Thanks J-Mo.

[Paulo2]

Top bloke. Was thinking the other day about when I was in hospital for two weeks and all I listened to was the great Scott Henderson stuff J-Mo had just posted to me. (he prob thought I needed some new licks lol) I miss his presence here.

[JonnyScaramanga]

I have no idea what you are saying, but I really want to.

If you're learning triads on one string, how is a cycle of thirds any better than fourths? A minor third is still always up three frets (or down nine).

As for the business about base 12, you completely lost me.

pick a note, the previous four black notes (skip two grey notes) count the two grey notes - gives the configuration of any fret.

Wait, what... example?

So fret 5 is A D G C E A. I don't see that pattern in there.

[frankus]

I'll draw it - its easier to see.

[frankus]

Just trying to find the crayon option on paint - I draw better with crayons - I know you're supposed to colour inside the lines but I don't because I think it stifles my creativity.

[frankus]

If you're learning triads on one string, how is a cycle of thirds any better than fourths? A minor third is still always up three frets (or down nine).

Part of this blog addresses the futility of the original thinking that lead me to think what I was thinking.

As for the business about base 12, you completely lost me.

I've not addressed that one fully yet because I'm trying to shoe-in a gag about my COBOL lecturer using an OHP to describe a 7 dimensional array. Again the musical observation is almost entirely guaranteed to be throw away.

So fret 5 is A D G C E A. I don't see that pattern in there.

For the most part there's a cycle of fourths with major third thrown in to nod at reentrant tunings.. I'm trying to think of this major 3rd kinda like the interface between water and air... viewed from beneath it looks lovely but there's surface tension and stuff to contend with when crossing it... wholly in water or wholly in air and we know how to move... part of one or the other and we fall over depending on the depth and our experience of it and how we're trying to move... (say chord wise, scale wise or other stuff I don't know about)

[JonnyScaramanga]

OK, got it all now. You are a fascinating and intelligent man, and I understood a good third of your post above.

Are you, perchance, a fan of Zen Guitar?

[frankus]

Are you, perchance, a fan of Zen Guitar?

Zen Guitar, Beginners Mind, Mastery, Zen in the Martial Arts, Effortless Mastery, Zen and the Art of Archery - yup, Zen Guitar it's a little trite but a gateway to a lot of other stuff.

Zen ties in, in so many ways with modern counselling and psychology. Which really interests me as so many of todays problems are about interaction and preconception.

The annoying book I found was "Striking Thoughts" someone rewriting Bruce Lees treatise on martial arts to be a collection of wise sayings, it becomes apparent how much of Eastern Philosophy is in his thinking.

I'm still chewing over what you've said about strings because I am a really lax guitarist I rarely think about strings ... I want ot change that and that means doing and other people's thoughts help me to pay attention to different things thanks.

[JonnyScaramanga]

You rarely think about strings? I think of nothing else.

I've been thinking about this and I think a random generator is a good way to go. I sometimes use music-theory.net's exercises, and whatever it throws up on the screen, I have to play on the fingerboard. That's one way to guarantee you aren't falling into patterns.

But in general, I don't think patterns are the enemy on the guitar. Without them, the six strings and 22 frets would just be a bewildering array of notes, and we'd be stabbing in the dark. I don't mind that I know a fourth is always just one string down (apart from on the sodding B string); it helps me keep my bearings.

Theoretically, you could sort all this out just by practising a wider variety of patterns. I don't know whether I'd have the discipline to do so. But my fretboard knowledge is quite heavily pattern-based, and I can usually find my way around.

[thing]

I would agree with Jonny there to a large extent. I've tried to analyse my 'free' playing as opposed to my paid playing where you do what the employer wants so to speak and I think although I know what I'm doing note and theory wise I still rely on rote learned patterns, however complex, to get me through a particular 16 bars or whatever. TBH I think that rote learned pattern playing is lazy, but then I'm a lazy player. I occasionally will write a solo for one of my own pieces, and I do give it a great deal of thought and a theoretical approach, my take being that if I'm going to spend the time doing this it might as well be as good as I can make it.

[frankus]

Thanks guys, I really am grateful for that insight. Patterns, Muscle-memory, vocabulary, accepting my laziness... I like the "beginners mind" thing of trying a new exercise each practice. And Strings being the thing - that is an interesting concept.