开云体育

A similar exercise that I was turned on to combines both the arps and scale fragments. The main goal of the exercise was the concept of forward motion. Hal Galper has a book called "Forward Motion" as well. I haven't read the book, but an instructor of mine gave me this exercise to explore the "forward motion" concept.

Anyway, the exercise is pretty easy to grasp. I'll go over the patterns first, then the timing. The timing is key to get the forward motion concept.

Pattern(s):
Ascending starting note:
Essentially go up w/ a 4 note arpeggio, then go descend w/ a 4 note scale fragment. So in G major, that would be (arp) G, B, D, F# (scale) E, D, C, B. Then go up a note in the scale, in this case A, and play the arp then scale. This repeats until you run out of notes in that position. To descend, the process is reversed.

So in the key of G, you get:

(G Maj7) G, B, D, F#, E, D, C, B
(A min7) A, C, E, G, F#, E, D, C
(B min7) B, D, F#, A, G, F#, E, D
(C Maj7) C, E, G, B, A, G, F#, E
(D7 ) D, F#, A, C, B, A, G, F#
(E min7) E, G, B, D, C, B, A, G
(F# min7b5) F#, A, C, E, D, C, B, A

Descending starting note:
Play descending arp, then ascending scale fragment. Starting on the G on the high E string, the pattern would be: (arp) G, E, C, A, (scale) B, C, D, E. The next note for the arp would be F#, etc. This pattern continues all the way back down to the low E string.

Now for the rhythm/timing. The exercise is played w/ straight eighths. There are two timings to practice. The first is to start the exercise on the and of 3 (i.e. 3 + ). Also, you tap your foot on beats 1 and 3. So, you could think of it as playing 16th notes in 2/4 and starting on the "e" of 2. The second variation is to start on the and of 4 (i.e. 4 + ).

Once the whole exercise is under your fingers and in your ear, try playing it starting on the beat. It feels totally different and doesn't have the motion component to it that the other timings do.

This exercise can be extended to cover other positions/chords/scales as well. I haven't tried it w/ diminished or whole tone scales yet. That might be something to try in the near future.

I usually use this exercise as a warm up and speed study. It is a bit more interesting than just running scales.

Have fun with it.

-- Mike V.