String Skipping/Intervallic Guitar Part 3-HARMONY

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String Skipping/Intervallic Guitar Part 2-HARMONY

PLEASE WATCH VIDEO ABOVE FOR DETAILED ANALYSIS:

Hi Guys,

Today, one last look at “Intervallic string skipping” for a contrapuntal-esque picking style.

The first thing to do is take one position on the guitar fingerboard and find the “Harmony” embedded within that position.

I have taken the A Major position [F#m Relative]

al-di-meola-cycle-of-4ths

Now, let’s make an A Major basic arpeggio from the 1st string and the 6th string.

al-di-meola-string-skipping

Straight away, you will notice that the notes on the 1st string and the notes on 6th string are the same but in different octaves. This gives us an easy and excellent way to exploit the High to Low or Low to High counterpoint effect.

Now let’s do the same with a piece of scale: [Starting on an “Upstroke”]

al-di-meola-string-skipping-scales

Again, the octave makes this flow and connect easily from the low to high.

The next point is to take a chord sequence and use this “String skipping/intervallic” effect: Here we have Vi ii V7 I

al-di-meola-string-skipping

HARMONY

Th next essential point is to acknowledge the harmony in this position:

We will do this by exploiting the Cycle of 4ths in this simple 5 fret position.

al-di-meola-cycle-of-4ths

Here you can see that we have a huge amount of harmony available to us right under our fingertips. These chords don’t have to be Major, they can be minor, diminished, augmented etc. This gives us even more material to work with.

If we move down a fret [Semitone] then we have another set of harmony in 4ths awaiting us.

al-di-meola-cycle-of-4ths

Along, with this we have chord inversions and all of the inversions of A Major:

So, as you can see there is a huge amount of harmony right in front of us even in this one position that we can exploit and create lots of music from.

Lastly, let’s create another “String skipping intervallic” example:

I’m going to create a phrase outlining a D Maj#11 chord.

al-di-meola-string-skipping

To make this sequence quite quick I am going to add some scale from high to low:

al-di-meola-string-skipping-scales

Now we will add a V -I cadence

Now, let’s view the whole line:

al-di-meola-string-skipping

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Al Di Meola Arpeggio Guitar Picking Part

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Al Di Meola Arpeggio Guitar Picking Part 2

PLEASE WATCH VIDEO ABOVE FOR DETAILED ANALYSIS:

Hi Guys,

Today we will look at Al Di Meola’s approach to picking chordal arpeggios. He terms it “Chordal Picking”.

I have composed a short riff based on “Meeting of the Spirits” performed by the guitar trio.

This is deliberate in order to show how the picking patterns can be the same but interpreted differently.

In this case it is 3/4 :

al-di-meola-arpeggio-guitarpicking-lesson

Or 6/8 [or 12 3 1 2 3]

al-di-meola-arpeggio-guitarpicking-lesson

What remains the same is the picking pattern which is “Down Down Down Up Up Up”

al-di-meola-arpeggio-guitarpicking-lesson

The next part deliberately employs a different time signature of 2/4

This is just to show how easy it is to fit alternate time signatures with these chordal picking patterns:

al-di-meola-arpeggio-guitarpicking-lesson

It might sound or look complex in words and notation, but, in reality it is quite natural to play, compose with and perform.

The next part employs “Dampening”. This is just simply resting my palm on the guitar strings and plucking the rhythm.

In this case the picking pattern is our old friend “Down Down Up”

al-di-meola-arpeggio-guitarpicking-lesson

For the strumming part please watch video at the top of the page as it is easier to show visually than with diagrams or notation.

Lastly, we finish with the “Down Down Up”pattern once again:

al-di-meola-arpeggio-guitarpicking-lesson

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How to apply Simple Target Tones as Jazz Chromatics:

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How to apply Target Tones for jazz chromaticism in improvisation

PLEASE WATCH VIDEO ABOVE FOR DETAILED ANALYSIS:

Hi Guys,

Today a repost on how to apply and set up Jazz chromatics with target tones/enclosure/approach notes:

The key to understanding this is to look where the little target tones/enclosure motif/melody starts.

Here we have two.

The first is “OFF” the BEAT

and the second is “ON” the beat

Example 1: “Off Beat” classic target tone/enclosure set-up

target-tones-jazz-chromatics-how-to-example-off-beat

Example 2: “On the beat” and in the bar set-up in the improvised line [Target tone/Enclosure]

target-tones-jazz-chromatics-how-to-example-on-beat

THEORY:

What you will notice is that the Chord tones are “on” the beat [Strong] whilst the chromatic or unessential notes are “Off” the beat.  

This is the key to how it works and how to create beautiful flowing lines easily!

target-tones-jazz-chromatics-how-to-example
Chord tones on the “Strong” Beats for jazz enclosure

Full Target tones/Enclosure Jazz Chromatics improvisation lick/line

target-tones-jazz-chromatics-how-to-example-guitar

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