Exploring The Possibilities

What follows below are 3 sheets of paper, one compiled by Mick Goodrick and the other compiled by me for a piano player. They both address the issue of how to come up with new voicings to freshen up your playing. Perhaps the global lesson of all Mick Goodrick's Almanacs is that before even picking up your guitar it can help to lay out a theoretical road map of all the possibilities for whatever you're going to work on. The reason for this is that once you start working, you very quickly get bogged down with possibilities. If you're trying to learn them all you'll never get to the end of the list.

It's much less exhausting to think about the all the possibilities first and write them out then to have to play them all. Suppose that you're trying to learn drop 2&4 voicings. Suppose you decide to go through all the chord types, maj7, then min7 etc. It becomes overwhelming to have to think of all the possibilities and put yourself under the immense pressure to both remember and learn them all on your guitar. So probably you will never get to the vast majority of the mathematical and technically feasible possibilities. But if you make a list, you can hop around.

Take a look at Mick's list below. Mick is trying to come up with minor II V voicings, so he makes a chart. He wants to use the 6th mode of melodic minor for Em7b5 and the altered scale for A7. So he writes out every possible four note chord voicing from the five categories of chords which exist in the mode and he circles all the ones that don't have the note E in them. He's decided that he wants to use rootless voicings. He could have decided otherwise.

Now imagine if you were trying to think of all that while you were also trying to play them on guitar? It's confusing and hard to keep track of everything. Did I do that one yet? What was that last one? This way you can jump around from circle to circle without constantly having to recalculate that information and then see if you find anything you like on the guitar. Having a systematic (maybe even scientific) coding system before you start practising allows for a much less systematic and generally more inspiring and productive practice method.

Then we see all the four note possibilities for the A7. Again, because all the possibilities are mapped out, this frees up a great amount of our imagination and concentration while practising to look for musical and emotional possibilities rather than just systematically running through the list. We can never learn all the possibilities so why even try? But we can reduce them to one handwritten 8.5x11 page. And then just go wherever we are interested in going at that very moment.

I cannot stress enough: without writing out that page, it becomes necessary to memorize it without ever even seeing it, and probably you will be trying to play them at the same time as think of them. For those familiar with the juggling act, this is a few too many balls even within a practice context.

Take a look at the pages I wrote. They essentially recycling the information from the Almanacs. It is just another way of presenting the information on Mick Goodrick's page. Since it is geared for a specific talented piano player who transposes and planes shapes modally quite effortlessly, you'll notice that I spend more time explaining the way voicings are constructed (drop 2 vs drop 3 etc) as opposed to Mick's page which assumes you already have done a lot of work exploring inversions and is more interested in the aspect of modal planing.

Either way, it is a good idea to write down everything that comes to you. You don't want to have to repeat the mental process to get back to it. Thinking is the important first step. But once you've thought your way somewhere interesting it is time to mindlessly memorize it on a totally non-intellectual level.

You'll notice that if you treat the G# minor scale as a vertical scale (and don't mind the crunch of the 5th and 6th occasionally), that any chord from the mode in any inversion and in any substitution (TBN, clusters etc) becomes a possible chord (at least for a few beats if it is extremely tense and feels like it needs to be resolved). You'll also notice at the bottom of the last page there is an equation which shows that there are AT LEAST (and probably more) 1176 easily playing voicings on the piano for a G#m7 chord in a modal context.

Working through them would be pointless. What if one of your all time future favourite voicings is number 1032? What if it's really not obvious to you? I would hate to have to play 1031 to find out what it is. That's why a good road map is essential. Or maybe it's more like the yellow pages. You know what you're looking for but you're not sure who exactly is going to give it to you. You look up the general area you require and then you dial a few numbers to find exactly the right thing you needed. Or, maybe, just maybe, it is indeed like an Almanac.

The Slippery Slope

This tune is literally a page straight out of Mick Goodrick's Voice Leading Almanac Vol. III.

It is (i)grip-slipping through a (ii)six tonic system in (iii)cycle 7.

(i) The guitar voicings represent grip-slipping although I cheat a bit. Grip-slipping means voice-leading through inversions. I say that I cheat because the first voicing is drop 2&3 and the second chord is drop 3 instead of being another drop 2&3. The third chord is drop 2&4. In fact this creates a 3 voicing cyclical pattern so it's quite an interesting cheat. You might say it's grip slipping cubed. The A section interrupts itself at the tritone before finishing the cycle in the B section.

(ii) It utilizes a six tonic system, which is another way of saying that the roots of the chords are derived from the whole tone scale but the notes of each chord are not related. 

(iii) For those who haven't checked out the voice-leading almanacs or read earlier posts of this blog, cycle 7 means that the roots of the chords have a relationship of increasing by a seventh. Cycles are always ascending.

Cycle seven is cycle two backwards. Notice the contrary movement between the root and the voicings which is integral to grip-slipping.

The C section just sounds nice. The tighter voicings as well as the quicker harmonic rhythm provide a nice contrast.

Also intentional is the avoidance of accidentals in the A section melody, despite moving from no flats (or one sharp) to 5 (or 6) flats.

New Band Logo

Contrepoint 3.0

Goals that people set for themselves and that are devoted to attaining mastery are usually healthy. But goals imposed by others - sales targets, quarterly returns, standardized test scores, and so on - can sometimes have dangerous side effects.
    Excerpt from Drive by Daniel H. Pink

Many of the worlds greatest artists never went to university, dropped out, or were asked to leave. Without resorting to romanticized and poetic discourse about the artist’s fiery and unruly disposition, after three years of CEGEP and five months of university I can’t help but wonder why that is.

We hear repeatedly that the best way to learn about music is to play it, to listen to it, and not only to study scores but to copy them out. Yet most of us know that in this respect we are too negligent and lazy.

Rather than playing and copying out Bach’s manuscripts, gradually raising our own questions and coming to our own conclusions which we could then compare to those of an experienced professor, we are slowly fed an oversimplified and inaccurate formal system to explain his style.

But who else is there to blame except ourselves? As it turns out, scientific evidence suggests that being in school and having to complete assignments for marks decreases our motivation to do extra work independently and decreases our overall productivity in the subject in question.

Daniel H. Pink’s book Drive is about how to motivate ourselves and others in the 21st century. He distinguishes between two kinds of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic motivations include drawing a salary to do a job or getting good marks in school. Intrinsic motivation is when we want to do things ourselves purely for the enjoyment of the challenge and the satisfaction of achieving a goal.

Consider the following experiment, explained in Pink’s book. A group of school children were divided into three groups. Each group of children was asked to draw pictures. One group was offered a reward beforehand for their cooperation: a certificate with a ribbon and their name on it. The second group was not offered an incentive beforehand but received the same award at the end as a surprise. The third group was not offered a reward beforehand and did not receive one at the end.

The interesting result is that two weeks later when the researchers returned to watch the children during free play, the children from the first group who had received the incentive before drawing now showed much less interest in drawing than before the experiment when compared to children from the other groups.

Offering the children an incentive to participate decreased their future enjoyment and intrinsic motivation to take part in the future. Incentivizing the activity took something that had been enjoyable to the children and, since the activity now felt like work, made it less enjoyable.

Countless other experiments can be found in Pink’s book which show that this fact extends to adults and even monkeys. One study demonstrated that people who were given a financial incentive to solve creative and intellectual problems quickly (fastest time gets $20, for instance), the average time that group took to solve the puzzles actually increased considerably when compared to a control group.

This suggests to me that the studying of music theory in school is seriously flawed. We are constantly confronted with rules and conventions that don’t in reality exist, that are historically inaccurate, and that don’t connect to us emotionally. We are told to play along, to follow the rules, because if we don’t, we will lose marks, maybe fail the class, maybe even be forced to leave the school if too many classes are failed. Follow the rules and you will be rewarded. Don’t and face the consequences.

The unfortunate side effect of this approach for most of the population is that it creates a barrier between what they are learning in school, which is perceived as extrinsically motivated work, and their intrinsically motivated artistic expression, making it harder for the two to reflect each other. So two camps are set up, the self-glorifying academics on one side, all too conscious that their works have a basically non-existent audience, and the free but untrained ‘indie’ artist, all too conscious that their works are unsophisticated and often lack in cleverness, much like their adolescent crowd.

This may also be why the history of classical music seems so reactionary. It always seems to be a move away from the predecessor, always a disdain for the older style and those that continue to practice it, while at the same time glorifying the past as a time when people followed their instincts.

Maybe part of this trend can be explained because, having acquiring a knowledge of the old style through traditional scholastic means, it is only human nature to find something inherently unsatisfying about it. The incentive system in place while we were learning the style makes it much less interesting to us in the present.

What would happen if the presentation and integration of the traditional material was done in a less traditional way? A way which at least provided the possibility for intrinsic motivation to take hold rather than trying to squash it entirely, deliberately asking you to check your own propelling sense of self-motivation at the door? What would happen if the study of theory was an opinionated and creative experience? Maybe the polarization of emotional expression on one side and intellectual complexity on the other would be less of an issue in contemporary classical music? Maybe the products churned out by hard working academic composers would begin to find a larger audience? Maybe the whole educational process would be more enjoyable, more rewarding, and above all, more inspiring?

Heuristic Healing

A fun little modal tune exploring slash chords and spread voicings.

The Mountain Climber

Often when people start playing guitar they have serious misconceptions about what they’re going to be doing. They think it’s going to be easier or more fun than some other instrument like piano or violin that they hated playing as a kid. This is especially true of young people around the age of 12. Nowadays, many of them may have become inspired by Guitar Hero or Rock Band to go for the real thing. They don’t understand that as hard as it may be to play on expert mode, it’s a whole lot harder to play the real thing on beginner.

My first goal is to make them excited about music. They will never succeed if they are not self motivated. There can be no external awards, no marks or distinctions, only their own sense of satisfaction at attacking a problem. I want them to see that music is a beautiful and deep thing, that it is more than an iTunes playlist on shuffle, more than the next hit single which sounds like the last one and is deliberately ‘manufactured’ to generate profits. I want them to want to learn.

I give them no theory. They don’t read music. There’s no set game plan. We don’t have to finish what we start. Every consideration is secondary to keeping these young people interested. Months will go by where everybody involved, including myself and the parents, wonder if progress is really being made.

 Eventually, the day comes where I realize the child is much more mature than they were before. They are beginning to ask questions, beginning to wonder how and why things work the way they do, beginning to practice more without anybody bothering them because they want to know.

Often, however, their excitement about the questions is followed by a very underwhelming reaction to the answer. This is because the answer is so much huger than they can be made to see in an hour or even a year. If a child who can strum a few chords, barely remembers their name, can find notes by ear but can’t be bothered to know what they’re called, asks you how the G major chord got its name, or how to figure out a tune by ear, the explanation is quite massive. They must be made to understand the major scale, the concept of a triad, the names of the notes, intervals (which is not intuitively represented spatially on the guitar), as well as keys and tonality, to really understand the answer to these questions. And of course, they must understand it in the least abstract sense. They must connect all these concepts to sounds, to the physical act of playing their instruments, or else the whole exercise is completely meaningless.

So when the big questions start rolling in, I like to tell them a story about mountain climbing. They ask me what appears to be a very simple question, and they see me sigh and refuse to answer them. The next week they are learning the major scale, being forced to sing out pitches, and doing all these things that don’t seem to matter. Why am I making them do it?

I tell them that the answer to their question is on the other side of a giant mountain. There is no possible way for them to see the place to which they are heading, and the path there is long, winding, and difficult, and it is very easy to get lost or detoured. It is going to take a long time to climb the mountain to reach a point where they can see their destination. Furthermore, they must be guided by someone who knows the way. I am their guide and they must trust that I know the mountain path because I have travelled it before with someone who taught me how to navigate the treacherous route. If they truly want to reach their destination, they need to have faith in their mountain guide, their musical sherpa, to know how to get to the mountain’s peak. That’s good teaching.

Evening Blue