awkward. I do play HM a lot. But I'm more a linear guy than a scale pattern person, mostly.

I use to play more stretchy and positional, but I have gradually moved away from it. I can play those positions fine, I'm not that bad of guitar player. I just.. don't like them?

I've been looking very closely at how people like Wes do it. There's such a grace to the way he plays everything with three fingers, it flows like water and his sound is so fluid too. I wish I could do that. He has some beautiful fingerings when you get your head around them. Including for the Harmonic Minor.

[Christian Miller]

Maybe. I’m very positiony but I’ll also take a shift over a stretch any day of the week.

One use of that direction change augmented 2nd - in Romanza! So it does happen...

[pamosmusic]

Awkward? I don't know, I don't feel awkward.

I feel awkward all the time.

what were we talking about?

[Mick-7]

I think this statement misunderstands the nature of creativity in the arts. Painters don't just daub on a canvas. They study colour, perspective, the human form, composition etc.

Well sure, but that's learning the necessary technical skills of the craft, not a paint by number system.

You do need to learn to construct intervals and chords etc on the guitar. I'm really talking about improvisational technique, which is different to fretboard mapping. I know a lot of people conflate the two.

Again, one must develop the requisite fretboard knowledge and technical skill on the instrument to be able to improvise.

[pamosmusic]

One use of that direction change augmented 2nd - in Romanza! So it does happen...

Capricho Arabe in the big scale run at the beginning.

Forgive me. It’s the only piece I still know.

[pamosmusic]

Well sure, but that's learning the necessary technical skills of the craft, not a paint by number system.

You might be surprised by how many painters learn by copying master works or by filling notebooks with drawings in the style of x.

[Mick-7]

Capricho Arabe in the big scale run at the beginning.

Forgive me. It’s the only piece I still know.

I recall hearing a lot of it in J.S. Bach's violin pieces - throw away your pick and use a bow.

You might be surprised by how many painters learn by copying master works or by filling notebooks with drawings in the style of x.

Especially the art forgers.... but not unlike musicians learning musical vocabulary.

[joe2758]

Wait, what's wrong with "all classical scale fingerings?"

Shift on half steps when possible and to the closest finger possible..what would you do differently?

[AllanAllen]

Not really replying to anyone, but I adjusted my CAGED fingerings to 3NPS so I could have 12 beats of triplets for metronome symmetry. The dang thing is beep tick tick tick and if that beep gets someplace weird it bothers me.

I can finally do 12 keys in about 7 frets and that feels like an accomplishment. If I’ve been a member since 2019, it’s taken me 7 years to get the basics of the major scale. Maybe I should learn a song next… nah better to spend 21 years on the 3 minors.

And this is just one of the 2 dozen things members will toss at some green kid asking where to start.

[Christian Miller]

Wait, what's wrong with "all classical scale fingerings?"

Shift on half steps when possible and to the closest finger possible..what would you do differently?

When I have to teach the scale fingerings in the ABRSM CG syllabus I generally find them counterintuitive.

There’s a logic to them, but it’s a bit different, and I appreciate them for that. I think they are like Segovia scales? I’m not sure.

More than that I can’t say. For actual pieces this is much less the case.

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[Christian Miller]

Not really replying to anyone, but I adjusted my CAGED fingerings to 3NPS so I could have 12 beats of triplets for metronome symmetry. The dang thing is beep tick tick tick and if that beep gets someplace weird it bothers me.

I can finally do 12 keys in about 7 frets and that feels like an accomplishment. If I’ve been a member since 2019, it’s taken me 7 years to get the basics of the major scale. Maybe I should learn a song next… nah better to spend 21 years on the 3 minors.

And this is just one of the 2 dozen things members will toss at some green kid asking where to start.

I would suggest fretting everything with your index finger for a bit. It will change your life.

I’m not even joking.


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[joe2758]

When I have to teach the scale fingerings in the ABRSM CG syllabus I generally find them counterintuitive.

There’s a logic to them, but it’s a bit different, and I appreciate them for that. I think they are like Segovia scales? I’m not sure.

More than that I can’t say. For actual pieces this is much less the case.

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oh ok fair enough, that stuff's bullshit

[James W]

Not really replying to anyone, but I adjusted my CAGED fingerings to 3NPS so I could have 12 beats of triplets for metronome symmetry. The dang thing is beep tick tick tick and if that beep gets someplace weird it bothers me.

I can finally do 12 keys in about 7 frets and that feels like an accomplishment. If I’ve been a member since 2019, it’s taken me 7 years to get the basics of the major scale. Maybe I should learn a song next… nah better to spend 21 years on the 3 minors.

And this is just one of the 2 dozen things members will toss at some green kid asking where to start.

Out of curiosity do you go through the scales in the circle of fourths/fifths, or in other ways, such as major thirds (actually outlining descending augmented triads so C-E-G sharp, B-D sharp-G etc.). I spend about twenty minutes of my morning routine practising moving between scales in these different root progressions, with different rhythms, staying in one position or deliberately moving up and down the neck etc. Kurt Rosenwinkel demonstrates some of this in one of his clinics on youtube, plus it crops up in his creative exercises book. He mentions it as part of warming up the brain...

This is what I use -

[AllanAllen]

Fourths because that’s how GASB harmony moves.

I was thinking about mapping them in a Barry Harris X over Yth system. But I literally just got this down on Tuesday.

I might just use your sheet. I was thinking of using whatever system is in Bugs Bower Rhythms Complete, I forget what it is, but all the exercises repeat in a handful of permutations.

Or I could adjust them to MM and map them along them after I get both scales down.

The important part is playing triplets against the metronome and doing sweep picking to fix my right hand. I just want to hit the right notes at the right time. It’s a precision exercise.

[rpjazzguitar]

It’s like Groundhog Day, but here goes …

Mick, people are describing the process by which they learn to play what they hear.

It is not insightful or interesting to tell people they should just do that. That’s the obvious part. What everyone finds interesting is HOW.

My take, not that anybody asked, is that a very direct approach would be to 1) be able to think of good lines to play and 2) be able to play them instantly.

So, I then ask, rhetorically, what would be the most efficient way to be able to do those two things?

One would be simply practicing playing a line that you hear. So, if you're watching TV with the guitar in your hands, you copy whatever music you hear. If you know a melody, you play it. With time on the instrument you get to the point where your fingers know where the notes are and you can play the melody in your head, in any key.

For this goal (#2 above) I don't see how theory helps.

If you can already think of good enough lines, seems to me that you're done. But, my guess is that most of us can't do that at the level to which we aspire. Next thing you know you're reading a prescription for 20 years of scale work. Or, a recommendation just to learn licks. Or some combination of the two, or something else entirely.

This is a big topic and I can't fully get my mind around it. But, I know this much. Knowing a ton of theory will not make you the kind of player that I want to listen to. My guess is that you have to be a pretty talented player for it even to be helpful to know a lot of theory.

My current thinking is that a good way to proceed would be to start with a lick. If you can hear it against all the harmony you might want to use, and apply it, you're done. But, for most of us, relating it to scales/modes/arps and substitution patterns may make it easier to remember and find later.

I've met some players who were able to use theoretical combinatorics to discover new sounds which they were able to find applications for. For me, it's pounding away at one sound at a time. Very slow. I am overwhelmed by things like "try every possible triad pair against every bass note, in every key and 5 places on the neck". That's only a minor exaggeration of a real post on another forum -- it didn't mention the 5 positions. I can't imagine getting anything from doing that, even if others swear by it.

My current approach is to mentally scat sing and play that. On the numerous occasions when this strategy fails, I have a rather poorly organized bunch of devices that create a kind of safety net. Principal among them is knowing the chord tones.

If I want to sound good on a gig, I'll call tunes with harmony that I can feel - so there's no need to think or analyze. But, I play in more situations where I'm not the one calling the tunes.

[starjasmine]

1) be able to think of good lines to play and 2) be able to play them instantly.

...

For this goal (#2 above) I don't see how theory helps.

Theory is descriptive of sound. If you know the descriptions without knowing their associated sounds, you're like someone trying to bake a soufflé who has never actually tasted a soufflé.

Thus, theory and ear training go hand in hand.

The way theory helps playing is when you hear something on the TV (or the bandstand, or in your head) your theoretical-brain says "my ears are telling me that I hear a ii-V-I" or "my ears are hearing lydian dominant" or "the pianist just subbed an altered dominant that is a tritone sub for the vanilla V" and then it goes further to say "so I can play Dorian, or melodic minor from the 5th, or a half-whole diminished scale, or a full diminished arp a half-step up from the root" because your mental connection between theory and sound is strong enough that you know not just what you heard but what those responses will sound like before you play them.

You may be using theory more than you are aware.

[rpjazzguitar]

Theory is descriptive of sound. If you know the descriptions without knowing their associated sounds, you're like someone trying to bake a soufflé who has never actually tasted a soufflé.

Thus, theory and ear training go hand in hand.

The way theory helps playing is when you hear something on the TV (or the bandstand, or in your head) your theoretical-brain says "my ears are telling me that I hear a ii-V-I" or "my ears are hearing lydian dominant" or "the pianist just subbed an altered dominant that is a tritone sub for the vanilla V" and then it goes further to say "so I can play Dorian, or melodic minor from the 5th, or a half-whole diminished scale, or a full diminished arp a half-step up from the root" because your mental connection between theory and sound is strong enough that you know not just what you heard but what those responses will sound like before you play them.

You may be using theory more than you are aware.

If I hear a melody in my mind, I can play it. If it's a song I know, I can play it in any key. I don't have to think about it. if you're suggesting I'm somehow using theory to do that beneath my conscious awareness, well, I don't know how to respond to that. I'm certainly not thinking in intervals -- I have to stop myself and think about my fingers to tell what interval I just played.

OTOH, I can't do it with chords except on very simple stuff. So, for trying to take the chords off a recording, I might very well think about ii Vs or tritone subs, or a m7 to a m7 a b3 higher, or whichever sounds I can recognize and label. I think this is because I don't have a good enough ear for my fingers just to go to the right place. In fact, sometimes that happens, and it's great, but it's not the rule.

If I'm reading complex harmony for the first time, I'm definitely going to be doing some math. Not art, but not clams either.
If I can label what I'm hearing, that might help. But, I'd much rather be scat singing a good line than thinking "I can play Dorian or melodic minor from the 5th", or whatever. In my hands, the solo is going to be much better if I'm scatting.

I'm not suggesting that the way I do it is the best way or even close. I'm well aware that great players did it differently.
But, I do have a viewpoint and this is the internet.