Pat Martino – Page 2 – Modern Music Theory Improvisation and Application

Quick Tips for Jazz Guitar Turnarounds: Martino,Mock,McLaughlin

Posted on September 12, 2025September 12, 2025 by Modern Music Theory and Application

Please watch video above for detailed info:

Hi Guys,

Today, a look at playing through a Vi ii V7 I Turn around/Cadence at a quick pace/tempo.

This is in the style of Don Mock, Pat Martino and John McLaughlin. So, this employs the alternate picking guitar technique.

PART 1:

In order to achieve our goal, we will exploit pentatonic fragments and connect them together in four note groupings.

This also means that we can make use of simple guitar fingering and hence pick quick rapid phrases.

Here, is the chord sequence:

A jazz chord turnaround and cadence featuring Gmaj7, E7, Am7, D7, Gmaj, Gm7, C7, and Fmaj7 in 4/4 time.

Now, we will solo through the first two chords of I VI [Chord VI as a Domoninat 7th]

Musical notation and tab showing GMaj7 and E7 jazz turnaround chords with corresponding notes and finger placements for guitar.

Starting, on a down stroke with alternate picking, we can see how easy it is to connect these simple pentatonic’s together through the two chord changes.

Now, let’s connect the pentatonic’s over the next two chords in the same manner. [Notice the G to F# resolution for Gmaj7]

Musical notation and tablature showing jazz ii V7 I chords Am7, D7, and Gmaj7 with highlighted notes and guitar finger placements.

PART 2:

Having completed our Turnaround, let’s cadence this to a new key: This will be F Major.

To do this, we will make the G Major 7th chord, minor, to G minor 7th.

Musical notation and tab for the Gm7 chord featuring pentatonic scale connections for jazz improvisation

From here, we will carry this pentatonic scale/line along and play it over the next chord.

This will be the Dominant chord of C7 [or chord V leading to/of the new key F Major].

Notice: the use of a few chromatic notes to fill out the pentatonic scale/line.

Sheet music showing a chord progression with annotations for C7 and Fmaj7, highlighting chromatic jazz improvisational movement.

PART 3:

Full Turnaround/Cadence:

Sheet music and tablature displaying chord progression for jazz Vi ii V7 I Gmaj7, E7, Am7, D7, and Gmaj7, with annotations and notes for guitar performance.

Sheet music showing a chord progression for jazz with ii V7 I with Gm7, C7, and FMaj7, highlighting chromatic scale movement and alternate picking guitar techniques.

This, was just a quick look at how easy it is to connect long lines together through very quick chord changes, especially, at the guitar with alternate picking technique.

It’s amazing the amount of chords we can play through fluently and quickly with this simple pentatonic four note [tetrachord] approach when improvising.

This short blog/lesson was just touching the surface. But, it does still give quite a comprehensive view of what can be achieved with this approach.

It’s a good idea to apply this method to any quick chord changes that you can find [e,g “Giant Steps”] and try this.

PDF DOWNLOAD:

john mclaughlin 6251 Download

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Exploring Pat Martino’s 12 Chromatic Forms for Guitar:

Posted on October 22, 2024October 22, 2024 by Modern Music Theory and Application

Please watch video above for detailed info:

Hi Guys,

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.

Although they can be employed over dominant alt chords for improv [As covered previously https://jazzimproviser.com/2024/05/21/pat-martino-intervallic-studies-un-published-book-lesson/] I am going to dig at little bit deeper and create a compositional 12 tone approach where extra fresh material can be created from any one form.

But, to begin with:

Here is the first form I:

12-chromatic-forms-for-the-guitar-pat-martino

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:

12-chromatic-forms-for-the-guitar-pat-martino-explained

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.

pat-martino-12-tone-jazz-guitar-lesson-example

Here, we can see and hear how easy it is to create some very original and unique chords from these forms:

12-chromatic-forms-pat-martino-guitar-chords-lesson

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.

As guitar players this gives us some great possibilities for altered dominant lines [https://jazzimproviser.com/2024/05/21/pat-martino-intervallic-studies-un-published-book-lesson/] and original chord voicings. These are also great as rut busters too.

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.

12 Chromatic Forms Download

Forms I and II TAB:

martino-12-tab Download

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