Methodical Chaos: Chord Construction

Happy holidays. Again.

We'll follow up the last lesson on fretboard knowledge with a little more of the same, only this time we're going to be looking at chord construction. When I started writing this article, I realized that I needed to write an entire article on the prerequisite knowledge required for chord construction in composition before I could continue on with my methodical chaos protocol for chord construction. I warn you in advance that this article is a lengthy read and contains a lot of music theory, but the subjects covered here are some of the first pieces of music theory you should learn as a guitar player. We'll begin with the building blocks of music itself; the musical alphabet.

The musical alphabet consists of the letters "A" through "G". Once you reach the end of the alphabet, it repeats. That gives us this to start with...

A - B - C - D - E - F - G

What you see above are the seven natural notes. By natural, I mean the note is not accompanied by a sharp (#) or a flat (b) i.e. A is a natural whereas A# is not. These sharps and flats are known as accidentals. A sharp means that you are one semi-tone (fret) higher than the note depicted whereas a flat means that you are one semi-tone lower than the note depicted. For example, you can find the note "A" on the fifth fret of the low E string and you can find the note "A#" on the sixth fret of the same string. You can also find the note "Ab" on the fourth fret of the same string as well.

There is one accidental note between every natural note with two exceptions; there is no accidental between "B" and "C" and there is no accidental between "E" and "F". That gives us the complete musical alphabet.

A - A#/Bb - B - C - C#/Db - D - D#/Eb - E - F - F#/Gb - G - G#/Ab

The term enharmonic equivalent is used to describe the relationship between the equivalent notes listed, for example "A#" and "Bb". The same note can be described with two terms, but in the end you are still talking about the same note, thus you could name each accidental two ways. 

Did you know you could also name multiple notes at once? Let's take the note, "A". As stated before, the musical alphabet will repeat indefinitely. Each repetition of the sequence is known as an octave. So, if you were to play an A, and then move through the other eleven letters of the musical alphabet to reach the next A, you are doing what most guitarists would refer to as, "playing the octave." This brings us to an important distinction; a note refers to a tone in a specific octave, whereas a tone refers to every instance of a single note and does not make reference to a specific octave. An octave is an excellent example of an interval and perhaps one of the most important intervals we will encounter.

Intervals are a way of measuring the distance between two notes in terms of their respective pitch. You should be able to hear a consistent flavor within each interval no matter what two notes you end up picking; as long as the distance between those two notes is the same, it will sound like that interval. You could also look at intervals as the building blocks of scales, chords, and arpeggios. Observe the following diagram. 

  A   A#  B   C   C#  D   D#  E   F   F#  G    G#   A
|___|___|___|___|___|___|___|___|___|___|____|____|____|
  x   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12  = frets

x refers to the root note, which could be thought of as the starting point of the interval. In the above example, the root note is "A".

1 = Semi-tone (also flat second)
2 = Perfect Second
3 = Minor Third (also flat third)
4 = Major Third
5 = Perfect Fourth
6 = Flat Fifth
7 = Perfect Fifth
8 = Minor Sixth (also flat sixth)
9 = Major Sixth
10 = Minor Seventh (also flat seventh)
11 = Major Seventh
12 = Octave

I've labelled and grouped the first twelve intervals above. These are known as the simple intervals. If you were to continue past the octave, it would look like this.

13 = Flat Ninth
14 = Perfect Ninth
15 = Minor Tenth (also flat tenth)
16 = Major Tenth
17 = Perfect Eleventh
18 = Flat Twelfth
19 = Perfect Twelfth
20 = Minor Thirteenth (also flat thirteenth)
21 = Major Thirteenth
22 = Minor Fourteenth (also flat fourteenth)
23 = Major Fourteenth
24 = Double Octave

These intervals, which are really just their simple interval counterpart an octave higher, are known as compound intervals. When constructing chords, it is OK to use a tenth in place of a third or a twelfth in place of a fifth because the tenth and the twelfth are the same tone as the third and the fifth, it's jut that the tenth and the twelfth are an octave higher. For instance, the minor third of "A" is "C" and the minor tenth of the same "A" note is also "C," therefore it is okay to use either the minor third or the minor tenth to construct the same chord.

As for chord construction itself - we use formulas to derive the tones contained within the chord. These formulas are denoted by intervals. We'll start with three tone chords, called triads.

MAJOR TRIAD:          1   3   5
MINOR TRIAD:          1  b3   5 
DIMINISHED TRIAD:     1  b3  b5

Note: When we use flats and sharps to describe notes, we place them after the note, i.e. A#. When we use flats and sharps to describe notes of a chord in the fashion above (by degree), we put the symbol before the number.

So let's build some chords using these formulas. Let's say we want to play an A major triad, which we would normally just call A major. The root, "1," is "A". The third of "A" is four semi-tones (frets) higher than "A"; that gives us "Db". The fifth of "A" is seven semi-tones higher than "A"; that gives us "E". So, the notes of "A," "Db," and "E" are all contained within the A major chord. We could fret this in a variety of ways. If you have been following these articles and you have memorized the notes on the fretboard, you should now be able to play that A major chord in a variety of positions and voicings. Here are some examples.

E|----------------0---
B|------------5---2---
G|-------9----6---2---
D|---2---11---7-------
A|---4---12-----------
E|---5----------------

In all of these examples, the lowest tone in the chord is the root, "A". The next note on the adjacent string and second tone of the chord is the major third, "Db". The next note after the third and the last tone of the chord is the perfect fifth, "E". We don't always have to go in order, though. If we started with the major third instead of the root, we would call that the first inversion. If we started with the perfect fifth instead of the root, we would call that the second inversion. You wouldn't have to worry about the third inversion of an A major triad since there are only three tones contained within the chord. However, if we were talking about seventh chords instead of triadic chords.

MAJOR SEVENTH:               1   3   5   7
MINOR SEVENTH:               1  b3   5  b7
DOMINANT SEVENTH:            1   3   5  b7
MINOR SEVENTH FLAT FIFTH:    1  b3  b5  b7

These chords are known by some as "jazz chords" but I find you can use these harmonies in any genre of music pretty effectively by voicing them for the occasion.  

At this point, you've probably realized that there are many different ways to play a chord. Now how is this article supposed to help you learn better than any other resource out there on the internet? Well, it might not help you learn better, but it can help you learn differently. I believe knowing one thing in a variety of ways can only help you master the subject.

We are going to use the Anki Flashcards again. If you guys don't know already, Anki is free software you can use to make flashcard decks for your computer. I uploaded several already made decks during the last article and I have another one for you now.

ANKI FLASHCARD DECK: INTERVALS

We will be using a similar protocol as we did with scales and arpeggios. Start by loading up a karaoke track in a key you are comfortable with. If you can get a track with just drums or a simple bass line, do so, because we want to come up with the chords for the rhythm section this time. Yes, we will be improvising again, but this time we're going to improvise the rhythm guitar instead of playing leads.

Now, go ahead and load up the flashcards. Draw an interval at random from the deck - I've included all the simple and compound intervals. 

Practice with just one interval at first. I've grouped intervals like major and minor thirds together so you can practice them within the context of the seven tone (also called diatonic) major scale. Without getting into the relationship between chords and scales too deeply, we'll simply say that whether you use a major or minor interval depends on whether or not the note is contained within the scale. If you have been following these articles, you should know at least one of the diatonic scale positions to practice with, but above all else, use your ear to determine what sounds good. Don't be afraid to start mixing up your strumming patterns once you're comfortable with the interval itself. 

Once you are comfortable with that interval, it's time to pick another one at random and repeat the process. Work with the new interval on its own for a bit as you did with the first and get comfortable using it within the context of a given key. Once you're comfortable with playing both intervals as shown on the flashcard, try to combine the intervals together to make a three tone chord. For instance, if I drew the flashcard for ninths and the flash cards for fifths, I combine that to get a 5add9 chord.

A5add9
E|----------------7---
B|-----------12---5---
G|-------16---9---2---
D|---9---14---7-------
A|---7---12-----------
E|---5----------------

Using this method, you will practice all of the intervals individually and learn how to use them within a key, then you will learn how to combine them. Using the flashcards at random is also a creative technique to get yourself to come up with chord voicings you wouldn't have come up with otherwise. Not only will your rhythm playing and composition improve, but more importantly than that, you will learn the sound of the intervals and develop your ear, arguably one of the most important pieces of becoming a well-rounded guitar player.

Until next time.

This article is the intellectual property of onelightminute@gmail.com, but this information may be freely shared and published so long as the source is acknowledged.  

Methodical Chaos: Navigating the Fretboard

Hello again, hope you all are having very happy holidays.

Today we will explore different approaches to learning the fretboard. Using these methods, you will be able to learn every note on the neck, play every scale up and down the neck, and use arpeggios to improvise effectively. Not only that, but we will structure our practice in a way where we are constantly learning new things every day so that we do not get bored and complacent.

We're going to use a special tool to accomplish this. Besides your guitar, you are going to need... flashcards. Yes, flashcards. If you are reading this, you must have a computer, so I would recommend getting flashcards for your computer; enter Anki.

Without turning this article into an advertisement, I will summarize the benefits of using Anki versus traditional flashcards; you can sync them on all your devices so you can bring them anywhere and the program filters which cards have become easy for you using your feedback so that you can work efficiently by not spending as much time on things that you have already mastered. I personally use these cards to learn things all the time. Did I mention it is free? That said, let us continue.

Memorizing the notes on the neck is probably one of the best things you could do to help you understand harmony and melody as they pertain to the guitar. It is also something that most people shy away from. This is different from most instruments, where music is taught using standard notation instead of guitar tabs. In comparison though, a twenty-two fret guitar contains one-hundred-and-thirty-eight notes. That is a bit more than your typical drum kit. The layout of these notes is not as intuitive as, say, a piano, either.

We are going to use flashcards to memorize these notes cold. By "cold," I mean you do not have to think about it, you just know the note. You probably already know some of them cold - at least the notes on the low E and A strings, because that's how you know what barre chord you are playing. Right? If you know what an octave is, you can probably come up with the notes on the D and G strings too (hint: just move the notes of the E and A strings up two frets to get the notes for D and G respectively), and if you know the notes on the low E string, you know the high E string. This leaves us with just the B string to memorize, really.  

Even if you followed me through that last paragraph, you can still get something out of this deck. Knowing them in the manner just described is not the same as knowing them cold. If you already took my advice and downloaded Anki, you can click the link below to view and downloaded the deck I have designed for memorizing the notes of the fretboard.

Anki Flashcard Deck: Note Location

If you have a smartphone, you can use this to practice for a few minutes anywhere, whether you're waiting for the bus, riding the train, on the john, whatever you want. If you want to maximize the effect of these cards, you should do them with your guitar in hand and simultaneously sing and play each note. Singing the notes will help you internalize them. By using the cards in this manner, you can memorize the notes, train your voice, become more comfortable with singing and playing, as well as develop your ear all at once. If your living situation doesn't allow you to sing them, you will still benefit from practicing with just your guitar.

I also mentioned scales and arpeggios earlier. If you haven't already guessed it, yes, we are going to use flashcards again! If you aren't already familiar with it, CAGED theory for guitar would be useful to know here. If you don't know CAGED, I will briefly summarize it for you; there are at least five different two-octave shapes (called forms, i.e. C form, A form, G form, etc.) that you can use to play any scale, chord, or arpeggio up and down the neck. I could write an entirely separate article about CAGED theory and probably will at some point, but for the time being you can find this information almost anywhere on the internet.

Anki Flashcard Deck: Scales

Anki Flashcard Deck: Arpeggios

We're going to do more than memorize these CAGED forms, though. Like before, there is a certain way you should use these cards. First, decide how long you want to spend in each area -- for some of you that are just starting out, you might want to spend fifteen minutes a day on scales. For those of you that are already very comfortable with pentatonic and diatonic scales it may be wise to spend more time on arpeggios. Either way, decide how much time you want to spend on each area based on what is going to benefit you the most, then adjust as you progress.

For teaching purposes, let us pretend you decided to spend ten minutes a day on scales. Starting with scales, you bust out your flashcards and randomly pick one of the scale forms. Next, you would practice playing that scale form, but not just mindlessly playing up and down the scale. That will not help you make music. Instead, we're going to take the same approach we took with technique assimilation, except this time we are going to limit which notes we can play with instead of which techniques we can play with.

Start up a backing track and improvise using that scale form for ten minutes.  As far as where you use the scale form on the neck, that's going to depend on what key your backing track is in as well as what chords you are playing over. The flash cards I have created identify the root notes of each form with a circle. Assuming you have begun memorizing the location of the notes on the fretboard, you should be able to construct these forms in the appropriate position on the fretboard.

For those of you that are more advanced when it comes to music theory, you may already know that you can use different scales to play over chord progressions aside from the "home key" by building the appropriate scale off of the root note of the chord. I would encourage you to do that as you improvise here.

You can improvise using just a few notes at a time and get a feel for how they sound over different chord progressions or you can also practice the entire scale form using different melodic and iterative ideas. For those of you unfamiliar with those expressions, a melodic idea would be to play the scale in thirds, fourths, fifths, etc. An iterative idea would be to play each note twice before moving on to the next one, to play two notes ascending and then one descending, to play the scale form in groups of three notes, etc. Use them as you see fit to make music and experiment with the sound of each scale.

This process can also be duplicated for arpeggios, although you will not really be able to use as many melodic ideas since an arpeggio is a melodic idea in itself. For those of you competent with tapping techniques, tapping the identical arpeggio form a perfect fourth or fifth higher with your right hand and pulling off to the actual arpeggio you are fretting with your left hand is certainly worth practicing. You can also feel free to use all of the iterative ideas you could come up with for scales on your arpeggios as well.

Also, for those of you that are more proficient with arpeggios, you could try to follow the chord progression using the given arpeggio form. If the chord progression changes to a different type of chord (i.e. you are practicing minor seventh arpeggios and the progression moves to a major seventh) you could use chord substitution to continue playing along to the progression. If you don't know what that is, don't worry about it for now as that is another topic I could write a separate article on.

Like I said before, how much you use these depends on how much they will benefit you. If you are really weak with the note locations, you may want to spend upwards of ten minutes a day with that deck until you are more comfortable with them. If you already know them pretty well, maybe five minutes a day is more appropriate. In either case, consistency is key, so make sure you pick a realistic goal. Practicing your scales and arpeggios for ten minutes each every day can yield fantastic results in just a few short weeks.

As an end note, I would also encourage those of you who went ahead and used these Anki decks I have created to explore the customization options offered by the Anki software and feel free to add to the deck as you see fit. Our next article will cover chord construction using similar methods, so check back soon.

This article is the intellectual property of onelightminute@gmail.com, but this information may be freely shared and published so long as the source is acknowledged. 

Building Your Arsenal: Combining Articulation Techniques

Hello again. Today we're going to continue learning how to develop our own unique playing style.

As a teacher, I think it is important to structure practice so that it progresses over time. That said, we're going to expand upon the ideas presented in the previous article now and give you somewhere to progress. I would recommend using the strategies presented in the previous lesson to assimilate a few techniques before trying to combine them with other techniques. You will get more out of this if you are already pretty comfortable with a couple ideas on their own rather than trying to juggle two foreign concepts at once.

Now then, once you've assimilated some techniques, you may want to take your mastery of them to the next level by learning how to combine them to form some interesting sounds. We will take the same approach as we did in the previous lesson -- improvise over a chord progression or jam track, but limit ourselves to a single articulation technique, i.e. slides, string bending, tapping, etc. You don't have to go until you hit the wall like the last lesson - instead, go until you're "warm," and you have your phrases flowing smoothly. As I previously mentioned, you should have some proficiency with this technique already from using the methods in the previous lesson.

Once you've warmed up your first technique, repeat this process with your next one. I'd recommend improvising with each technique exclusively for ten minutes per technique before proceeding to the next step.

Now that you've got both techniques warmed up and under your fingers, it's time to practice combining them. Continue to improvise over your jam track, this time trying to use both techniques in succession and in combination. Don't worry, I will elaborate.

Let's say for example that I was trying to combine slides and string bending. I would practice going back and forth between them in my phrasing (in succession) and then I would combine them, perhaps by sliding into a note up in the higher register and bending it up a full step or more in one fluid motion. I could also try to bend a note, then slide that bent note up to hit other notes within the key I'm playing in. These ideas are pretty prevalent in blues and rock.

Let's change techniques for a moment -- instead, we'll combine tapping and string bending. In this scenario, you could practice bending a note up, holding the bend, and then tapping other notes and pulling off to the still bent note, a very EVH kind of idea. You could hammer on to a note with your right hand, then use your left hand to apply vibrato to the note or bend the string up. Bend a note, tap a note above it, then release the bend and then pull-off from the tapped note and you can get some cool licks that sound almost like a pedal steel.

These examples should give you the gist of what we're doing here as well as some material to play around with, but remember -- I want you to come up with your own ideas. After all, our goal is to hit "the wall," or the point where you exhaust your musical vocabulary and must reach deeper into your brain to find things to play. The only difference is that this time, we have two ideas to work with and try to combine in different ways versus just a single idea to work with. The end result is still the same; we have added another tool (or two) to our belt and effectively increased our range of expression.

Please, if you have any questions or feedback, feel free to post a comment or email me at onelightminute@gmail.com.

This article is the intellectual property of onelightminute@gmail.com, but this information may be freely shared and published so long as the source is acknowledged.

Building Your Arsenal: Assimilating Articulation Techniques

Hello everybody. Today's lesson is about building your own unique style as a guitar player, but it can be applied to any instrument.

You might be wondering, "What is an articulation technique?" You already know and use articulation techniques every day. Sliding, string bending and legato are some prime examples. This article isn't about how to perform those techniques; there is a wealth of information out there for that already. This article is about how to assimilate them -- that is to say, how to make them part of your own unique style.

Have you ever been jamming for an extended period of time and noticed you came up with some cool new lick out of the blue? You may have attributed this to being "in the zone," that trance-like state where you are completely focused on the music and the music just flows out of you. Unfortunately, it's not easy to find this mysterious place at will. It just kind of... happens, for most people. Let's examine this phenomenon.

Try to recall the last time you were jamming with your friends and got "into the zone." It is my personal belief that "the zone" is a sort of meditative state you inadvertently reached by concentrating on one thing for an extended period of time -- in this case, playing music. Students of Zen meditation will purposely seek this state by concentrating on counting their breaths while trying to keep their thoughts from wandering. While this state of mind is desirable, we are musicians, not monks. How do we recall this state of mind at will?

You can't. At least, not right away. Creativity takes practice, like most things. So, how do we practice tapping in to our inner creative genius at will?

After you improvise for awhile, you will eventually run out of different ideas. How long this takes will depend on how big your musical vocabulary is. Some people can improvise over a chord progression for five minutes and run out of things to say, other people can improvise over a chord progression for hours on end before hitting a brick wall. Either way, if you play long enough you will hit that wall... but what does this have to do with creating your own style?

The answer is simple; once you've hit the "wall", it means you have exhausted all of the licks and ideas your conscious mind recalls and uses regularly. In simpler terms, it means that you have run out of licks you already know how to play. If you continue to play once you've hit the wall, you are forcing yourself to come up with new ideas by adjusting or combining old ideas into new ones - a form of creative thinking known by some as synthetic creativity. Ideally you will have entered "the zone" through single-minded concentration by the time you hit that wall. If this is the case, you could come up with some new ideas outright. This is known by some as intuitive creativity and can only be reached by entering into a state of deep concentration or meditation.

Since busting through that wall is your objective in today's lesson, we will make it a little easier to get there. We will do this by limiting your improvising to a single technique, i.e. sliding. Load up a chord progression or jam track you are comfortable playing over. Start improvising using only the one technique you've chosen, whether it be sliding or string skipping or sweep arpeggios.

Use JUST that one idea the entire time and make sure you make yourself improvise for an extended period of time. This will not work if you don't get out of your comfort zone. I'd recommend going for an hour straight if you can, but even fifteen to thirty minutes will be challenging for most players. The longer you work with just that one idea, the deeper you will go and the more ideas you will come up with.

The end result of this practice method is that you will own the technique after doing this a few times. When I say you will, "own the technique," I mean that you will be comfortable using the technique in a variety of musical situations, but more importantly, that you will soon be able to speak with that technique. What I mean by, "speak," is that you will no longer be limited to using the words and phrases (i.e. licks) that you taught yourself by learning music written by other people. Instead, you will be able to come up with your own phrases depending on what it is you want to convey with your playing.

Thanks for reading, I hope this helps you on your journey. Check back soon as this will be part of an ongoing series.

This article is the intellectual property of onelightminute@gmail.com, but this information may be freely shared and published so long as the source is acknowledged.