Recordings from the February 3 fluffy donut jam session with UC Davis graduate composers Ben Irwin on clarinet and Liam Wade on electric bass (and singing). I’m on guitar and cajon.
Where’s Scott when you need him?
Blues (ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, tutti frutti)
Hope you enjoy!
Tagged bass, clarinet, free improv, Guitar, uc davis
One of my biggest problems as a composer is finishing pieces; coming up with ideas is easy, but expanding them into actual interesting compositions is where it becomes complicated. Every time an idea is born it seems to have infinite potential; it could grow up to become president of the united states or ceo of a fortune 500 company. The more decisions I make as to how to develop or present the idea, the more I worry about the opportunity costs of these decisions, which very often causes me to abandon the idea or “save” it for later. Well, I’m going to try to break out of this unfortunate cycle and practice the fine art of finishing pieces. The goal: write one composition for guitar from beginning to end each week, for at least 4 weeks.
They don’t have to be very good, interesting or innovative (although it would be cool if they were), they just have to be finished.
And so we proceed: a crippling bout of laziness has kept me from finally finishing these fingerboard diagrams, but it’s about time to wrap things up. Here is the sixth mode, with all of its transpositions.
Sixth MLT, First transposition:
Sixth MLT, Second transposition:
Sixth MLT, Third transposition:
Sixth MLT, Fourth transposition:
Sixth MLT, Fifth transposition:
Sixth MLT, Sixth transposition:
Posted in Guitar, Modes of Limited Transposition
Tagged fingerboard, fretboard, Guitar, Modes of Limited Transposition
Meet the fifth mode of limited transposition – a “truncated” version of the fourth mode. This one is also interesting – I kind of like it better than the fourth… the two consecutive semitones remind me of the blues pentatonic scale.
Here they are: all six transpositions!
Fifth MLT, first transposition:
Fifth MLT, second transposition:
Fifth MLT, third transposition:
Fifth MLT, fourth transposition:
Fifth MLT, fifth transposition:
Fifth MLT, sixth transposition:
I took my first crack at writing micropolyphonic music in the sixth (and perhaps my favorite) ouroboros miniature, Swell. It’s a cool little piece for guitar duet in which various chords played as very rapid ad-lib arpeggios begin pianissimo and slowly swell to forte, before returning to pianissimo, at which point the figure repeats itself with a slight harmonic change. As one guitar does this, the other performs a similar gesture out of phase (as in, one is playing very quietly getting louder while the other is playing loudly getting quieter). The result is a pretty cool texture on both the micro and middle levels. The very fast arpeggios tend to go in and out of phase, creating interesting rapid rhythms that change drastically with every performance. The duration of the swells also has a certain level of indeterminacy, similar to the rapid ad-lib arpeggiation (but slightly more controlled) that create a unique, somewhat irregular harmonic rhythm that slowly morphs and transforms over time. The key to this piece is the rapid arpeggios, though – it acts as a sort of sustain for the harmony and allows the performer to control the dynamics really well.
I recently got the idea of doing a similar piece (perhaps rewriting the same one, if I’m lazy) for the guitar orchestra in la Casa de los Tres Mundos, Granada. Rather than two guitarists each doing three-note apreggios, you can have six guitarists each doing rapid tremolo on a single note. It might be best to use a plectrum with some rapid alternate picking, since the classical or flamenco tremolo technique tends to be rather quiet, and we rehearse outside with all of the city’s traffic noises and other music students drowning out our guitars. Start with the one-note tremolo, then add some arpeggios to increase the harmonic density and even throw in some rasgueado abanicos to do rapid six-note chords. Methinks ‘twould be a good study for those particular guitar techniques, and it would also introduce the students to reading music notation with a certain level of indetermincy (ad-lib rhythms and durations denoted in approximate seconds).
It has been a while, but I have returned, dear reader. No need to skip another beat – the remaining modes of limited transposition (modes 4, 5, 6 and 7) each have six transpositions – more than the first three modes, but less than your usual major/minor scale. To quote the master himself:
“One point will attract our attention at the outset: the charm of impossibilities…. This charm, at once voluptuous and contemplative, resides particularly in certain mathematical impossibilities of the modal and rhythmic domain. Modes which cannot be transposed beyond a certain number of transpositions, because one always falls again onto the same notes; rhythms which cannot be used in retrograde, because in such a case one finds the same order of values again – these are two striking impossibilities.” -Olivier Messiaen, The Technique of my Musical Language
More transpositions means that they are slightly less impossibly charming… it is more difficult to produce the timelessness typical of Messiaen’s style with these modes, but that’s not really a big deal since nobody will ever surpass Messiaen in his Messiaen-y-ness. Any such attempt would be a futile waste of time, and this is of little concern to composers looking to write new, different music. I continue to encourage anyone who does indeed use these to employ them differently than Messiaen did – for the love of God, don’t use them together with non-retrogradable rhythms. Many composers avoid these modes like the plague for fear of sounding too much like Messiaen, but the point is to reinterpret them in a new light. My Ouroboros Miniatures were based loosely around the third mode, and they sound absolutely nothing like him. Messiaen writes: “We shall not reject the old rules of harmony and of form; let us remember them constantly, whether to observe them, or to augment them, or to add to them some others still older (those of plainchang and Hundu rhythmics) or more recent (those suggested by Debussy and all contemporary music).”
The fourth mode of limited transposition employs the following pattern of half-steps and minor thirds:
h h h m3 h h h m3
And the fretboard diagrams with the scales in standard notation for each of the transpositions:
Fourth MLT, first transposition
Fourth MLT, second transposition
Fourth MLT, third transposition
Fourth MLT, fourth transposition
Fourth MLT, fifth transposition
Fourth MLT, sixth transposition
As per usual, many tonal triads are present within the mode, but they lack their usual harmonic function in a major/minor system. It’s not difficult to find them, so I’ll leave it up to you rather than writing them all out again. This mode (along with the remaining modes 5, 6 and 7) is symmetrical along the tritone. This means that the pattern between frets 0 and 6, will be the same as the pattern between 7 and 12, and so on (see the diagrams for clarification). This makes them really easy to learn on guitar- you basically only need to memorize two positions to cover the entire fretboard. Seriously, just take one hour to learn one of the transpositions (I prefer the fourth and fifth transpositions because they have the most open strings in standard tuning), it will open your mind to amazing new possibilities.
Posted in Guitar, Modes of Limited Transposition
Tagged Guitar, Modes of Limited Transposition
Now it gets interesting – if a C major scale is a lightly salted soda cracker, consider the whole-tone scale a wheat thin, and the octatonic scale is some tasty ciabatta with olive oil. This next mode of limited transposition might very well be “The Burger.” Messiaen himself invented the remaining five modes of limited transposition and, in my humble opinion, this particular one is quite possibly one of the most beautiful things birthed by human beings in the past century – human beings themselves notwithstanding. (Perhaps Messiaen’s mother, or Cleopatra’s nose, really deserve credit, but this is a very different topic). This mode has a total of four transpositions before it is enharmonically repeated, and employs the following pattern of whole-steps and half-steps (w and h, respectively):
w h h w h h w h h
This mode translates very nicely to guitar. Behold the fretboard diagrams, this time with each mode written out in standard notation as well:
Consider the first transposition: C D E♭ E♮ G♭ G♮ A♭ B♭ B♮ C
And the following tonal triads which are native to it: dominant seventh chords are denoted with the seventh in parenthesis.
C E G♯
C E G♮ (B♭)
C E♭ G
C E♭ G♭
D F♯ A♯
E♭ G B♮
E♭ G B♭ (D♭)
E♭ G♭ B♭
E♮ G♯ B♯
E G♯ B♮ (D)
E G♮ B
E G B♭
G♭ B♭ D
G♮ B♭ D B♭ D
G B♮ D
A♭ C E♮
A♭ C E♭ (G♭)
A♭ C♭ E♭
A♭ C♭ E 𝄫
B♭ D F♯
B♮ D F♯
B D♯ F♯ (A)
Similar to the octatonic scale, these chords can be used to modulate into and out of the mode. They also give it a certain tonal ubiquitousness -no particular key is emphasized, but many of these triads are not distant from each other and can hint towards particular tonal regions if the composer so chooses. There are even a few traditional tonic-dominant relationship (C – G or A♭-E♭or E♮-B♮).
The mode itself is divided into three symmetrical groups of four notes:
C D E♭ E♮ E♮ whole G♭ half G♮ half A♭ A♭ step B♭ step B♮ step C
It is symmetrical along an augmented fifth – this basically means that C is equivalent to G♯ (A♭), which is itself equivalent to E♮. It will sound the same if you start the mode on C, G♯ or E♮, since each of these notes is followed by a whole-step and two half-steps. This symmetry is what gives these modes their unique character – the chromatic and whole-tone scales are such because all intervals in them are homogeneous, the symmetry is an almost immaterial byproduct of the nature of these scales. The octatonic scale is slightly more complex, as it alternates whole and half steps, but is still only has two variations: it either begins with a half step or a whole step. The third mode is symmetrical in a less obvious way: it folds over itself in thirds, and each third is equivalent.
The guitar is particularly well suited for observing these unique characteristics – perhaps moreso than the piano because of the fretboard’s logical chromatic layout. Arbitrary placement of white and black keys don’t detract from the relatively simple underlying patterns. For example, look again at the first transposition – the pattern on the first fret repeats itself exactly on frets 5, 9, 13, 17, 21…. etc. You really only need to memorize the fingering patterns for four frets to play the mode up and down the entire neck! It’s almost deceptively simple when applied to guitar.
No worries if you haven’t been able to follow all of the theory so far – just take the first transposition and play around with it, and all of these relationships will fall into place. It’s so much easier and more effective to just soak it up in a purely musical sense than to try to explain things with feeble words and theory. I can’t stress it enough – this mode is awesome. Invest an hour to learn at least one transposition and mess around with it.
The octatonic scale is not new to guitarists, in jazz it’s commonly known as the diminished scale because it is essentially two diminished seventh chords superimposed to form an 8-note scale. Like the whole-tone scale, Messiaen did not invent it, but he categorized it as the second mode of limited transposition. The scale simply alternates between whole and half steps, and you can begin with either a half or a whole step.
This scale has three transpositions and, comme toujours, no tonic:
Consider the first transposition (E, F#, G, A, Bb, C, C#, D#) in terms of two diminished seventh chords:
E G Bb Db
F# A C Eb
Also note a few major/minor triads that are native to the scale:
A C# E (G)A C EC E G (Bb)C Eb GEb G Bb (Db)Eb Gb BbF# A# C# (E)F# A C#A C# E (G)
These can act as pivot chords for modulation into and out of the octatonic scale from any major or minor key that has one of these chords. Each major chord can also act as a dominant 7th, still native to the octatonic scale (noted in parenthesis).
To me, the octatonic is far more interesting than the whole-tone – it can be easily incorporated into a piece of tonal music with these major/minor triads, and it sounds much richer than the whole-tone scale. The octatonic scale also lends itself very well to guitar, and has really helped me break out of some ruts by challenging my muscle-memory comfort zone. Surely all guitarists know the feeling – you rely too much on your fingers, allowing them to think for you, and the bastards only want to play what they’re used to. They defy us and any attempts to change their old habits, crapping on your creativity in the process. Sometimes these episodes last for months, and I’ve found the only way to fix the problem is to introduce radically new material, and play it exclusively. A musical shock-and-awe which your body will attempt to reject, but a necessary step towards progress. Upon returning to your old habits, you’ll see everything in a delicious new limelight, and fascinating new patterns you’ve never noticed before will suddenly emerge.
The octatonic is one of my favorites – I highly recommend it to anyone with an open mind looking to open it up a bit more.
I love Messiaen – his harmonic language makes me tingle. Unfortunately, he never wrote a note for guitar – perhaps he was dissuaded by the instrument’s somewhat dry, brittle timbre, inability to sustain notes, limited dynamic range and general obscurity in classical western canon. Whatever the case, everyone and their grandmother seem to own a guitar today, so it’s about damn time people start writing for it (by “writing” I don’t mean throwing together 4 diatonic chords in 4/4 time… there’s far too much of that crap, whatever you may want to call it, going on these days).
As a guitarist/composer I’ve been exploring various applications of Messiaen’s modes of limited transposition on the guitar, with tremendously frugiferous results. The first, and perhaps most famous, is the whole-tone scale, popularized by Debussy. Messiaen obviously did not “invent” it, but he categorized it as the first mode of limited transposition. Messiaen himself didn’t use it too often, believing that Debussy had taken it as far as it could go. I would have to respectfully disagree. While I myself haven’t come up with any earth-shattering masterpieces, I hope that guitarists will start experimenting a bit more with it. I would rather hear a whole-tone heavy metal solo over the usual metallica-esque modal stuff any day.
Below are guitar fingerboard diagrams for both transpositions of the whole-tone scale. This is the first in a series of posts exploring the different modes on guitar. All fingerboard patterns are, unless otherwise noted, in standard tuning.
Notice the very simple pattern on the fingerboard, it is much easier to memorize than even major/minor scales. The pattern varies slightly between the G and B strings, as is always the case with the guitar’s tuning. Each position also repeats itself at regular intervals. For example, play the first transposition beginning on the open low E ascending 3 octaves to the open high e:
e —————————————-0—–|
B ———————————-1–3——–|
G —————————-1–3————–|
D ——————-0–2–4——————–|
A ————-1–3—————————–|
E —-0–2–4———————————–|
The pattern will be identical, no matter where you begin the scale. (The 5-fret stretch may be tricky for some, but there are no alternate fingerings that eliminate it).
An alternate fingering pattern:
e —————————————–2—-|
B ———————————–3–5——-|
G ————————-1–3–5————–|
D ——————-2–4———————–|
A ———1–3–5——————————|
E —-2–4————————————–|
I prefer the first one, but you should be familiar with both patterns. Personally, I find chords to be a little bit tricky, but melody and especially 2 or 3 voice counterpoint sound fantastic.
Posted in My Music
Tagged fingerboard, fretboard, Guitar, Modes of Limited Transposition, whole-tone
