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In this issue maestro Shaun Baxter concludes his investigation of intervals as he focuses on the stable sound of octaves.
Shaun Baxter continues his series with a lesson on using octaves in Mixolydian mode.
Today we conclude this series on intervals with octaves. An octave is a thoroughly consistent interval: basically it goes from one letter to its namesake 12 semitones higher or lower.
The waveforms created by an octave is more stable than other intervals because it is perfectly divisible (a note an octave higher is exactly twice the frequency, and vice versa), and so work well using distortion.
As this is the final instalment let’s remind ourselves of the sort of experimentation and exploration to aim for when developing this particular concept. You should aim to apply these Mixolydian principles to every pattern of the other scales that you know - shifting ideas up and down the length of the neck as well as staying within the same neck area - in order to develop useful repertoire that you can draw on.
Also, you should aim to execute each and all of the following basic permutations both up and down through each shape of a scale:
• A series of ascending octaves
• A series of descending octaves
• A series of octaves alternating between ascending and descending • A series of octaves alternating between descending and ascending Then try permutations such as: •‘Up, up down’ etc
• Various configurations on each octave interval: Low note + high note + low note; High note + low note + high note
• Playing ideas that are a multiple of two (2-4-8) to a triplet count
• Playing ideas that are a multiple of three (3-6 etc) to a duple count (eighth notes, 16th notes etc) Make a note of the most successful or useful ideas (according to your tastes), and see each one as a template that can be adapted: remember, it’s better to have a few flexible ideas that can be edited (expanded or compressed) to fit your purposes than hundreds of licks and lines that are set in stone. Consequently, you should practise by limiting your approach to using one line only and seeing how much variety and expression you can create by varying the rhythms, omitting notes, adding notes, applying bends and vibrato to different notes etc.
During this series, the object has been to build up a variety of interval-based approaches over the same dominant backing track using A Mixolydian mode in conjunction with the A Minor Blues scale (that’s why the musical examples have been written out in the key of A rather than D).
A Mixolydian – A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G b7
1-2 -3-4-5-6- A-C-D-Eb-E-G
A Minor Blues – 1- b3- 4- b5- 5- b7
All of the octaves that have been highlighted in each of this lesson’s demo examples, are taken from A Mixolydian, and each of these sections is flanked by A Minor Blues-orientated ideas. Note that, although various octaves might also be played within surrounding Minor Blues-based ideas, we are going to ignore them, as they are purely incidental, and not part of the main concept highlighted in each line.
Regarding the backing track’s time signature: while drummers would write the rhythm as 6/8, for ease of reading on guitar I have stuck to 4/4, viewing the bass drum pattern as a quarter-note triplet rhythm. If your rhythm reading isn’t great don’t worry about it: just read the tab and use your ears. Where hybrid picking is shown in the transcription, feel free to use traditional picking (pick only) if you prefer.
Finally, once you have absorbed the various concepts studied here, aim to apply the same principles to the other scales that you know in order to develop useful repertoire that you can draw upon when improvising. For example, you can also produce A Dorian equivalents for each of the GT examples (or your own) simply by replacing any C# notes with C notes. See you next month.
apply the concepts to any other scales that you know in order to develop a useful repertoire