12 Tones To Get Attention II

author: Martin Messner date: 08/05/2010 category: scales
rating: 9.7 / votes: 3 
Hey guys, After you all know the basics of dodecaphony, this "lesson" goes a little more into detail. (I'd recommend you to take a look at the first lesson even if you know what dodecaphony is) Lets take our old pattern again:
       3   4   5   6   7
Obviously, this seems very random to a guitarist's eye. You have a field of notes and have to hit every section exactly one time. And we see trivially that there are 3 strings which aren't totally used. Regarding these questions, I want to go back in history again: As we might imagine, Schoenberg had the same or even more difficult questions. He didn't write for a single guitar, but for a whole orchestra. He had a buch of instruments on the one hand and a new, difficult music theory on the other hand. How to manage that? Schoenberg had a very simple answer to the question: Solving the problem of randomness with the instrumentist's experience. Sound philosophical, but in fact, it's really easy. He had to bring some order into the chaos of randomness, so he introduced "clusters" to his own theory: - What is a cluster? A cluster is a flied of notes. example: [C to E] is a cluster, it's a field of notes containing C, C#, D, D# and E. In this field you can play whatever you want the musician can play any order of these 5 notes. It is even allowed to play notes twice he plays: E, C#, D#, C, E, D - the E twice. You can also play all notes at once or he plays an (impossible) chord with all 5 of them Schoenberg found a valid solution: The smaller the size of a cluster, the better the safety --> control The bigger the size of a cluster, the bigger the chaos --> emotion If you have a piano, go over an play the cluster [C to E]. (Just ramm your fist onto the keyboard in the area of D ZYABLA^HUYABLA) You hear how awkward it sounds- and thats the effect we want to learn. You get the idea of it. Oh, and of course there are cluster which are not chromatically. Our [C to E] cluster in C major just contains [C,D,E]- only those 3 notes! ... Back to our guitars: I'm personnally confronted with one, huge problem now: I have no idea how to write a cluster as a tab. So what you see here, is my personal try to write a cluster. There is no rule yet, so I just do it with some logic ;) :
a cluster
dashes mark fields of notes
     |                           |
   that'S our [C-E] cluster    that's [C-E] 
   in a chromatic scale        in C Major

D|--[0-2]------------------| Now it's up to the guitarist to choose
A|--[3-7]------------------| where to play which note
   that'S our [C-E] cluster 
   in a chromatic scale
... Put the theory into practice: I remember one of the buckethead lessons which is perfect for our topic:
E|---2---4---6-----------------------| repeats, every time one fret higher
(better try hybrid pickingZYABLA^HUYABLA) This is a simple chromatic scale- with octaves in it. That lick improves your left hand skills a little bit, your hybrid picking as well and- most important- accustoms your brain to new chromatical patterns. The pattern would be: (the o's mark the last 4 notes which obviously don't fit into the 12-note pattern)
       2   3   4   5   6
So: we finally have a really interesting new pattern and we know what clusters are and what they are used for. I just can repeat the exercise from last lesson. Now, do them with the new pattern! Reminder: Use your metronome! (or http://www.metronomeonline.com/) [BRAIN&FINGER EXERCISE +] measure 4/4; play all 12 notes without any tone repetition! [BRAIN&FINGER EXERCISE +] measure 3/4; play all 12 notes without any tone repetition! [BRAIN EXERCISE +] think of chords that can be build in this pattern And: Post your way of how to write clusters in a tab in the comment section below, if you deny my way ;) Have fun :D Martin Messner
More Martin Messner lessons:
+ More Exercises 2 Guitar Techniques 12/07/2010
+ The Second Lesson: Improvising Soloing 09/22/2010
+ view all
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