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09/10/2003 11:46 am
I decided it's time to throw myself back at the music theory stuff again...
Where can I find some info on different culture's musical scales and styles? (Ravi Shankar got me wanting to learn some sitar-style stuff)
Does Celtic music use any specific scales or modes or such?
Ok, so I understand that scales are commonly broken up into patterns you can move up and down the fretboard, and I've learned the minor pentatonic + blues note patterns (Thanks for Greybeards website), but from reading other sites and books, I'm a bit confused... Say you wanted a g# minor blues pentatonic scales, would you use the patterns in the same order as you had them in for a A minor blues pentatonic scale, and just move all the patterns down the neck until the root note was G#, or would you use a different order of the basic patterns in combination with moving them down so the root notes are G#?
Ugh...I would be the whipping boy of my musical peers, if I had any, for while I somehow manage to understand modes, the basics of scales eludes me. Â :'(
You can't tell, but I'm playing the worlds smallest violin. Ok, I'm not, but I could - I have an electric keychain violin that comes in handy for mocking people in social situations, and I highly recommend picking one up yourself, if you should see them anywhere. Â ;D
09/10/2003 1:20 pm
Because scales a based on a fixed pattern (Major - TTSTTTS), once you have established the fretting pattern on the fretboard, you simply need to move that pattern up or down the fretboard to change key. Say you built up a pattern for Amajor, using the root based at the low E string 5th fret and want to change to C, just move the pattern up the fretboard to relocate the pattern at low E fret 8.
It doesn't matter where on the fretboard you locate the root and build the patterns around it, the same movability will apply.
I started with nothing - and I've still got most of it left.
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10/10/2003 1:19 am
There aren't any stupid questions, Zig, except the ones that aren't asked...
There's a lot of different scales available... I list over 40 of them in my book, and I've found a couple hundred over the years. To get started on some simple raga-sounding patterns, try this site:
http://www.guitartricks.com/2000/trick.php?trick_id=5319&s_id=45&next_id=5165
It lists three simple ones that will approximate the sounds.
Indian music (raga) has very complex musical structure... 72 different scales, and unbelievably complex rhythms. If you want to get serious about the study of it, let your browser do the walking, and prepare for some confusion along the way.
There's actually a column on Celtic scales (or lack thereof) on this site, at:
https://www.guitarnoise.com/lessons/a-celtic-air/
As far as moving the scales you know, the simplest way is to move the scale pattern. The G# minor blues pentatonic will become an A minor blues pentatonic when it's played one fret higher on the neck.
As you progress, and learn the notes associated with each scale and where they are, you'll find that you'll also stay in one position, but change the fingering. Let's say you're in G major at the second position (these are finger numbers, not frets):
-1--2----
---2----4-
-1---3-4-
-1-2---4-
-1-2---4-
---2---4-
and you want to move to A major. Instead of moving that pattern to the fourth position, you'd stay in the second and play:
-1---3-4-
-1-2---4-
-1---3---
-1---3-4-
-1---3-4-
--------4-
So... to move from one scale to another, you either know one pattern and move it, or you know several patterns and stay put. Once you get it down, this makes the instrument incredibly expressive.
I hope this helps,
Tom
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
10/10/2003 1:26 pm
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11/10/2003 5:54 am
Information on Indan music doesn't seem to hard to find. http://www.musicalnirvana.com/introduction/indian_scales.html was the first search result I got in Google.
23/10/2003 8:42 am
With all the discussion of the Beatles in the Polls Forum I've been doing a bit of reading up, and George Harrison has done some serious exploration of Indian idioms, some examples can be found on the Album Wonderwall Music where he attempts a combination of Indian m with Rock. You can get hold of this Album, I'm getting a copy because I'm also interested. A :)
24/10/2003 1:26 am
Now that I look at Indian music theory, it seems to be about the most confusing thing ever. All kinds of weirdness in scales (20 commonly used modes, only 10 types of scales), and then the weird rhythm lumped on top of it.
24/10/2003 1:31 pm
Ravi Shankar really is underappreciated. He's a smart guy and a great musician, but I don't really go for his style of music. Now if he played guitar, he'd be bigger than Hendrix.
25/10/2003 4:23 am
Yes, it'd be interesting to see what he would do on the guitar!
A couple of months back on the ABC in the docummentary on him it was intereting to see how his elder daughter had totally embraced the traditional Indian music, training as her father's protege, while Norah Jones sat quietly in the background looking rather shy and unsure of herself, and yet now is a force in her own right in Western syle music.