Oops. I meant to say that the "standard" box starts with the middle finger, just as you said. I just edited my post to correct this.
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Scales, more than box shapes
- Thread starter drewphishesp
- Start date
Some techniques that have helped me over the years:
Learn two octave scales.
Then, in addition to just playing them up and down, play them in four note patterns (c-d-e-f, d-e-f-g, e-f-g-a, etc) up and down.
Then do them in thirds (c-e, d-f, e-g, etc).
Then four note arpeggios (c-e-g-b, d-f-a-c, e-g-b-d, etc).
Do that for all modes of the major scale. Then the melodic minor. you could also do it for harmonic minor, diminished, and whole-tone.
I had a teacher once tell me that I should keep the shifts constant through the modes of a scale. So, for instance, if in G major I shift from index finger playing C on the third fret of the A string to the same finger D on the fifth fret, then I should make the same shift between C and D when playing the A Dorian scale. I don't always do that, but it helps to figure out fingering.
Take your time, learn to play things slow before worrying about speed. This is a lifetime of learning. There is always a next step, and each new piece you master will aid your overall playing.
Learn two octave scales.
Then, in addition to just playing them up and down, play them in four note patterns (c-d-e-f, d-e-f-g, e-f-g-a, etc) up and down.
Then do them in thirds (c-e, d-f, e-g, etc).
Then four note arpeggios (c-e-g-b, d-f-a-c, e-g-b-d, etc).
Do that for all modes of the major scale. Then the melodic minor. you could also do it for harmonic minor, diminished, and whole-tone.
I had a teacher once tell me that I should keep the shifts constant through the modes of a scale. So, for instance, if in G major I shift from index finger playing C on the third fret of the A string to the same finger D on the fifth fret, then I should make the same shift between C and D when playing the A Dorian scale. I don't always do that, but it helps to figure out fingering.
Take your time, learn to play things slow before worrying about speed. This is a lifetime of learning. There is always a next step, and each new piece you master will aid your overall playing.
That's not even remotely close to true. Have you ever transcribed and analyzed songs by master/genius composers like Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Thelonious Monk, the Beatles, etc.? Most genres of music use chord tones that are not diatonic to the key signature. Even a "simple" 12 bar rock and roll song like Chuck Berry's "Johnny B Goode" requires the musicians to play notes outside the parent key of Bb Major.
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But staring at a graphic of the fingerboard and trying to just memorize it is the wrong way, in my opinion.
You learn the notes, that requires memorization, at least of the piano keyboard as a mnemonic.
Then you learn that at the 12th fret the notes repeat. Then you count up from the 12th fret, on the G string: G, Ab, A, Bb. The 15th fret on the G string is Bb.
You will memorize it much more quickly by *understanding* it than by just trying to rote memorize by staring at a picture of the fingerboard with all of the note names printed on it.
I have to disagree. Just because all of the chords in a given song are not diatonic to the same scale doesn't mean that each chord, individually, is not diatonic to some scale. They absolutely are each diatonic to a particular scale until you reach atonality and tone clusters. Chords are built by stacking every other note from the correct scale.
To get out of boxes, learn to start your scales from all 4 fingers. You will develop a wider vision.
Another good exercice that has been explained in a big thread on TB (that I can't find right now) is to start scales from the lowest available note on the neck and go up. I believe it was @Pacman who started it.
Another good exercice that has been explained in a big thread on TB (that I can't find right now) is to start scales from the lowest available note on the neck and go up. I believe it was @Pacman who started it.
"For any arbitrary chord x, there exists some arbitrary scale y that contains the notes from x," sure, I can concede that point.
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Several people have chimed in with their approach to learning the scales and where they fit on the bass. I have pondered this over the years and determined that there is certainly more than one legitimate way to do this, and that the approach that I was taught (and tried to apply) for years was not the most effective way for me.
It happened when I was discussing theory with my jazz combo instructor, who is also a piano player. He mentioned the need for a mental map of the keyboard as a way to visualize the harmonic relationships we were studying in Music Theory. He observed that horn players usually did better when they studied piano because their horns didn't support the visualization like the piano keyboard did. At that moment, I realized that I had trying hard to avoid "just playing patterns" on my instrument and instead was trying to rely on rote memorization, which was leaving me constantly overwhelmed and doubting my musical abilities.
After hearing this, I embraced learning the patterns on my instrument. Not as a single box, which I consider to be a very dangerous rut to find yourself in, but as a series of notes and intervals that transverse the fretboard. As I continued to work on this, my fretboard became the map that I could use the way I imagined that my piano playing instructor saw his keyboard. For me, it made a tremendous difference, and propelled my understanding of theory.
The patterns that people call "boxes" can be useful, but they are not the end point. Ideally, they're a stepping stone, but be warned that they can be a familiar but limiting rut if you don't continue past them. If you just learn the patterns for playing the scale, and you never embrace the intervals/chords/notes that they represent then you're missing out on most of the point of learning scales in the first place. I'll further state that if you don't tie that to the SOUNDS of the harmonic intervals, you'll be missing the point almost entirely.
'Boxes' aren't bad, but they're not the end, just a step on the path.
It happened when I was discussing theory with my jazz combo instructor, who is also a piano player. He mentioned the need for a mental map of the keyboard as a way to visualize the harmonic relationships we were studying in Music Theory. He observed that horn players usually did better when they studied piano because their horns didn't support the visualization like the piano keyboard did. At that moment, I realized that I had trying hard to avoid "just playing patterns" on my instrument and instead was trying to rely on rote memorization, which was leaving me constantly overwhelmed and doubting my musical abilities.
After hearing this, I embraced learning the patterns on my instrument. Not as a single box, which I consider to be a very dangerous rut to find yourself in, but as a series of notes and intervals that transverse the fretboard. As I continued to work on this, my fretboard became the map that I could use the way I imagined that my piano playing instructor saw his keyboard. For me, it made a tremendous difference, and propelled my understanding of theory.
The patterns that people call "boxes" can be useful, but they are not the end point. Ideally, they're a stepping stone, but be warned that they can be a familiar but limiting rut if you don't continue past them. If you just learn the patterns for playing the scale, and you never embrace the intervals/chords/notes that they represent then you're missing out on most of the point of learning scales in the first place. I'll further state that if you don't tie that to the SOUNDS of the harmonic intervals, you'll be missing the point almost entirely.
'Boxes' aren't bad, but they're not the end, just a step on the path.
Well thanks. I think beyond that, for any arbitrary chord X there is a scale Y that *defines* the notes in the chord. For example, a chord like Cadd6, or C9, the "6" and the "9" specifically refer to the C major scale: one is the 6th degree, while the 9 is the 2nd degree but an octave higher. So chords are defined by the scales they are based on. It's right in the very names of the chords themselves."For any arbitrary chord x, there exists some arbitrary scale y that contains the notes from x," sure, I can concede that point.
One thing I found that really helps free your mind from "the tyranny of pattern practice" and gets you thinking about how to construct rhythmically interesting musical phrases is to decorrelate the length of the scale snippet from the rhythmic subdivision.
So instead of matching up the four scale tone fragment with a four 16th-note phrase and/or matching up the three scale tone fragment with a three triplet-note phrase, mix & match: Try walking up the scale in three scale tone patterns with a four 16th-note phrase [Root-two-three-two, three-four-three-four, five-four-five-six, five-six-seven-six etc] Then try walking up the scale in four scale tone patterns with a three triplet-note phrase [Root-two-three, four-two-three, four-five-three, four-five-six etc.] Then try walking up the scale in three scale tone patterns with a five quintuplet-note phrase [Root-two-three-two-three, four-three-four-five-four, five-six-five-six-seven etc.] or try walking up the scale in five scale tone patterns with a four 16th-note phrase [Root-two-three-four, five-two-three-four, five-six-three-four, five-six-seven-four etc.]
Then try doing all that with arppeggios! It's a brain-buster, but I found it really freed me from some of the traps of too much rote muscle-memory practice techniques.
I just was thinking that recently, too, that going to the lowest possible scale tone rather than just the lowest root really makes me think a lot harder for some reason. Doing the same thing at the high end seems more natural but probably only because I usually go up first then down. If I start at the top, the natural "turnaround" would be at the bottom.
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Mind blowing, so much more to work on. Beyond my current abilities, but that's the point! Trying to do the same thing on guitar right now with double stop thirds up and down the neck. Slow going at first.
(putting on my pedantic hat)
I get what you are saying, but I think defined by is too strong a word choice in this case.
It's not a 1:1 correlation: any chord (short of 7 notes) can imply more than one scale
( Cmaj add 6 or C9 share tones with a C major and C Lydian for example.)
also, any one scale can be harmonized into a whole related family of chords.
( C major scale yields C maj7 , Dmin7, Emin7, F maj7, G7, A min7, B m7b5 for example)
The relationship between chords and scales who share notes is valuable to understand,
but I can't in good conscience proclaim which defines which...
I get what you are saying, but I think defined by is too strong a word choice in this case.
It's not a 1:1 correlation: any chord (short of 7 notes) can imply more than one scale
( Cmaj add 6 or C9 share tones with a C major and C Lydian for example.)
also, any one scale can be harmonized into a whole related family of chords.
( C major scale yields C maj7 , Dmin7, Emin7, F maj7, G7, A min7, B m7b5 for example)
The relationship between chords and scales who share notes is valuable to understand,
but I can't in good conscience proclaim which defines which...
I guess we have different definitions of "rote," then
But we are definitely in agreement about your method. Better to learn one note at a time and spend 10 minutes on it than 10 notes in one minute.
Chord naming is defined off the related major scale. Even "Cm" means a flatted third related to the major scale. So to imply a Lydian tonality there would be a #11 - which references C major, not C lydian. To me it's clear as day that the very naming of chords is built upon the related major scale. *That is where the numbers come from!*
I hate going off topic but I can't let this slide.
A minor 3 is a minor 3 because it is a minor 3, not because it is a flatted Major 3. The fourth degree of Lydian is an augmented fourth, not #4, and not because it is a semitone higher than the fourth of a major scale but because it is a semitone higher than a perfect fourth. As it happens, the fourth of the major scale is perfect but that is irrelevant. etc...
Back on topic...
I am not sure what semantic distinction you're making, but it seems completely superfluous to me.
If you want a chord with an "augmented 4" in it, that is annotated as "#11", which is direct reference to the degree of the major scale.
But could equally be in direct reference to any other scale whose 4th is perfect...
