Today, a quick look at applying octave displacement into your alternate picking guitar technique.
This [12 tone] concept was originally taken from the brilliant 12 chromatic forms by jazz guitar great Pat Martino and then re-developed into a more 20c classical picking Fripp-esque guitar etude.
Sheet music for Pat Martino’s 12 chromatic forms for guitar, illustrating the String Skipping exercise.
PART 1– Octave Displacement:
I am starting this little etude/exercise on an “Up” stroke with alternate picking guitar technique. [You may prefer to start on a downstroke]
As an example here is the first part:
Notation for the ‘String Skipping’ guitar exercise exploring octave displacement.
The key to be aware of = The exploitation of “Octave displacement”. This creates unique harmonies and S.A.T [B] style 12 tone lines.
Diagram illustrating octave displacement and the chromatic scale in guitar playing.
As you can see in the diagram above, this is just the chromatic scale, but, moving/resolving through the different registers.
This octave displacement technique, offers us a way to create/extract interesting colourful music from the chromatic scale [12 tone], whilst, complimenting our instrument through the high low high or low high low resonances.
Musical notation for the ‘String Skipping’ exercise, highlighting octave displacement techniques in guitar playing.
PART 2: Scale Employment:
Although, [for this etude] I have employed octave displacement, I have also incorporated some basic scale parts to link it all together and avoid intervallic monotony.
I am starting both of these scale fragments on an“Up” stroke with strict alternate picking once again:
Tab notation for the ‘String Skipping’ exercise inspired by guitarists Robert Fripp and Pat Martino.Guitar tablature for the ‘String Skipping’ exercise inspired by Robert Fripp, illustrating techniques of alternate picking and octave displacement.Musical notation for the ‘String Skipping’ exercise inspired by Robert Fripp, illustrating alternate picking techniques and octave displacement.
Today, a look at the amazing 12 chromatic forms for guitar by jazz legend and music theoretician extrodinaire Pat Martino!
These 12 forms for the chromatic scale were written and I believe taught by Pat Martino in the 70’s and 80’s. They are a unique idea that connect through the concept of octave displacement.
Notice: The semitones and octave displacement: E to Eb to D to Db [Db to C semitone] etc.
The arrow pointing up or down tells us whether it is an ascending or descending chromatic scale:
So, for instance “Form I” without octave displacement is:
With octave displacement is:
Here, is Form I written by Pat’s own hand showing his fingerings and string preference.
Now, let’s add the second form for guitar and notice Pat’s connection for the two: Eb to E
Also, notice that Form I and II have the same notes but mostly in different octaves.
Lastly, if we look at form III we will see the arrow pointing upwards showing that it is an Ascending chromatic scale:
Here, is the basic ascending chromatic scale:
Here, it is with octave displacement
For all of the other chromatic forms please go to the downloadable Pdf at the bottom of this page for a free download of Pat’s actual notations.
COMPOSITIONAL AND DEVOLPMENTAL IDEAS:
Due to being the chromatic scale and 12 forms we can manipulate this by taking a 12 tone approach:
So let’s take the first Form and make 3 sets of 4 note chords from it.
Here, we can see and hear how easy it is to create some very original and unique chords from these forms:
We can now make some lovely voicing’s and chords from the following, so, let’s structure some sophisticated composition.
How will we do this?
We will employ, “Retrograde” and “Inversion” and then “Retrograde Inversion”
RETROGRADE IDEA:
INVERSION IDEA:
RETROGRADE INVERSION IDEA:
One last idea is to “Stack” one on top of the other creating a colourful superimposition bi tonal tool.
In this case it is Form I and III:
In conclusion
These 12 Forms offer brilliant possibilities for string writing or 20C classical orchestral style composing.
The octave displacement and the flow of semitones creates a fluid and quite natural way of performing on stringed instruments wether it be the guitar, violin, cello, double bass etc.
This blog has just touched on the subject but as you can see the possibilities for the 12 forms gives way to unlimited fresh new music, and for the imaginiative and creative guitarist/composer the possibilities are endless.
FREE PDF DOWNLOAD:
Below is a free pdf download of all of Pat’s 12 chromatic forms for guitar written out by Pat himself.
