Vaideology

2017

Introduction

Steve essaie de répondre à la question « A-t-on besoin de connaître la théorie (musicale) pour être un bon musicien ? ». Je résume paragraphe par paragraphe.

• tout ce qui vous intéresse, vous finirez naturellement par chercher à le comprendre ;
• si la théorie ne vous intéresse pas, vous allez lutter pour mémoriser, mais ce n’est pas la théorie en elle-même qui fera de vous un bon musicien, mais votre créativité et votre enthousiasme pour une bonne idée, et plus important encore votre « oreille » ;
• il existe des gens qui se fichent éperdument de la théorie mais sont tout de même des créateurs puissants ;
• il y a aussi ceux qui veulent maîtriser le langage de la musique mais s’en font une montagne, pensent ne pas être assez intelligents, jusqu’à finalement changer d’avis
• aussi ceux qui pensent que comprendre la théorie compromet la capacité à jouer « avec le cœur », ce que dément Steve, il y a un équilibre à trouver ;
• et enfin ceux qui réalisent que la théorie ouvre les portes de la création, que ce n’est pas si compliqué et que ça finit par être naturel, ce qui entraîne un fort appétit pour continuer dans cette voie ;
• chacun a différentes capacités et différents désirs pour comprendre différentes choses à différents niveaux, certains pensent davantage intellectuellement qu’artistiquement, on peut toujours choisir de sortir de sa zone de confort, mais il faut toujours suivre son enthousiasme ;
• une personne très intellectuelle pourrait créer de la musique qui ressemblerait à des exercices, et ce serait très bien aussi pour ceux qui l’apprécieraient ;
• puis Steve raconte sa vie sur trois paragraphes.

Ensuite Steve parle du degré qui doit suivre intellectualisation : « l’expériencialisation ». Le paragraphe suivant explique l’idée, mais celui d’encore après ne me semble pas continuer dans la même idée. Je distingue 1) comprendre la théorie par les sensations sonores et 2) savoir sans faire appel à la mémoire. Viennent ensuite deux paragraphes sur l’importance de l’écoute.

Dans les huit derniers paragraphes Steve recommande au moins des bases, ce que ce livre constitue (pour les guitaristes) et donne quelques manières de le lire.

Notes on the neck

• Know all the notes on the neck, cold! (see the Satriani+Vai interview)
• 12 notes (chromatic scale) and repeat themselves
• all 12 notes are a half-step apart or semitone, on the guitar it’s the distance from one fret to the next, and a whole step is the distance of two frets
• natural notes: C, D, E, F, G, A, B

Accidentals

• natural overrides sharps or flats
• holds for the whole bar except at a different octave

Enharmonic tones

Fretboard diagram

Experiential study

• listen intensely
• record a note recognition exercise

Notes (advanced)

• Microtones
• Cents
• comprehensive accidental list

Advanced Note Recognition

• sing what you play
• sing what you play in harmony (all scale degrees)
• listen to your favorite songs and try to figure them out
• memorize intervals by ear
• learn to sight-sing
• transcribe all sorts of music

Use the previous exercise to build a note recognition exercise. You may discover that you have perfect pitch!

Scales

Four main scales:

• major
• minor
• pentatonic
• blues

G major scale in second position (modal name: ionian): one finger per fret.

Intervals

• number of the note: scale degree
• seven notes or degrees
• an interval is the distance (in step value) between two pitches
• beyond the range of an octave: compound interval

Some are perfect because of the consonance.

• P1, P4, P5, P8
• M2, M3, M6, M7
• major lowered is minor: m2, m3, m6, m7
• minor or perfect lowered is diminished: d2, d3, d4, d5, d6 and d7 (use °)
• major or perfect raised is augmented: A2, A3, A4, A5, A6 and A7 (use +)

chro   0   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11
M/P   P1      M2      M3  P4      P5      M6        M7
 m        m2      m3                  m6       m7
 d    d2      d3      d4      d5  d6      d7
 A    A7  A1      A2      A3  A4      A5       A6

Pour moi pas de d2, d3, d4, d6, A1, A3, A6, A7.

Indications pour travailler la gamme de Sol majeur (qui iraient selon moi dans la section «experiential»).

Experiential study

• vital importance to the tonal quality of the scale
• chords progressions:
  • G, C, D, %
  • G, Em, Am, D
  • G, Am, Bm, C

Advanced experiential study

Importance of identify an interval. Apps as of early 2018:

• My ear trainer
• Perfect ear trainer
• Complete ear trainer
• Functional ear trainer
• Chord trainer free
• Interval ear training
• Relative pitch free interval ear training
• Ear trainer lite
• Complete ear trainer

Sit, play and feel these intervals (in the following order):
8ves, P5, P4, M3, M7, M6, m7, m3 (A2), M2, A4 (d5), m6 (A5), m2.

Steve ne parle pas de d7 pour les M6, et semble d’accord avec ma remarque précédente !

Étendre à 9e, 11e, 13e…

Enregistrer et réécouter sans jouer.

Enregistrer mais dans un ordre aléatoire pour faire une exercice: nommer l’intervalle. Si vous reconnaissez la note vous avez l’oreille absolue!

Scales continued

The minor scale

• modal name: aeolian
• 3 degrees lowered: 3rd, 6th and 7tr
• Gm in first positions (1st finger extends, strange position to me…)
• chord progressions:
  • Gm, Bb, Eb, Dm
  • Gm, Cm, F, Bb
  • Gm, F, Eb, F

Pentatonic scale

• five notes
• a multitude can be created but let’s focus on the major pentatonic scale, the most conventional being 1, 2, 3, 5, 6
• does not contain the tension notes
• diagram with diagonal position (except high string!)

|---|---|---|---|---|---|-B-|---|---|-D-|---|---|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-G-|---|-A-|---|---|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|-D-|---|-E-|---|---|---|
|---|---|---|---|-G-|---|-A-|---|-B-|---|---|---|
|---|---|---|---|-D-|---|-E-|---|---|---|---|---|
|---|---|-G-|---|-A-|---|-B-|---|---|---|---|---|

Blues scale

• motherload in blues and rock music
• note about ears guiding more than letting academics of a scale guide (but both can work together nicely)
• most blues scales are pentatonic-based
• variation of the dorian mode
• Steve sometimes refers to it as the Dorian blues scale

Note: Degrees 3, 5 and 7 still used even if compound. And 17th would rather be called 2nd or 9th.

Diagram of G blues scale (strange to me…):

|---|---|-G-|---|-A-|-Bb|---|
|---|---|-D-|---|-E-|-F-|---|
|---|---|-Bb|---|-C-|---|---|
|---|---|-F-|---|-G-|---|---|
|-Bb|---|-C-|-C#|-D-|---|---|
|---|---|-G-|---|---|---|---|

Practicing scales

Play music instead of practicing them up and down. « Communicating with other musicians, exploring your emotions in audio form, creating, exploring and investigating in a connected way is all of much greater value in the long run. »

Exploring the neck

Mixing two scales, especially G blues and Bb (relatives) + diagram + another diagram with the «in-between notes».

#11 is a «flavorful passing tone»

Patterns must take a back seat to your inner musical intention.

Make every note work, somehow

AKA «passing tones», can be used to inter-connect ideas. Also try chromatics (think «target note at the end of a phrase»). Cadence «wrong» notes to strong notes like the tonic, P5 (and P4 but maybe not on major chords???)…

You have to create an opening to the melodies inside of you.

Key signatures and the circle of 5ths

• Quick description. Diatonic basically means «within the scale you are working in».
• At the top is the key of C major, noalteration, only the white keys on the piano.
• Sharps for the keys clockwise with a table (until enharmonic), and flats counter-clockwise.

Relative major and minor keys

• Share the same notes but have different tonics and tonalities.
• Tonic of relative minor is at M6, and tonic of relative major is at m3.
• The circle is an instant visual of the related elements.
• Other mysteries revealed later!
• Learn it cold (moi: bof)

Notes on manuscript

• staff, staves, G-clef or treble clef, ledger lines, middle C, C4 (or C3 for some Yamaha gear), F-clef or bass clef, grand staff
• other clefs: bass clef 15mb, 8vb, bass clef, 2×baritone clef, tenor, alto, mezzosoprano, soprano, french violin, treble clef, treble clef 8va, 15ma, percussion clef (different number of lines)

Transposing intruments

The guitar sounds an octave lower, like the bass and double bass. Other instruments may transpose by other intervals. Steve gives two lists of instruments.

Musical notes

• diagram with a keyboard and the grand staff
• Steve advocates for not using mnemonics (see [Gammes-majeures-et-MMTS])
• exercises to improve reading

Chords (academic study)

• two or more notes: a chord
• two-note chord: a double stop
• three-note chords: a triad
• more notes: extended chord

Diagrams showing variations of the tab of a D chord.

Before discussing, Steve’s advice is to first learn some open chords on the guitar, then barre chords and then more odder fingerings and tension notes (see online).

Chord (experiential study)

• Every chord has a story to it, a personality… Try to live inside the emotional atmosphere of the chord.
• Grab a fellow guitar player and tell a story, or name it… when one plays the chord.
• Start your own chord library

Chord spelling (academic study)

• Chords get their names from the scale degrees (relative to the root) that are contained within the chord.
• Chord naming is a mess.

Chord Spelling Library

• if «major» is in the name then it must contain a M3
• if «minor» is in the name then it must contain a m3
• if there is a 7th in a minor chord then it will be a m7 (unless otherwise stated)

Other rules:

• sus chords, usually the 4th replaces the 3rd but sometimes the 2nd: no 3rd!
• G2: the 2 sometimes stands for a 9th.
• dominant 7th usually means major 3rd in the chord.
• the tritone gives the dominant seventh chords their flavor.
• tensions theoretically add like this: 1-3-5-7-9-11-13 but:
  • it’s very common to not include a 3rd in a chord if it has an 11th (because of the b9th)
  • also for a 13th chord to not have a 5th, 9th or 11th (context helps to know the other scale degrees)
  • …

Big table of more than 40 lines.

Final note: voicing is important.

Chord spelling (advanced study)

• Close voicing: four-way close voicing are difficult on the guitar.
• Open voicing: many more than close voicing.
• Chord inversions (example with Cmaj7 and its three inversions): close-voice inversions are difficult on the guitar.
• Drop voicings: a good solution for guitar players (2, 3, 4, 23, 24, 34, 14)
• «Reverse drop voicings» where you raise the note.
• From a particular voicing raise each note to the next voicing in the chord (or drop).

Unlocks the neck. And there is a little paragraph again on experiential studies.

Writing music

Read/write opens a type of creativity, and it’s beautiful!

A table with rhythm values from double whole to 64th.

Read rhythm, it will improve your inner drummer.

Polyrhythms

AKA cross-rhythms or tuplets.

Polyrhythms (advanced)

Nested tuplets (with a Zappa transcription), terminology (from 2 to 24), examples (some crazy ones) and exercises (you can group tridecatuplets like 5+5+3).

They’ll improve fluidity in your playing.

Time signatures

• top: how many beats in one measure (no indication of grouping)
• bottom: the note value of one beat
• simple meter: can be divided by two without having dotted notes as the pulse
• compound: the contrary
• duple, triple and quadruple meter: refers to the number of pulses

Meter chart (TODO)

Complex (odd) time signatures

Other names: asymmetric, irregular, unusual, do not fit duple, triple or quadruple.

Time signatures (advanced)

Composite meter

• 4:8 + 3:8, or (4+3):8 aids for writing and reading (beaming)

Poly-meter or poly-metric

Two or more time signatures going against each other at the same time. Example with 4 lines (2:4, 3:4, 4:4 and 5:4).

Guitar tablature

Nothing very interesting.

Composing

Tempo

Tempo alterations

Tempo and metric modulations

With a notation for metric modulations.

Repetition signs

• in a bar with slashes
• or with signs (like colons)
• D.S. or dal segno means from the sign means « Return to the earlier spot marked with a fancy slashed S
• D.S. al Coda means « Return to the fancy S to To Coda then jump to the Coda section (the slashed O) at the end of the music.

Articulations

Dynamics

Crescendo and decrescendo

Octave signs

Guitar harmonics

Nothing very interesting here, just notation. Il faillotte aussi un peu vers Jeff Beck et Zakk Wylde.

Reading guitar rhythm

Advice: listen to cultural music that you may not normally listen to.

Rhythm (experiental study)

• « apply discipline » < « passion »
• master the basics (you know you have mastered when it feels natural: feeling of simplicity, ease, non-thinking doing, elegance, otherworldly bliss while performing, and total freedom)
• thinking about what you are doing, then being what you are doing (examples: driving a car, riding a bicycle, tying you shoes, cooking, reading and writing, and sex)
• to get there: continuous repetition over and over and over and over while attention focused, and making it sound like music
• keep a picture of what you want it to sound like
• even when the impossible got natural and easy you can make it even better
• the « Ultra Zone », you already have it, you just have to find it, if it resonates with the audience they’ll go there with you
  • state of mind that is open, clear, in the moment
  • listening deeply to everything going on around and responding instantly with inspired things
  • all technique, theory and academics are in your peripheral and not at the forefront
  • so locked in the groove
  • music flowing from the fingers in a « graceful magic on tip toes »
  • no thoughts or doubts, just pure awareness, ease, deep relaxation, non resistance, precision, lucidity and flexibility

The groove

• Learn how to feel the rhythm deeply. Try syncing with the drummer not just time-wise but « psycho-metrically ».
• relax (body but mind also: « RELAX AND BREATHE! »), be still inside and listen deeply

Chord scales (academics)

• chord scales : diatonic chords built on aparticular scale degree
• string of triads with stacked 3rds of the C major scale
• roman numerals, uppercase or lowercase
• tells what chords work in a key
• in C major the ii chord is minor because D major has a sharp F (two sharps) so F nat is the minor 3rd
• four notes for seventh chords

Chord substitutions

• Most songs are not based on the rigidity of a diatonic chord scale
• chord substitution: using one chord in the place of another, often-related, should have some harmonic quality and degree of function in common, often differ by one or two notes
• examples: I by iii or vi, but there are also subdominant or dominant substitutes

Modes (academic)

• scales that are derived by starting on any particular note within a scale but staying with the key of that scale
• 7 modes from the major scale
• another way to look: their scale degrees + chord scale (table)

Modal progressions

• CM7 - Em11 - FM7 - G11
• Dm7 - Am7 - Dm7 - CM7 - Dm7 - Em7 - FM7 - G7 (light minor flavor, sunset scale against a dark blue sky but not too dark)
• Em7 - FM7#11 - Em7 - Am9 - Em7 - FM7#11 - G - F/C (cool desert landscape in Egypt, try writing your own progression)
• try writing your own (from now on)
• this scale is the tonality you perhaps hear most in pop and country music
• « pure minor » or « natural minor », this one creates the dark, brooding tonality that is found in rock and other dramatic music
• not a very common tonality, sort of Phrygian’s ugly twin or a minor scale that grew up in a really rough neighborhood

Additional chord tensions

• you could technically apply any note in the scale (these notes or their octaves)
• you have to find what sound good for the situation and also find the best voicings

Other scales

• plethora of scales within music, any string of notes can be considered a scale
• all based in the key of C

Harmonic minor scale

• Description
• Modes, described with notes raised, except Loc dim b4
• Try to write progressions

Melodic minor scale

• Asc. vs desc.
• Very cool sound
• Modes
  • ionian b3 - dor nat 7
  • phrygian nat 6
  • lydian #5
  • lydian b7 (dominant)
  • mixo b6 - aeol dominant
  • loc nat 2
  • loc b4 - super locrian

Attention, selon Tagg il ne faut pas abuser du caractère « dominant ».

Experiment ideas for the remainder of the scales:

• write them on the staff in every key
• learn them in at least one position
• write their modes and name them
• build four-note chord scales
• build several new chords on the guitar
• create progressions
• record and then solo over

Diminished scale

Two diminished scales (fully diminished and dominant diminished, or half diminished). And some other considerations that I don’t find interesting.

Altered scale

• desc
• you can create scales based on anything from 2 to 12 notes
• imagine all the combinations
• and that’s not including getting into microtone pitch
• other ones:
  • arabian1 2 3 4 b5 b6 b7
  • gypsy minor, byzantine, double harmonic 1b2 3 4 5 b6 7
  • hungarian 1 b3 3 #4 5 6 b7
  • persian 1 b2 3 4 b5 b6 7
  • neapolitan minor 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 7
  • enigmatic 1 b2 3 #4 #5 #6 7
  • lydian diminished 1 2 b3 #4 5 6 7
• hexatonic
  • hawaiian 1 2 b3 5 6 7
  • whole tone 1 2 3 #4 #5 b7
• pentatonic
  • balinese 1 b2 b3 5 b6
  • japanese 1 b2 4 5 b6

In closing

• far from being comprehensive
• enough to chew for a while
• …