Lately I've been examining how very little musical material can generate vast amounts of music. Think about all the tonal music that basically elaborates a I - V - I relationship.
To get some of this flavor let's take 3 notes (a, b, and c) and put them into sixteenth note "slots". Let's also stipulate -- at first -- that we can only duplicate one note (i.e. we have to use all of the tones). Here's what we start to get:
aabc abca bcaa
aacb acba cbaa
abac acab
baca caba
baac caab
bbac bacb acbb
bbca bcab cabb
babc bcba
abcb cbab
abbc cbba
ccab cabc abcc
ccba cbac bacc
cacb cbca
acbc bcac
accb cbba
So here we get 36 different little motives from 3 notes distributed over 4 note-slots. We could augment our rule to allow the duplication of 2 notes (thereby not using all three notes). Here's a little of what we get:
aabb abba bbaa
abab baba
aacc acca...
bbcc bccb...
That's 15 more motives or cells. Also let's allow a triplication of notes:
aaab abaa baaa
bbba babb abbb
bbbc bcbb cbbb
cccb cbcc bccc
ccca cacc accc
aaac acaa caaa
There's 18. And lastly let's allow a quadruplication:
aaaa bbbb cccc
which adds 3 more cells. All in all this totals 72 different motive-cells.
And this is just a surface scratching. We could further define some rules for our rhythms: take for example
aaaa.
This could be 4 sixteenth notes, but we could also combine them into larger units, such as:
one 16th and a dotted eighth,
one 16th, an eightn and a 16th,
a dotted eighth and a sixteenth,
2 eighth notes,
one quarter note.
Obviously our cell-motives will increase dramatically when this "rule" is applied across the board.
Why so possibly obsessive about this sort of thing? Well in improvisation and composition we're always looking for ways to make what we do more organic. Just this most basic surface examination shows that there is A LOT of material waiting to be made out of very little building blocks (similar to how electrons, protons and neutrons combine to form over a hundred different elements). Anyway if you're ever bored or just un-inspired take up this sort of exercise and see where it leads you.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
what key is it in?
This question of what key something is in is one that comes up often, and the reasons for it being asked can range from the academic to the very practical -- it is in the spirit of the latter that we will offer up an answer.
The no.1 reason we might want to determine the key of a tune/piece or section thereof is for improvisational purposes: it's hard (though not impossible) to improvise without knowing the key. In certain cases this will be ambiguous, which means more leeway for the improviser; at other times there will be only one key.
So, let's define a key as the parent scale of all the harmonic/melodic structures in a given instance. That might be a rather convoluted way of stating something very simple. Here are some examples.
A favorite: Knocking On Heaven's Door by Bob Dylan. The chords:
Gmaj | Dmaj | Amin | Amin | Gmaj | Dmaj| Cmaj| Cmaj| (repeat to infinity)
The key here (according to our definition) is fairly unambiguous: G major. Major keys give us 3 major chords and 3 minor chords. In G major those chords are specifically: Gmaj, Cmaj, Dmaj; Amin, Bmin, Emin. All of the chords of the tune number among those just enumerated, so there we have it.
Here's a slightly more involved one: House of the Rising Sun.
Amin | Cmaj | Dmaj | Fmaj | Amin | Cmaj | E7 | E7 |
Amin | Cmaj | Dmaj | Fmaj | Amin | E7 | Amin | Amin |
We have 4 major chords (analysing E7 as such) which tells us right away that we're going beyond the chords found amongst our normal major keys. In this case Amin going to E7 is telling us that this in in A minor. Now there are 3 different minor keys:
1. Natural (same as its relative major)
2. Melodic
3. Harmonic
One way of looking at this would be to say that this song is in A natural minor (i.e. C major) whenever the chords are Amin, Cmaj, or Fmaj. When we encounter Dmaj it's probably really in A melodic minor (the natural 6 gives us the F#) but it might be easiest to think of it as Gmajor (D mixolydian). The E7 is either melodic or harmonic minor.
How about a chord progression like this:
Emaj7 | Bmaj add b9 | Amin | AminMaj7 |
There are some possibilities here, but all of these chords come from E harmonic major, though you might conceptualize/hear it as shifting from E major to A minor.
Of course there are other indicators that you might already be aware of / be doing: II - V is more or less subsumed by our definition, but it is a distinct and very prevalent pattern to be on the lookout for.
Keep one thing in mind: this is a practical way of understanding the concept of key. Take the following example:
Dmin | Cmaj | Dmin | Dmin |
According to our method this is in C major, though really C doesn't seem to the tonic but instead D does (that is the progression is in D dorian). However have no fear: as far as improvising goes you'll still be on solid ground if you're thinking C major -- though knowing the major key's derived modes is a good idea.
For the above mentioned "way" to work of course we need to know some basic scales (and where to look for those that we might not know) and their triads, and all of us can always learn more of these.
The no.1 reason we might want to determine the key of a tune/piece or section thereof is for improvisational purposes: it's hard (though not impossible) to improvise without knowing the key. In certain cases this will be ambiguous, which means more leeway for the improviser; at other times there will be only one key.
So, let's define a key as the parent scale of all the harmonic/melodic structures in a given instance. That might be a rather convoluted way of stating something very simple. Here are some examples.
A favorite: Knocking On Heaven's Door by Bob Dylan. The chords:
Gmaj | Dmaj | Amin | Amin | Gmaj | Dmaj| Cmaj| Cmaj| (repeat to infinity)
The key here (according to our definition) is fairly unambiguous: G major. Major keys give us 3 major chords and 3 minor chords. In G major those chords are specifically: Gmaj, Cmaj, Dmaj; Amin, Bmin, Emin. All of the chords of the tune number among those just enumerated, so there we have it.
Here's a slightly more involved one: House of the Rising Sun.
Amin | Cmaj | Dmaj | Fmaj | Amin | Cmaj | E7 | E7 |
Amin | Cmaj | Dmaj | Fmaj | Amin | E7 | Amin | Amin |
We have 4 major chords (analysing E7 as such) which tells us right away that we're going beyond the chords found amongst our normal major keys. In this case Amin going to E7 is telling us that this in in A minor. Now there are 3 different minor keys:
1. Natural (same as its relative major)
2. Melodic
3. Harmonic
One way of looking at this would be to say that this song is in A natural minor (i.e. C major) whenever the chords are Amin, Cmaj, or Fmaj. When we encounter Dmaj it's probably really in A melodic minor (the natural 6 gives us the F#) but it might be easiest to think of it as Gmajor (D mixolydian). The E7 is either melodic or harmonic minor.
How about a chord progression like this:
Emaj7 | Bmaj add b9 | Amin | AminMaj7 |
There are some possibilities here, but all of these chords come from E harmonic major, though you might conceptualize/hear it as shifting from E major to A minor.
Of course there are other indicators that you might already be aware of / be doing: II - V is more or less subsumed by our definition, but it is a distinct and very prevalent pattern to be on the lookout for.
Keep one thing in mind: this is a practical way of understanding the concept of key. Take the following example:
Dmin | Cmaj | Dmin | Dmin |
According to our method this is in C major, though really C doesn't seem to the tonic but instead D does (that is the progression is in D dorian). However have no fear: as far as improvising goes you'll still be on solid ground if you're thinking C major -- though knowing the major key's derived modes is a good idea.
For the above mentioned "way" to work of course we need to know some basic scales (and where to look for those that we might not know) and their triads, and all of us can always learn more of these.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
aura lee caged
If you have a guitar method book like Mel Bay's or Alfred's sitting around and you feel like you've learned the notes in open position (or maybe not even those) and you'd like to expand your knowledge of notes over the entire neck try the following. Take a simple tune such as "Aura Lee" -- perhaps better known as Elvis's "Love Me Tender" -- and play it in as many of the 5 traditional major scale patterns (CAGED) as possible.
Here is what the first 4 bars of "Aura Lee" will look like as found throughout the CAGED system:
(E0 means the E pattern in open position, E12 is the E pattern at the 12th fret.)
So in this case the tune can be played in six different positions. And more generally speaking we can note that if the open G string on the guitar is the lowest note in a first position melody that same melody will be able to be played in all of these same patterns. If we only had notes on the E and B strings we would have even more possibilities; if an open D is in the mix less.
And since there's an interest in this blog about patterns in music, let's examine how the notes relate to each other across contiguous patterns. If we examine the penultimate measure we'll see a regularly occurring interlocking/overlapping-ness:
This is a beginning: we could also explore this tune as found throughout 3 note per string scales, too (or even 4-note/string if you're so inclined), which might be the subject of a blog down the line.
Here is what the first 4 bars of "Aura Lee" will look like as found throughout the CAGED system:
(E0 means the E pattern in open position, E12 is the E pattern at the 12th fret.)
So in this case the tune can be played in six different positions. And more generally speaking we can note that if the open G string on the guitar is the lowest note in a first position melody that same melody will be able to be played in all of these same patterns. If we only had notes on the E and B strings we would have even more possibilities; if an open D is in the mix less.
And since there's an interest in this blog about patterns in music, let's examine how the notes relate to each other across contiguous patterns. If we examine the penultimate measure we'll see a regularly occurring interlocking/overlapping-ness:
This is a beginning: we could also explore this tune as found throughout 3 note per string scales, too (or even 4-note/string if you're so inclined), which might be the subject of a blog down the line.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)