Scale Arpeggio Encyclopedia - Gorseinon Guitar

428 Pages·2012·2.3 MB·English

Rich Cochrane
Arpeggio and Scale Resources
A Guitar Encyclopedia
ii
B I G N O I S E P U B L I S H I N G
Published by Big Noise Publishing, London, UK
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Contents
Part I Fundamentals 3
1 Basic Scale Theory 5
2 The Triad Arpeggios:A Framework for Scales 15
2.1 The CAGED Arpeggio System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.2 Playing Through Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3 Applications of the Triad and Seventh Arpeggios 23
3.1 Adding the Seventh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.2 A ‘Scale’ of Dissonance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.3 Simple Superimpositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.4 The Charlie Parker Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.5 The Coltrane Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.6 Cycles of Fifths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.7 Other Possibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4 The Commonest Scales 41
4.1 The Common Pentatonic Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.2 The Blues Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.3 The Major Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.4 The Harmonic Minor Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.5 The Melodic Minor Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
5 Intervals 59
Part II Advanced Resources 63
6 Introducing the Advanced Resources 65
7 The Symmetrical Scales 69
7.1 The Whole-Tone Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
7.2 The Whole-Half Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
iii
iv CONTENTS
7.3 The 4min + 7min Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
7.4 The 2maj + (cid:93)5maj Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
7.5 The 1dom + (cid:91)6maj Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
7.6 The Tritone Chromatic Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
7.7 The 1aug + (cid:91)7maj + 7min Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
7.8 The Double Chromatic Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
7.9 The Triple Chromatic Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
7.10 The Tritone Coscale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
8 Further Arpeggios 81
8.1 Seventh Arpeggios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
8.2 Added Ninths, Elevenths and Thirteenths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
8.3 Suspensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
8.4 Remaining Suspended Possibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
8.5 The Remaining Triad Possibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
8.6 The Remaining Four-Note Possibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
9 Pentatonics With Small Intervals 113
9.1 Five-Note Arpeggios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
9.1.1 The ∆ Add 11 Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
9.1.2 The Kumoi Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
9.1.3 The Dominant Add 11 Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
9.1.4 The Dominant Add (cid:93)11 Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
9.1.5 1∅ Add (cid:92)3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
9.2 Altered Note Pentatonics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
9.3 Pairs of Triads Sharing One Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
9.3.1 Built on the Major Triad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
9.3.2 Built on the Minor Triad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
9.3.3 Built on the Diminished Triad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
9.3.4 The Three-Quarter-Diminished Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
9.3.5 Built on the Augmented Triad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
9.3.6 A Triad and a Seventh Sharing Two Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
9.3.7 Two Sevenths Sharing Three Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
9.4 With Two Consecutive Semitones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
10 Pentatonics Containing a Large Interval 153
10.1 With Largest Interval a Fourth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
10.1.1 Based on a Major Triad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
10.1.2 Based on a Minor Triad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
10.1.3 Based on a Suspended Triad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
10.2 With Largest Interval an Augmented Fourth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
10.2.1 Based on a Diminished Triad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
10.2.2 Based on a Suspended Triad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
CONTENTS v
10.3 With Largest Interval a Fifth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
11 Altered-Note Heptatonics Part 1: The Major Scale 191
11.1 The Ionian (cid:91)2 (Suryakantam) Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
11.2 The Ionian (cid:93)6 (Naganandini) Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
11.3 The Ionian (cid:93)2 (Sulini) Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
11.4 The Ionian (cid:91)6 (Sarasangi) Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
11.5 The Ionian (cid:91)5 Scale Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
12 Altered-Note Heptatonics Part 2:
The Harmonic Minor Scale 205
12.1 The Harmonic Minor (cid:93)6 (Varunapriya) Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
12.2 The Harmonic Minor (cid:91)5 Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
12.3 The Harmonic Minor (cid:91)4 Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
12.4 The Harmonic Minor (cid:91)6 Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
13 Altered-Note Heptatonics Part 3:
The Melodic Minor Scale 215
13.1 The Melodic Minor (cid:91)4 Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
13.2 The Melodic Minor (cid:91)5 Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
13.3 The Melodic Minor (cid:91)2 (Neapolitan) Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
14 Further Heptatonics 223
14.1 With One Minor Third. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
14.1.1 The Suvarnangi Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
14.1.2 The Kokilapriya (cid:93)5 Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
14.1.3 The Vanaspati (cid:91)4 Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
14.1.4 The Melodic Minor (cid:91)4 Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
14.1.5 The Varunapriya (cid:93)5 Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
14.2 With Two Minor Thirds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
14.2.1 The Yagapriya Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
14.2.2 The Nitimati Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
14.2.3 The Kamavardhani Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
14.2.4 The Kanakangi (cid:91)4 Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
14.3 With One Major Third . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
14.3.1 The Navanitam Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
14.3.2 The 6maj + (cid:91)7maj Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
14.3.3 The 1maj + (cid:91)2maj + 2 Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
14.3.4 The (cid:91)5d + (cid:91)7maj Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
14.3.5 The Jalarnavam Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
14.3.6 The Lydian Dominant (cid:93)(cid:93)2 (cid:93)3 (cid:93)5 Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
14.4 Melakatas With Three Consecutive Semitones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
14.4.1 The Ganamurti Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
14.4.2 The Manavati Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
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14.4.3 The Rupavati Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
14.4.4 The Salagam Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
14.4.5 The Jhalavarali Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
14.4.6 The Pavani Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
14.4.7 The Gavambodhi Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
14.4.8 The Divyamani Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
14.4.9 The Dhavalambhari Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
14.4.10The Sucharitra Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
14.4.11The Super Locrian (cid:92)2 (cid:91)(cid:91)7 Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
14.5 Melakatas With Four Consecutive Semitones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
14.5.1 The Tanarupi Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
14.5.2 The Raghupriya Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
14.6 With Three Consecutive Semitones: Remaining Possibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
14.6.1 The Borean Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
14.6.2 The Notoean Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
14.6.3 The Zephyrean Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
14.6.4 The Eurean Scale Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
14.6.5 The Kaikian Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
14.6.6 The Apeliotean Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
14.6.7 The Skironean Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
14.6.8 The Lipsean Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
15 The Non-Symmetrical Octatonics 291
15.1 The Major Add (cid:91)6 Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
15.2 The (cid:93)4m7 + 5min Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
15.3 The 1maj + (cid:91)2maj + (cid:91)7maj Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
15.4 The 2maj + 6min + (cid:91)7min Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
15.5 The 1maj + (cid:91)2maj + 2min Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
15.6 The 1+ + (cid:91)2+ + 2maj Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
15.7 The 1+ + (cid:91)5+ + (cid:91)7min Scale Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
15.8 The Bebop Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
15.9 The Holdsworth Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
15.10The African-American Blues Scale Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Part III Hexatonics 313
16 Coscales and Reflections 315
16.1 Hexatonic Shapes on the Fingerboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
16.2 Binary Representations of Scales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
16.3 The Coscale Relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
16.4 Scale Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
16.5 Categorisation of Hexatonics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
CONTENTS vii
17 Variant Sets 323
17.1 The 100010101101 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
17.2 The 100010110101 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
17.3 The 100010110110 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
17.4 The 100011010101 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
18 Containing a Major Third 341
18.1 Containing a Minor Third . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
18.1.1 The 100011001101 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
18.1.2 The 100010110011 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
18.1.3 The 100010011101 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
18.1.4 The 100011010011 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
18.1.5 The 100010111001 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
18.1.6 The 100010011011 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
18.2 Containing No Minor Thirds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
18.2.1 The 100010101110 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
19 Without a Major Third 373
19.1 Containing Two Minor Thirds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
19.1.1 The 100100101101 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
19.1.2 The 100100110101 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
19.1.3 The 100101011001 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
19.1.4 The 100101100110 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
19.1.5 The 100101100101 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
19.2 Containing One Minor Third . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
19.2.1 The 100101010101 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
19.2.2 The 100101010110 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
19.2.3 The 100101011010 Scale Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
20 With a Large Interval 397
20.1 The 100001011011 Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
20.1.1 Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
20.2 The 100001011101 Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
20.2.1 Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
20.3 The 100000111011 Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
20.4 The 100001101011 Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
20.5 The 100001101101 Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
20.6 The 100001110011 Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
A Omitted Scales 411
viii CONTENTS
About This Book
This book is divided into three parts. The first part, covering chapters 1 to 4, is a
detailed study of arpeggio patterns and an introduction to the study of scales. It
covers a lot more than most guitarists know about scales, but it’s really just the
beginning. The second and third parts present a huge number of scales, most of
which have never had their fingering diagrams published. This collection is unique
in the literature of the guitar or, as far as the author knows, among music books in
general.
If you’re a beginner, take the material in the first part slowly and supplement
it with intensive listening to the kind of music you want to play. You may also
want to add a book of ‘licks’ or transcribed solos to help you apply the theoretical
material in this book to the musical style that interests you. This book provides the
raw material; it’s up to you to figure out how to turn it into music, and different
musicians have done that in different ways down the centuries.
Advanced players will mostly be interested in the second and third parts. Use
them as a source of inspiration: dip in more or less at random to find new and
unusual sounds. This part of the book isn’t intended to be read as a course but to
act as a reference book that will hopefully inspire you to get out of a rut whenever
you find yourself in one.
1