Mick goodrick advice, opinions please.

[Jimmy blue note]

Among the many pages of unpublished manuscript material Mick left me when he died was a book that at the same time pre-dated and superceded Advancing Guitarist. It's a book on conceptual and ways of looking at things that addresses many of his perceived shortcomings in regards to the way guitar is traditional and widely taught.

At first he meant it to be an answer to many questions he fielded from his more advanced students, but the deeper he got into the book, the more he felt the need to look at the origins of these questions, the more basic beginner levels of teaching that tended to foster a certain way of seeing the guitar and its music.

This material is also elaborated on, repeated or further contextualized in The Advancing Guitarist, but these were his first essential points.

So here'a a passage from that book:

Playing on a single string is a logical starting point in exploring the guitar for the following reasons:
1. Its one-dimensional nature is very simple to understand in that the notes are situated in a straight line (like most instruments) as well as the fact that there is a direct relationship between interval distance and movement in space
2. It is conducive to learning the notes becasue one could not memorize a fingering pattern.
3. It would not lend to "split" a geginner too much since the right hand function would be greatly simplified.
4. Any tendency to develop "acrophobia" (fear of high frets) and paralysis (fear of movement) would be eliminated since, in playing on a single string, the entire length of the fingerboard would be used.

Fundamental theory (like intervals and scale construction) could be introduced very early in simple clear visual and aural terms. (The same holds true with dynamics, timbre, and articulations).

Since someone obviously invented a one-string instrument before a two, three, four, five or six string instrument, it would seem a reasonable way to begin to develop insights and experience of the chronology and evolutionary aspects of string instruments.

-Mick Goodrick

It might also be pointed out that among a number of students, including Wolfgang Muthspiel, Julian Lage and Mike Bono, there is emerging a way of looking at harmony in intervallic/sensual emphasis rather than strict functional chord shapes. This means that awareness of the inherent emotional impact of individual intervals that make up more complex chord construction takes precedence over functional grabs and strict chord family use when creating harmonic progressions. This a more linear and personal chord vocabulary process that comes from intervallic awareness. Single line exploration and identification of emotional impact within a chord begins with knowing the scale as a linear entity. This fits in really nicely with the unitar concept.

Like most/all of Mick's instructional material, this is not meant to be taken literally and by rote...without folding into other techniques or approaches; it's but one aisle in the vast space of the musical Home Depot, and it's one that, once you get the importance and utility of it, it just continues to open up new possibilities.
For example: Your phrase contours, or lengths or rhythmic breath starts to sound and feel stale? Pivot and switch to a linear shift by following a melodic line on a single string. Connecting chord tones with single string scale or leap passages will change the dynamic potential of any phrase.

[Christian Miller]

I'm a big fan of the opposite of this, as was explained to me by Christiaan Van Hemert. Learning a lot of licks and how to play them over chord progressions and vary them FIRST. I think doing all sorts of exercises like this is great, but I think for most people, playing really nicely over chord changes with good vocabulary is going to be way more satisfying. When you can do that, exploring the guitar like MG suggests sounds like a great idea but if your goal is to play nice sounding guitar sooner vs later, playing licks and ideas is going to be more fun. And being fun will encourage you to practice more.

I'm just going to suggest that playing up and down one string, it's going to be pretty hard not to sound kinda stupid, at least at first. Pat Metheny I'm sure could play a whole concert on one string and it would probably be interesting enough, but it's actually a difficult thing to do, at least as far as playing ideas. It is making things REALLY hard. Starting out this seems like a not-great idea.

I’ve never been one to wait to play music. For me development of instrumental skills works in parallel to performance opportunities. What you described is a time honoured approach to getting on the band stand and sounding legitimate.

FWIW this sounds like how Metheny got his start - Wes licks. It sounds like a lot, if not most, of musicians of that era did it that way around.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dbl]

Among the many pages of unpublished manuscript material Mick left me when he died was a book that at the same time pre-dated and superceded Advancing Guitarist. It's a book on conceptual and ways of looking at things that addresses many of his perceived shortcomings in regards to the way guitar is traditional and widely taught.”

At first he meant it to be an answer to many questions he fielded from his more advanced students, but the deeper he got into the book, the more he felt the need to look at the origins of these questions, the more basic beginner levels of teaching that tended to foster a certain way of seeing the guitar and its music.

This material is also elaborated on, repeated or further contextualized in The Advancing Guitarist, but these were his first essential points..

this is fascinating but where is this book? What’s it called? Are there any plans to publish it? Is there a PDF of the manuscript? This is really important historical material as well as being Inherently fascinating. It seems a huge shame if it’s not available ??

[Dbl]

I’m self-taught and I come from a piano background and that’s exactly how I taught myself. I knew nothing about mick goodrick at that time and only learned about him a few weeks back. it was extraordinary to read the first few pages of the advancing guitarist. I’ve never really learned positions and 90% of my playing is horizontal.

I don’t know whether the causation comes from my piano or from single string playing, But I’m completely comfortable improvising to pretty much any song or backing track on a first hearing (I’ve been playing for eight months - but Many hours a day -Entirely to backing tracks and songs or jamming with other musicians)

[Dbl]

I’m a beginner so what do I know? but when i play, I see it as playing six single strings, if that makes any sense. so I might play a line On one string and then shift to another one and then maybe make a chord And So forth. It should be just as harmonically rich as position playing it’s just a completely different perspective

[Jimmy blue note]

this is fascinating but where is this book? What’s it called? Are there any plans to publish it? Is there a PDF of the manuscript? This is really important historical material as well as being Inherently fascinating. It seems a huge shame if it’s not available ??

It's called Then, In the Art of Pluckery--- (an approach to improvisation for the guitar)
It's in typed manuscript form, and it was an ongoing incompleted project that was started before Advancing Guitarist. Much of what was explored then became significant parts of Advancing Guitarist.

It's got thoughts on everything from Tuning the Guitar to chapters on On Silence, Noone Knows What's Next, On Composing, Earing, On Listening to Music, Practicing, The Guitar as an Esoteric Instrument... and more.
Because it's incomplete, and because I have so much material on recorded conversations I've had with him, workshops with really open questions and very insightful answers, magazine articles (he did a Guitar Player column for several years called The Thinking Guitarist), and unpublished interviews, I'm compiling this material for publication.

The first book might be part 2 of Factorial Rhythms, different rhythm and exhaustive rhythmic patterns that open up new ways to phrase and compose/improvise rhythmically.
Or I'm presently working on a 12 chapter book of concepts based on the ideas in Pluckery, with a thought or concept a month, each with Mick's writings and then interviews with artists who knew or worked with Mick on their own experiences, wisdom, insights and commentaries gained in their own "Advancing" inspired by a broader sensibility beyond just technical treatment of scales and harmony. Raising questions like "At what point did music shift from studies of what you 'learned' to something that is a personal creative process, and how has this evolution shaped your voice?", "How does immersion in other arts inform the dimensions of music? (In the last years of his life, Mick painted and drew as much as he played; we had a twice weekly session we conducted with musicians, artists and models where we immersed ourselves in the arts of graphics, movement, improvisational music on the human form in one multi approach to creative forms) ... stuff like that.

There are lots of amazing artists who can trace their journey to mastery to their unique encounters with Mick, so I want to share the many ways that that river can be realized. Those interviews are also the content of the 12 concept chapters.
Mick loved the idea of cycles and recurring themes in our lives. He saw great breakthroughs occurring every decade, he saw the week as a useful period of time to introduce, absorb, assimilate and utilize new concepts, he saw 12 months and the seasons they covered as having distinct characters that helped realize the cycles within each person. So I thought 12 chapters on concepts of "advancing" to be a good way to present the materials in this book.

I'm working on this book presently.
And while I'm mentioning this, I'll also say for fans of his music, there was a duo recording he did with pianist Fred Hersch. It was recently unearthed and Manfred has expressed a desire that it be put out on ECM at some point.
So that's what's taking up my time these days.
Exciting news for advancing guitarists.

[Jimmy blue note]

I’m self-taught and I come from a piano background and that’s exactly how I taught myself.

The pianistic approach is something that is essential and seminal in Mick's concept of the guitar.
When he first came to Berklee in the late 60's, both he and his roommate John Abercrombie seriously considered whether they would major as Piano players or Guitarists. There were only 6 students in the guitar department and the school wondered "What will we DO with all of them?"
Well we know what they decided to do, and Mick and John taught each other as much about who they'd become as much as anything Bill Leavitt and Jack Peterson did.
Their competition in the piano department had they chosen piano? A young Keith Jarrett, scarier than anyone enrolled and a mercurial genius even back then, Keith was also gifted and talented as a guitarist; he could have given anyone a serious run for their money.
Imagine that and the things that could have changed had different decisions been made at that point in time!

[pauln]

Examining a single string...

This will be a long post; I recommend getting some coffee in your cup and a guitar on your lap before proceeding. I'll start with a divergence into some sources of confusion about frets, then on to a single string experiment experiment that recaptures some convergence with theory.

This is about understanding how the guitar works as a musical instrument, and what makes a fretted instrument so special and different from other instruments. Those that hold music theory as abstract apart from any mechanical particularities of the musical instrument may find this a peculiar approach.

First some confusions...

There are already some words in common use and they are confusing. From diatonic we get whole steps and half steps, so that the scale degree numerals 1-7 have the same apparent numeric increment but not the same "step size" between notes. This is because those numerals are being used as names, not numbers. In the experiment I will not even touch on diatonic at all. I will use the chromatic half step as a unit, and I will call it the CHS below.

The naming of frets is confusing. The immediate problem is a confusion between cardinal and ordinal numbers - what is commonly called the "first fret" (F on the E string) is actually the second fret. Calling it "first" comes from it being named fret "one", but that fret is really the second fret, as "one" is the second number after zero (it is not always clear that the naming of frets starts with zero - the nut itself is mechanically the first fret) and counts up from there.

So, the the nut is mechanically the first fret, the so called "first fret" is really the second fret etc..., and the so called "12th fret" is really the 13th fret. Unfortunately, the frets on the guitar are fundamentally named incorrectly. Mechanical understanding of the guitar really needs the proper names for the frets; more about this in the explorations a bit further down...

Here is an example of confusion just from multiple number names: I want to play the first few chromatic notes up the string... I stop because I like the sound of the one that would be called A

- all this is happening on the first string, called 1
- on most guitars that A is fingered at the second dot
- I may finger the A with my third finger called 3
- A in relation to E is a perfect 4th
- A is fretted at so called fret 5
- A is fretted at the mechanical 6th fret (for frets 0 (nut), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; that "5 fret" is the 6th of those numbers of those frets)

So this simple single note A can have the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 associated with it, maybe more if you are thinking of it as a chord tone or scale degree.

A counting confusion arises with looking at the idea of how much higher or lower the frets are from each other. Distance is calculated by subtraction, but you can't subtract a first thing from a third thing (ordinal numbers)... the third day of March minus the first day of March is not the second day of March.

However, blindly using cardinal numbers for the fret numbers 0,1,2,3... is problematic. If I play F and G on the E string, the frets involved would be frets 1 and 3. Using the distance approach, 3-1=2, but unfortunately that is not the conceptual number for guitarists when thinking of moving up and down between the F and G.

Guitarists think in the concept of "fret span" rather than "fret distance". Fret span is inclusive of both ends rather than just one end, and so is always going to add one more fret to the distance to get the span, so F to G is conceived as a span of 3 frets. This is much closer to the way interval numbers are named... the interval C to same C is not zero (what the distance would be, 1-1=0), but 1 (the inclusive span).

Likewise, F to G is a span of 2 (formally called an interval "2nd"), not 1, etc. I have not even started the little exploration and discovery experiment with the string yet and already we have all these issues... I just raise them to emphasize how important it is to go through some of these things; these are very close to the fundamentals of how the guitar works, and some clarity on these things makes a better foundation for grasping and integrating discoveries.

So I really begin here... the experiments

Let me preface by revealing that my approach will be analytical - that is, I'm going to pretend that I begin by knowing nothing about any music theory. To keep it simple I start with just the 1st string and see what I find.

Knowing nothing, I find that the 1st string can be played at the various frets to sound the various pitches. The first really musical thing that I discover is that there is an invariant quality of "the same note" when the span is 13 frets (12 CHS). Now here is where the part about the frets begins to be important. Clearly these things are 12 frets apart, (by fret distance) but 13 frets apart from the "fret span" perspective.

It is sticking with fret span perspective and the renaming of frets mechanically that allows the following discoveries. I want to examine sets of notes on the 13 fret span. To keep it simple, I will use the span from the 1st fret (nut) to the 13th fret (so called "12th fret"). This span has two terminal pitches so I make the most obvious set which has those two, the open string at the 1st fret (the nut!) and the one at the 13th fret (so called 12th fret). This set is characterized by one big jump of 12 chromatic half steps (CHS).

0 divisions of the 13 fret span
1 single span of 12 CHS, 1st to 13th fret
2 terminal pitches, if I knew, theory says "octave"

The next idea is to make one division of this octave into two equal fret spans. Starting with the first fret (nut) and going up to the 7th chromatic pitch at the 7th fret (what everyone calls the 6th fret), then going from the 7th chromatic step to the 13th; both of these if done chromatically and inclusive of their end points (sharing the one at the 7th fret AKA "6th fret") comprise 7 chromatic steps each (so they are the same sized spans). This set has three notes.

1 division of the octave
2 spans of 6 CHS
--- from the 1st to 7th fret (6 CHS)
--- from the 7th to 13th fret (6 CHS)
3 pitches, if I knew, theory calls these "tri-tone"

Now lets keep going and divide the octave into three equal fret spans. The frets of interest here are the 1st, 5th, 9th, and 13th.

2 divisions of the octave
3 spans of 4 CHS
--- from the 1st to 5th fret (4 CHS)
--- from the 5th to 9th fret (4 CHS)
--- from the 9th to 13th fret (4 CHS)
4 pitches, theory would say "augmented"

We keep going and divide the octave into four equal fret spans. The frets of interest here are the 1st, 4th, 7th, 10th, and 13th.

3 - divisions of the octave
4 - spans of 3 CHS
--- from the 1st to 4th fret (3 CHS)
--- from the 4th to 7th fret (3 CHS)
--- from the 7th to 10th fret (3 CHS)
--- from the 10th to 13th fret (3 CHS)
5 pitches, theory would say "diminished"

By now you notice that the number of spans times the number of CHS in each octave is always equal to 12, the total number of CHS.

You may also notice that the number of divisions of the octave is the number of shared frets between the spans, where one span ends on the same fret where the next span begins. The next number of divisions would be 5, but that won't fit, so instead we look at what the spans have been doing... they have been reducing as divisors of 12, so the next after 3 CHS would be 2 CHS, and the number of spans would be 6 because 2x6=12. Six spans will have five frets where adjacent spans share a fret, so there will be five divisions of the octave.

We make five divisions in the octave to make six equal spans. The frets of interest here are the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, and 13th.

5 divisions of the octave
6 spans of 2 CHS
--- from the 1st to 3th fret (2 CHS)
--- from the 3th to 5th fret (2 CHS)
--- from the 5th to 7th fret (2 CHS)
--- from the 7th to 9th fret (2 CHS)
--- from the 9th to 11th fret (2 CHS)
--- from the 11th to 13th fret (2 CHS)
7 pitches, theory says "whole-tone"

All that is left is to make 11 divisions in the octave to make 12 equal spans. The frets of interest here are all 13 comprising all 12 CHS.

11 divisions of the octave
12 spans of 1 CHS
--- from the 1st to 2nd fret (1 CHS)
--- from the 2nd to 3rd fret (1 CHS)
--- from the 3th to 4th fret (1 CHS)
--- from the 4th to 5th fret (1 CHS)
--- from the 5th to 6th fret (1 CHS)
--- from the 6th to 7th fret (1 CHS)
--- from the 7th to 8th fret (1 CHS)
--- from the 8th to 9th fret (1 CHS)
--- from the 9th to 10th fret (1 CHS)
--- from the 10th to 11th fret (1 CHS)
--- from the 11th to 12th fret (1 CHS)
--- from the 12th to 13th fret (1 CHS)
13 pitches, theory says "chromatic"

If you are still with me, by examining just one string without naming pitches or other recourse to canonical music theory, we have discovered what theorists call:

octave
tri-tone
augmented
diminished
whole-tone
chromatic

TA-DA...!

[Dbl]

It's called Then, In the Art of Pluckery--- (an approach to improvisation for the guitar)
It's in typed manuscript form, and it was an ongoing incompleted project that was started before Advancing Guitarist. Much of what was explored then became significant parts of Advancing Guitarist.

It's got thoughts on everything from Tuning the Guitar to chapters on On Silence, Noone Knows What's Next, On Composing, Earing, On Listening to Music, Practicing, The Guitar as an Esoteric Instrument... and more.
Because it's incomplete, and because I have so much material on recorded conversations I've had with him, workshops with really open questions and very insightful answers, magazine articles (he did a Guitar Player column for several years called The Thinking Guitarist), and unpublished interviews, I'm compiling this material for publication.

The first book might be part 2 of Factorial Rhythms, different rhythm and exhaustive rhythmic patterns that open up new ways to phrase and compose/improvise rhythmically.
Or I'm presently working on a 12 chapter book of concepts based on the ideas in Pluckery, with a thought or concept a month, each with Mick's writings and then interviews with artists who knew or worked with Mick on their own experiences, wisdom, insights and commentaries gained in their own "Advancing" inspired by a broader sensibility beyond just technical treatment of scales and harmony. Raising questions like "At what point did music shift from studies of what you 'learned' to something that is a personal creative process, and how has this evolution shaped your voice?", "How does immersion in other arts inform the dimensions of music? (In the last years of his life, Mick painted and drew as much as he played; we had a twice weekly session we conducted with musicians, artists and models where we immersed ourselves in the arts of graphics, movement, improvisational music on the human form in one multi approach to creative forms) ... stuff like that.

There are lots of amazing artists who can trace their journey to mastery to their unique encounters with Mick, so I want to share the many ways that that river can be realized. Those interviews are also the content of the 12 concept chapters.
Mick loved the idea of cycles and recurring themes in our lives. He saw great breakthroughs occurring every decade, he saw the week as a useful period of time to introduce, absorb, assimilate and utilize new concepts, he saw 12 months and the seasons they covered as having distinct characters that helped realize the cycles within each person. So I thought 12 chapters on concepts of "advancing" to be a good way to present the materials in this book.

I'm working on this book presently.
And while I'm mentioning this, I'll also say for fans of his music, there was a duo recording he did with pianist Fred Hersch. It was recently unearthed and Manfred has expressed a desire that it be put out on ECM at some point.
So that's what's taking up my time these days.
Exciting news for advancing guitarists.

this is really exciting. Can’t wait for this to be done And many thanks!! You’re doing a great thing

[Dbl]

The pianistic approach is something that is essential and seminal in Mick's concept of the guitar.
When he first came to Berklee in the late 60's, both he and his roommate John Abercrombie seriously considered whether they would major as Piano players or Guitarists. There were only 6 students in the guitar department and the school wondered "What will we DO with all of them?"
Well we know what they decided to do, and Mick and John taught each other as much about who they'd become as much as anything Bill Leavitt and Jack Peterson did.
Their competition in the piano department had they chosen piano? A young Keith Jarrett, scarier than anyone enrolled and a mercurial genius even back then, Keith was also gifted and talented as a guitarist; he could have given anyone a serious run for their money.
Imagine that and the things that could have changed had different decisions been made at that point in time!

That’s so interesting and it makes complete sense. It’s not necessarily an advantage to see the guitar as six overlapping keyboards but it certainly gives a different perspective.

[Cunamara]

And while I'm mentioning this, I'll also say for fans of his music, there was a duo recording he did with pianist Fred Hersch. It was recently unearthed and Manfred has expressed a desire that it be put out on ECM at some point.

That would be cool! I would love to hear Mick and Fred playing together.