Today, a short John Coltrane/McCoy Tyner Style unison jazz quartal guitar line/ jazz head/riff.
This line starts with an anacrusis/upbeat. From here we employ a short pentatonic scale phrase that leads to quartal harmony that resolves down a minor 3rd interval.
I am starting this on an upstroke with strict alternate picking guitar technique.
The key to the first phrase is that it plays upon this “Motif” as it gets imitated up the octaves:
From here, we create contrast by descending with a pentatonic scale and push hard on a sextuplets feel for rhythmic colour and drive.
To complete the first part of this phrase, we round it off with two chords of Ab and G9
We, will now ascend and frame some interesting intervallic sounds: Opening with 5ths to 4ths with chromatic movement:
Finally, we will play the motif up a semitone one more time and ascend up in semitones to complete the phrase:
FULL EXERCISE:
Alternate Picking starting on an “Upstroke”
IN CONCLUSION
This was just a brief look at what can be done with this modal pentatonic quartal jazz style.
It’s a style very well suited to the guitar in terms of fretting and picking and it’s amazing what interesting music you can easily make from this even just by means of imitation.
Pat Martino Intervallic Studies: Un-Published Book Lesson
PLEASE WATCH VIDEO ABOVE FOR DETAILED INFO:
Hi Guys!
Guitarist Mark Koch one of Pat’s students kindly sent me a copy of Pat’s un-published book on “Intervallic studies“.
It’s a fascinating look at the imaginative thought process and creative concepts that Pat was investigating for the development of the improvising guitarist.
Also, it’s a real eye opener for the development of scale applications and creating fresh lines form nearly every scale imaginable. This book has around 294 examples.
INTERVALLIC STUDY #1 “Whole Tone Scale”
In this first example we will look at the “Whole Tone Scale” Study:
From a music theory perspective if we take away the intervallic approach and place the notes in order we will get a whole tone scale ascending followed by a whole tone scale descending:
Now, we will put them back into the “Disguised” form with the clever approach of the intervallic design:
The key to playing these studies on the guitar is to decide on a methodical fingering and stick to it. [Below=Pat’s Fingering]
Also, it’s a really good idea to play in a staccato manner because there is a tendency for the open strings to resonate sympathetically with the string that has just been plucked.
I am employing strict alternate picking for this study starting on an upstroke:
FULL INTERVALLIC STUDY:
Same Study: From Pat’s book with fingering examples:
INTERVALLIC STUDY #2 “Pentatonic Scale”
Now we will look at how Pat breathes life into the pentatonic scale:
As before we will take this from a music theory perspective and remove the intervallic approach:
Here, we again find the same principle as the previous example. But, this time we have the Pentatonic scales ascending and descending:
Now, let’s disguise this with the use of intervallic exploitation and alternate picking starting on a “Downstroke”:
Same Study from Pat’s unpublished book:
INTERVALLIC STUDY APPLICATION with the “Chromatic Scale”
Finally, we will employ these intervallic concepts through a iim7b5 V7 i cadence.
Once again, we see the intervallic set up:
Now, let’s employ our music theory and place the intervallic notes in order. Here we find that we have the exploitation of the chromatic scale.
This clever approach is really effective because in the second bar beats 2 and 3 we have a literal chromatic scale that then anticipates the coming minor tonic chord of Em with an Em arpeggio.
Full Example:
In Conclusion:
This was just a quick look at the creative thought process and unique approach of Pat Martino, resulting in the application of this material into a minor iim7b5 V7 i improvised line to hear how they work and sound.
This approach to scales and improvising [and composing] with them is highly original and extremely useful when there is a need to bust out of cliches and seek colour and creativity in our playing.
