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Fripp/King Crimson style Guitar Picking Exercise:

Posted on February 6, 2024February 10, 2024 by Modern Music Theory

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Robert Fripp/King Crimson Style Guitar Picking Exercise: Alternate Picking/Cross Picking

Please watch video above for detailed info:

Hi Guys,

Today, a “Quirky” Fripp-esque/Crimson-esque guitar picking exercise.

Here is the first part:

As you can see this is very intervallic and as Robert Fripp might call it, “Finickity” picking pattern.

GUITAR TECHNIQUES:

Alternate picking starting on an upstroke works really:

Also, the pattern “Down Down Down Up” works well: [with a short amount of alternate picking on the C B E notes in the bass]

Fripp-king-crimson-cross-picking-guitartechnqiue-example-lesson

Moving on from this we have chromatic movement: So from here on in we employ strict alternate picking starting on an “Upstroke”:

In this next phrase we have a contrapuntal effect with arpeggio and scale movement put to good use.

We finish the first part with more descending chromatic movement with the last line imitating the phrase before it.

2nd Part “Chordal”

In the 2nd part we exploit whole tone scale movement:

We will decorate this by employing 4ths:

Now we will dismantle the whole tone scale by making a chordal quartal melody and strum this up a semitone and back to create a colourful sound:

This is then repeated up in Major thirds.

Up another Major third:

Finally we descend from the 12th fret with this little motif:

FREE PDF DOWNLOAD:

fripp-revised Download

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A Natural Minor Scale/Chords/Arpeggios:

Posted on January 19, 2024February 10, 2024 by Modern Music Theory

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A Natural Minor Scale/Arpeggio:Basics

Please watch video above for detailed analysis:

Hi Guys,

Today a quick look at the Chords,Scale and Arpeggios of the A natural minor scale.

To begin with this scale is exactly the same as the C Major scale but starting on the 6th degree:

Chords of Major

Chords of A natural minor

Next we will play through and exploit and “Colour” the arpeggios of the scale:

A minor

B Diminished

C Major 7th

D minor

E minor

F Major

G Major

We will now descend in broken chords in groups of 4 notes.

Exploiting the arpeggios over different chords of the scale:

Here are a few examples of playing a different arpeggio over a different chord of the scale:

arpeggios-c-major-scale-superimpositions

Scale ideas:

Here is a basic way of breaking up the scale by employing triplets:

First we will do this on one string:

Now we will cross all 6 strings:

This time we will employ 16th’s in 4 note groupings of “Tetrachords” creating a double time smooth pentatonic line.

tetrachords-a-natural-minor-scale-example-pentatonic

We can change the Dominant [minor] chord in the A natural minor scale and make it Major:

With this in mind we realise that the G natural is now a G# and so we can employ the A Harmonic minor scale to play over it.

Here is a simple 2 finger fingering:

a-harmonic-minor-scale-dominat-chord-example

Now, let’s extend this:

We could also use the E7 Arpeggio:

Finally, we have a lick with an arpeggio [that also implies a triad pair] going to a pentatonic phrase:

PDF DOWNLOAD:

a-naural-minor-scale Download

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“Lotus Feet” Shakti Scale Solo Concepts

Posted on December 12, 2023February 10, 2024 by Modern Music Theory

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Please watch video above for in depth analysis:

Hi Guys,

Today, a quick look at exploiting the Em scale for John McLaughlin’s and Shakti’s composition “Lotus Feet”.

The key to making a solo sound interesting is to highlight the prominent notes of the scale: In this case it is the semitones F# G and B and C.

Here are the semitones ascending:

Here, they are descending:

Also, take into consideration that the F# note will make the Cmaj7 Lydian:

Now, let’s add one extra note to the semitones and create an imitated phrase going through the octaves.

Now, we will connect some scale to the semitones ascending:

Here we will connect three tetrachords in 3/4 creating a smooth pentatonic style line:

ARPEGGIOS FROM THE SCALE:

Another key component when improvising is to exploit the arpeggios within the scale:

Two arpeggios that work well for this composition are Em and Bm:

E minor:

Mixing the scale with the arpeggio also works really well.

PENTATONIC’S FROM THE SCALE:

It’s always a good idea to have a few pentatonic’s from the scale at hand:

Here we can manipulate the Em, Bm, and Am to good effect. Again we can make them more unique by adding the semitones:

Em Pentatonic:

Bm Pentatonic:

Am Pentatonic:

Now, lets connect two fragments together:

FREE PDF DOWNLOAD:

lotus-feet Download

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Author: Clifford Martin Musical Artist: Guitar Gti

Modern Music Theory

Clifford Martin is a trained classical musician and composer. His 1st study being piano and composition and a deep study into the meticulous world of modern music theory. He also studied jazz piano and jazz drums privately. Clifford later came back to the guitar and studied in the jazz fusion style of John McLaughlin and Al di Meola. It was at this point that he put all of his years of learning together into one musical form This website is a sort of cataloging of ideas and musical concepts for exploitation and development in the arts of musical composition and improvisation. What started out as a jazz improvisation site has grown into a full blown, harmony, timbre, pitch and rhythm library. Peace, Enjoy!