Building upon the eerie-sounding Aaddb2 arpeggio sequence we explored in the previous lesson, I’d now like to offer a variation on this four-note entity that has a similarly...
Building upon the eerie-sounding Aaddb2 arpeggio sequence we explored in the previous lesson, I’d now like to offer a variation on this four-note entity that has a similarly haunting vibe while incorporating a wider interval (pitch gap) between the second and third notes, which creates a more angular and interesting melodic contour. What we’ll do here is raise the pitches of the top two notes a perfect fourth, by keeping the fingers at the same frets while moving them over to the next higher string, thus introducing a string skip.
FIGURE 1 is a legato sequence, incorporating every available hammer-on, that begins with the four-note Aaddb2 (A Bb C# E) shape, or “cell,” I introduced last month, which alternates with our new string-skipping shape on beat two of bar 1. With the new shape, instead of playing the notes C# and E (the major third and perfect fifth of A) on the B string again, we’re substituting F# and A on the high E string, fingered at the same frets.
In the key of A, F# is the major sixth, so we’ll call our new arpeggio, which is intervallically spelled 1 b2 6 1 (ending on the root note an octave higher) A6b2 (A Bb F# A), The string skip gives us a major sixth interval, which is rather wide and has a “yodel-y” quality when played melodically. I resolve the sequence with a bluesy lick, sliding up the high E string to the minor third of A, C, which I then bend up a half step to the major third, C#, before pulling off to the A root note at the fifth fret.
In FIGURE 2, we’re taking our yodel-y A6b2 shape and transposing it up the neck in three-fret increments, in symmetrical minor thirds, just