Obviously Influenced by the Devil.

The title for this post comes from the awesome Dweezil Zappa and Mike Keneally tune of the same name on the Confessions album.

From time to time someone will say "hey kids did you know rock music is the work of Satan, the great deciever - I just thought you'd like ta know that trivia - now you go on having fun ya scamps" and until recently I thought they were selling a load of old rubbish... but check this out:

We take a nice innocuous cycle of notes in chromatic order:

Next we switch to dark red and draw lines between the consecutive notes on a guitar... E to A, A to D, D to G, G to B and B back to E...

Are you spooked yet? Look closer at this cycle of chromatics, do you see the face of the devil?

That's right communism... but wait, the rabbit hole goes deeper...

Look again at this digitally enhanced chromatic cycle showing the strings on a guitar connected by red lines and filled in with paint... I couldn't believe it myself at first:

It looks like Lord Snooty without his top hat, but two white conical party hats on his head like horns ... a beard and biiiiig collars.

But look again at this image where the contrast is thrown way up and the RGB balance is skewed entirely to red..

It's just a goat people!! Duh, honestly it's like kids scared in the dark - turn a light on stop freaking out interpretting the shadows ... of which there are none when there's no light ... but anyway. Score one more for science, progress, rawk, image manipulation and goats.. now get outta here and go and having fun you scamps ;)

What's better than one Cycle of fifths?

Two Cycles of Fifths, silly.

Many moons ago I was waffling about the cycle of 4ths as I was want to do and a great man called Jason Morris (sadly gone) mentioned he preferred the cycle of alternating minor and major thirds.

Needless to say it drew a blank with me at the time and I dismissed it as the ramblings of a deranged person who liked the Harmonic Minor more than the Melodic Minor.

Then I watch a Larry Carlton video where he makes much of the alternating major and minor stuff

How wrong I was to discount Jason's great advice.

It hit me today what he meant. I've been looking for a way to learn stuff in all keys without getting sucked into systemizing it. Have you done that? Someone says learn all the notes playing find a note on the guitar and you end up not being fully random and using the same interval (the trick with this lesson I recently learnt from the great Seth Govan (clang), is to randomise the randomisation - use intervals and note names in "find-a-note" so first find all the As till the 12 fret now find all the notes a 3rd above ... now all the Fs now all the notes a tritone off - see how that breaks it up? Marvellous - thanks Seth :^).. but I digress my old approach to randomisation dragged up more system, and that's what I'm sharing today (alhough the real value of this post is probably Seth's advice).

I've gone to great lengths with this, firstly learning patterns starting from the high E so I go through all the distortions of a pattern (around the B string) before getting into the smooth waters of patterns starting on E or A. (note to self - show them the fretboard diagrams in the coloured note-book for this)

But when I stop learning the same key all over the place what's the next key I should check out? Cycle of 5th or Cycle of 4ths simply sees me mentally transposing across strings and I'm back learning a pattern again... which I'm keen to avoid.(Note to self this needs a diagram to support it)

Since a minor third + major third is a perfect 5th the transposition is disrupted (for now) as I can learn the keys for the current exercise thusly:

C Eb G Bb D F A C E G B D F# A C# E G# B D#

which has some dupes in it, well anyway it helps me for now and I was startled how a chance comment several years ago came back.

Before Seth's approach made this a redundant solution, I'd already decided to apply it to chords, chords and cycles of fifths are so much fun together, look... C major 7 as you've never needed to see it before, woo!

This diagram makes it much easier to see what I'm saying, I put two cycle of fifths side by side offset to render either a major or minor chord of my choice.

In the above diagram, any chord where the root is in black will be major

In this above diagram, any chord where the root is in black will be minor

After marvelling at my facile genius and ability to play with characters rather than practice bass, guitar, rewire my strat, fix my jen wah, sell a load of surplus gear on ebay or repair my lovely Fender twin... I realised you only need one of the above diagrams... let's say the top one is the standard.

If I'm totally honest, the thing I'm most proud of is the name

The Fretboard

Diatonic theory is weighted towards 3rds (usually alternating major minor major minor major minor or minor major minor major minor major) so we don't get too many augmented or diminished chords. So it's great that the guitar is tuned in perfect fourths to make it easier to fret these chords... no wait it isn't...

The instruments tuned in 4ths (except for that major 3rd) and the chords are mostly built of stacked 3rds.. what does that mean? It means we can quickly construct any root inversion of a chord by planting the little finger on the root note, and planting the 3rd finger a fret or two higher on the next string and the second finger a fret or two higher on the next string and the first finger a fret or two higher on the next string.

Much is made of scale patterns living on the same 4-5 frets and that's great for learning 2 octave scale patterns, although it's good to play backwards to the root note when you hit either the highest or lowest notes in the scale... but diagonals - don't seem that interesting to people.

Name that chord (on the guitar)

short answer - it's a voicing

these notes E G B D are in E minor 7, G maj6, B11, Cmaj9 (without the root), and so on. A pattern on the fretboard can be many things and the best you can hope for, when asking what chord it is, is one person's guess - more often you'll get several people's guesses or on a forum one person's guess supported by other people who like the first person.

So what's a voicing?

It's a sound, perhaps not even unique on the fretboard - it might exist in a slightly different shape 12 frets down and one string lower. But that voicing as described in notation is unique.

Why do I need to differentiate a voicing from a chord?

I think it was Ted Greene (author of the fearfully awesome Chord Chemistry book complete with picture of Ted during his Teen-wolf era on the front) who said "Wes [Montgomery] only knew about 80 chords, but he knew every way of using them." that means the chord would take on different names when played over different bass notes or with other instruments or as substitutions in progressions (which Ted is a master of)

So that Hendrix Chord (X7678X).. it can be lots of other things too, try it resolving to (575755) or (XX5785) it can be an innocuous passing chord sometimes.

The value of calling them voicings is that then it's like a word and words get used in all sorts of places where they sound right, rather than if they're meant to be used with the subject matter, our mouths run away with us and sometimes invent the meaning of our statements if we're not paying close attention - and in music that's okay.

The Samurai used to say "from each lesson learn a thousand things", so from each chord learn it's uses, enjoy experimenting with several voicings that go together well - if you like chords, check out Ted Greens Modern Chord Progressions, practice them enough and you'll find your fingers sneaking them in places you'd never have expected it to make sense - because your ears are talking to your fingers and cutting out the middle-man, with good reason!

How to sound less offensive than Coldplay.

Music theory can be used to create music and the kind of music that music theory creates is often very bland, I'm sorry to break it to you kiddo, I hate giving people bad news.

Why?
If I tell you to get to Aberdeen from London, how would you want to do it? Car with a map, by plane straight there, by train... Who's first thought was "I'll start out on foot, get a bit lost, get some help ... meet an interesting old guy with odd ideas, break the law in a minor way.." what entertains us is the journey and the story and the suspense and guess what there is precious little of when you know what's going to happen next.

How?: in order to answer this question I will use the words "before", "done" "it's", "because" "been". You're disappointed ... okay I'll explain it using the words "dinosaur", "bikini", "explosion", "super hero" and "kipper" - it's probably a lot more exciting hearing that, oh boy you might think, how's he going to use the words dinosaur, bikini, explosion, super-hero and kipper to describe why music theory is bland I bet he can't manage to use the words dinosaur, bikini, explosion, super-hero and kipper to describe why music theory is bland, even now you might be hoping I'll use the words dinosaur, bikini, explosion, super-hero and kipper to describe why music theory is bland but in your secret heart you know I'm not really going to use dinosaur, bikini, explosion, super-hero and kipper to describe why music theory is bland. I'm sorry kiddo I hate giving people bad news.

How?: we know the sounds, they're cultural artefacts. If a bikini clad super hero has to stop a dinosaur from demolishing downtown Tokyo, you know the dinosaur will be defeated and probably not rehabilitated to be a useful member of society wearing a bowler hat and a kipper tie. Explosion!

But that's cheating! Yes if there were any rules. The people that dislike music that doesn't abide by some set of rules are a bit like people annoyed because paintings aren't more like photos... photos are more like photos, so lets do something else.

The Nashville system uses roman numerals to denote the diatonic chords in a song. So the 12 bar blues can be written ||: I | I | I | I | IV | IV | I | I | V | IV | I | I :|| that's the I(one) chord say C major, the IV (four) chord F major and V (five)chord G major or in the key of Bb I(one) chord Bb major, the IV (four) chord Eb major and V (five)chord F major - the notation allows people to transpose quickly.

whatever you do, DON'T use lower case letter to denote minor chords in the Nashville notation: I ii iii IV V vi viib5 isn't big or clever.

A lot of times the most interesting sounds are distinctly NOT the chords you're expecting ... turning them to a minor or a diminished and so on sounds great

I woke up this morning - it was asleep, I was crashing about - sorry.

12 Bar blues, until you have been to a poorly organised blues jam in Surrey... until you have been to a poorly organised blues jam in Surrey - you do not know the 12 bar blues, my friend.

The twelve bar blues is a formula for slow people thinking, described by the chords of the Nashville system. When it's done badly - it can be done well and I like blues music but when it's done bad it's like a formula that's writ large. Here, I'll describe a standard 12 bar a bar per line.

I) Lawd gawd ahm so unheppy.
I) something bad heppened to me
I) Lawd gawd ahm so unheppy.
I) something bad heppened to me
IV) ah could do something
IV about it
I) but then I wouldn't have
I) no misery
V) I could cheer myself up
IV) with some blueberry pie
I) but ahm so unheppy
I) and there'd be nothing for the next verse.

rinse - repeat until someone comes up and murders that song by The Meters. The thing to learn from this is the sound of the root chord, the fourth chord, the fifth chord and the pulls they lend to the music.

A great game to play is trying to work out what bar someone is on based on those sounds, so duck out of the pub and come back in again.. bar 11 is a rallying point where the musicians wake and know to get back to the beginning or maybe if we're really lucky stop.

Widdershins is best (I'm left handed)

The cycle of fifths... the evil cousin of the cycle of fourths...

The cycle of fifths is kinda like the Romulans, most of the good music in the world was written for saxophones and brass instruments and so exists in the flat registers - I'm not saying banjos and mandolins are evil - I'm not allowed to.

Why is a cycle of fourths better? Well think about learning modes in a derivative method... it goes fourth-wise, like the enigmatic vulcans... they go fourth-wise believe me. C Ionian (flatten the seventh) = C mixolydian (F major) (flatten the seventh) = C Dorian (Eb Major) (flatten the seventh) = C Minor (Ab Major) (flatten the seventh) = C Phrygian (Db Major) and so on.

Now what does that mean? Try this experiment, you'll need 7 cans of stella ... or if you drink a fair bit or play Jazz 7 litre bottles of Leffe. With no bottles of beer in you, we'll call that the ionian mode - normality... drink a beer .. now you're relaxed and cracking jokes, you've got a rye look at the world that's kinda like the mixolydian mode, have another beer - that's the dorian mode, you're starting to get a bit cynical now but it's it's okay it's okay I got my health... down another beer, it's time to get sentimental and maudlin now (all of a sudden Santana seems to be describing what you're feeling - learn to avoid that) - that's the Aeolian mode (at other times you'd chuckle about it sounding like ariolum but not now it's a sad wind harp)... down another beer... DOWN THE BEER!! now it's the phrygian mode you want to keep drinking but your scaring yourself a little it's scary.. it's okay press on down another beer and into the locrian zone... you are talking gibberish, noone understands you - you don't care, it's the little pigs all over again and noone's going to have avacado this time... noone it's alright, last beer... too many you've lost the root node there's nothing to link it to the C major chord - you're in the first circle of hell, unbaptised children and good heathens.. look out red-shirted guy... oh too bad.. I'll have to write a letter to his parents.

Well that is the major modes a continuous curve around the cycle of fourths... uh, you want to know about the Lydian? The lydian is dreaming it's not rooted in the present, I suggest avoiding it as people who play the lydian for too long end up sucking their cheeks in.. worse than that you need to read George Russells book on Lydian Chromatic Concepts..