1 string chromatic scale

[joe2758]

How fast can you play a 1 octave descending chromatic scale on one string in triplets and eighths, and how do you approach it?

[Rob MacKillop]

I’ll let you know, Joe, if and when the occasion arises…

[joe2758]

Alright. One example would be my accompaniment pattern is on 2nd and 4th open string and I have a measure and a half to play a chromatic phrase on the e string.

ala the beginning of this

[Rob MacKillop]

Sorry for being flippant, Joe. Someone sensible will be along shortly…

[dasein]

I would do it like Django:

Open string, first finger on first fret, second finger on second fret, move the second finger up the rest of the neck horizontally.

Great jazz manouche players can all play stuff like this pretty cleanly. Granted, if you slowed it down, not every note would be 100% clean, but the effect is pretty much the same.

[joe2758]

That's pretty slick. I will practice that, thanks! At the very least that technique could save me some shifting here and there. Must take a ton of practice to time it though. Doing it other ways also does I suppose.

[joe2758]

Here's phrase and how I tried to finger it. I will try some of that 1 finger technique

[Mick-7]

I suppose....

[joe2758]

Cool Mick, I appreciate your time!

[Mick-7]

Cool Mick, I appreciate your time!

You're welcome. If one has 4 functioning fingers on one's left hand, I think one should use them all.

You're not actually gonna play the accompaniment simultaneously on the bottom strings, are you?

[joe2758]

I hope to! steady eighth notes open D and open B. Trying to copy the vibe of that Chopin piece I posted. goal would eventually be maybe 70 bpm. Probably a little slow but doable

[pcjazz]

I would do it like Django:

Open string, first finger on first fret, second finger on second fret, move the second finger up the rest of the neck horizontally.
.

like this, but end with the third finger on the octave (and pick every note). And you don’t have to start on an open string.

[Bob_Ross]

When I was a wee teen freshman year in college I got ahold of a book of transcriptions of Stanley Clarke's bass parts to his first couple of solo albums.

There was one passage in "Spanish Phrases For Strings & Bass" -- a tune which I had never heard -- that blew my mind the first time I saw it written out. It was a flurry of 16th-notes, with a crap-ton of accidentals, played in the (at that time) unfathomably complex rhythm of a 13:8 tuplet, and all connected under a single slur. Plus the tempo was pretty blistering iirc.

I couldn't begin to imagine how someone could even conceive of, much less execute, this seemingly difficult figure.

Then I heard the tune.

It's a freakin' chromatic scale. Played as fast as possible. All on one string. He just slides his finger up the neck while plucking as quickly as possible so as to cram the whole thing into two beats.

:::bubble burst:::