Please watch video above for detailed info:

Hi Guys,

Today, a quick look at a Scott Collins 12 tone guitar pattern and applying it to alternate picking guitar technique as an exercise in descending intervallic movement.

First of all, let’s look at the pattern.

I am thinking of these motifs as 3 note “Tri-chords” [as in John ‘O” Gallagher’s book 12 tone improvisation].

Here, are the first 3 pitches as a tri-chord.

TRI-CHORD:

What makes this line interesting is that the “Tri- Chords” move in “Tri-Tones”.

You could view this from a diminished perspective but from a picking perspective it is more like tritones and semitones. This gives it that unique angular sound.

If we look at the example below we can see a classic example of a tri-chord pattern/sequence with the same guitar fingering.

PATTERN: Same fingering

In the next example, we can see the tri-chords, the tritones and the semitone movement.

TRICHORDS-TRITONES-SEMITONES:

ALTERNATE PICKING:

I am using strict alternate picking guitar technique for this exercise starting this on a “Downstroke”.

I am counting in groups of three note triplets, although, you could count in sextuplets.

There is a lot of one note per string and two notes per string picking. So, remember when you pluck down to pluck back up equally. This very much Robert Fripp style picking and hence you need to be aligned with the string you wish to pluck.

Here is the first part:

Second Part:

Lastly, we will use half of the patten and play it over a traditional ii V7 I

ii V7 I Example:

FULL LINE:

Below, is the original line I took this from. As, you can see from the fingering, this was more of a symmetrical pattern with tapping.

SCOTT COLLINS ORIGINAL LINE/TAB:

PDF DOWNLOAD:

Scott Collins Link: https://guitarchitecture.org/2012/01/14/visualizing-video-game-licks-or-an-intro-to-symmetrical-12-tone-guitar-patterns/

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