#4ths

CLICK SUBSCRIBE! How to Create “SHAKTI” John Mclaughlin Indian/Western Guitar Lines Please watch above video for detailed analysis: Hi Guys, Today we will look at how to develop “Shakti” John McLaughlin-esqe Indian raga lines with alternate picking guitar technique. To begin with we will take this Scale as our Raga Base: [This starts on a “Down” stroke for alternate picking]: This base is a…

Hour 94 - 96

Hour 54

I revisited Oz Noy’s “Guitar Improvisation Workout” and was inspired by Exercise 2.1  - Jumping in 3rds in Minor Pentatonics.  Skipping a note in this scale (aka “jumping in 3rds”) creates mostly intervals of a 4th and it reminded me of the song “Blues For Herb” as performed by the great Emily Remler.  At the 0:14 second mark you can hear how she uses 4ths and then takes the phrase outside for a split second by moving up a 1/2 step.  I zeroed in on this for a while - improvising lines and moving them in and “out”.  This led to a new composition in the works with the following chord progression:

|D/E / / / | C/D / / / | Bb/C / / / | Bb/C / / / |

May mga panahon talaga na sobrang hirap ako sa studies. Well, sa ibang subject, okay lang naman pero sa Math talaga ako pumapalya. Minsan nga naiisip ko nang magtutor. Syempre ang dali nun noh. Pag may mahirap kang assignment, pwede kang magpatulong. Pag may periodic exams, may reviewer ka pa. But then, naisip ko na mas maganda kung pagsisikapan ko 'tong mag-isa. It's not that I don't want to seek for help. Kasi ang alam ko, kaya ko pa naman. Never pa naman ako bumagsak. At ang imaimaintain ko namang grade ay 85+. Siguro minsan tamad lang talaga ako. Hindi pala minsan, kalimitan pala. haha. So ayun, kailangan kong galingan na ngayon kasi 4th year na ako. Tapos na kasali pa ako dito sa section ko. Added pressure! haha. Pati naisipan ko 'tong ipost dahil nararamdaman ko na yung bugso ng Geometry, Calculus at Physics.

Chord voicings in 4ths always sound so hip.  I was working through various inversions of minor 6 chords played in 4ths along the neck, using all 6 strings initially and then breaking the shapes down into 2, 3, 4 and 5 note chords.  For example, in C minor (dorian) starting from the lowest string, the voicings can be spelled out as follows:

- 5, R, 4, b7, b3, 6

- 6, 9, 5, R, 4, b7

- b7, b3, 6, 9, 5, R

- R, 4, b7, b3, 6, 9

- 9, 5, R, 4, b7, b3

- b3, 6, 9, 5, R, 4

Then, I combined 2 shapes into a scale and practised playing the notes as fast as possible ascending and descending.  Taking the first 2 formulas above as an example, the new collection of notes becomes:

- 5, 6, R, 9, 4, 5, b7, R, b3, 4, 6, b7