Lessons from Jazz/World to 20 Century Classical Music Harmony Rhythm and Theory
Tag: John Mclaughlin
alternate picking guitar style and jazz fusion improvisation lessons in his style. Looking at Mclaughlins use of altered dominant chords and chromatics in john’s improvisations. Lessons in john mclaughlin’s guitar style and improvised line using altered scales, harmonic minor and melodic minor scales. Mclaughlins use of modes, dorian, phrygian,aeoloean,ludian,mixolydian, locrian. Also the modes of the diminished scale.
Here, are the two licks from the latest Youtube video!
Guitar Line #1
I am starting this phrase on an “Up” stroke with strict alternate picking guitar technique.
The phrasing of this line feels like two groups of sextuplets. It’s a sort of juxtaposed phrasing as it is picked in 4 note tetrachord groupings starting on an up beat.
In the second part of the first bar, the fretting is simplified as it works into basic 2 notes per string pentatonic style phrasing:
In the last bar we are playing over the Dominant 7th chord with the the same mixed phrasing as the first bar:
Finally, we finished with 2 triads of Eminor and F Major:
Guitar Line #2
This line, once again employs strict alternate picking guitar technique.
I am starting with an upbeat on the open E string. I am also starting my alternate picking on an upstroke.
As you will see, the “Up” stroke on the “Up” BEAT means that the 1st beat of the next bar will be on a Down Stroke.
From here, we can connect the Tetrachords[4 note groupings] together:
Finally, we have the same juxtaposed notes/groupings as in the first exercise. This line comes to rest on the tonic chord of C Maj7:
Today, a quick look at how JohnMcLaughlin creates interesting time signatures with his rhythm guitar playing by employing the open E string as a pedal note.
This unique approach to rhythm guitar makes it easy to play in odd time signatures and create alternate time signatures.
Okay, so whatis this E Pedal Note?
This is the open E string that is plucked as the time keeper.
[It can also play rhythms and add rhythmic drive of its own as we will see later on].
Let’s begin with simple quarter notes: Here, will will add chords on beats 2 and 4.
Now, we will do the same thing but with 8th notes as the pedal bass:
Let’s take this further with 16th notes creating that rhythmic drive:
To create another useful effect we will play the chords on the off-beat:
Now, let’s mix it all together by applying all of the 1/4 1/8th and 16th notes in the E pedal bass!
MANIPULATING THE 16 BEAT CYCLE:
This is really useful because we can play odd/ uncommon time signatures and also alternatetime signatures.
Let’s start by exploiting Indian “‘Teen Taal” or a 16 beat cycle and then alter it.
Above, we can see the 16 beat cycle with the accented red numbers/Beats 1 5 9 13
Now, we will count this and accent the numbers/beats 1 5 9 13 and repeat the cycle until it is effortless to do.
Next, we will break this cycle up, and only count to 11. From here, we will create a loop with our E pedal note holding time in quarter notes. So we have, 1 5 9 [11] REPEAT.
This in turn gives us an 11/4 time signature:
From this point on we can see how easy it is to create interesting odd time signatures and rhythmic patterns with the E pedal as our base and time keeper.
Our understanding of beats 5 and 9 tells us where we are in the bar or beat cycle and hence what might sound complex in theory is actually pretty easy to do and exploit.
ALTERNATE TIME SIGNATURES:
These, are the combing of two or more different time signatures.
Here we employ a bar of 5/4 and a bar of 7/4. We will highlight the E pedal bass note with some quarter and eighth notes for good measure.
CONCLUSION:
This was just a brief look at this concept, but, exploiting just one of these techniques can lead to lots of interesting and useful guitar rhythms and time signature manipulations.
The E Pedal note as the time keeper is so useful because it means that we are in control of the timing/signatures and can accent chords off of it.
Lastly, these techniques are incredible for composition/songwriting. We hear this a lot with John McLaughlin’s Shakti, especially the great albums from the 1970’s where the rhythm of the acoustic guitar is prominent.
