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5 days ago by @arkka

Liner Notes

Theory hack of the day (or should I say night, since it's 2:30 am here): Go up the major scale, come down the minor scale.

Works with other scales and sounds as well. For instance, major blues scale up, minor blues scale down works great. Pentatonics also. Arpeggios played like that can also work. The melodic minor scale is like this as well, the major 6th and 7th turn into minor ones when descending.

You could probably explain this by local leading tones and other intervallic stuff, but the way I like to think of it is as a bright-sounding thing going up and a dark-sounding thing going down. Try Lydian up, Locrian down.

I also associate this with playing more open sounds up and closed sounds down, meaning arpeggiate up and play scale tones and all the fancy chromatic notes on the way down.

Why is it pleasing to the ear? I don't know the answer, but it's a super interesting question, especially since it seems to be pretty universal. Happens in blues, happens in western classical, happens in Indian classical, I think it happens in flamenco...

Anyway, this is basically an étude of this directionality idea.

#jazz #guitar #short

Comments

@overtireddrummer 4d

YES! JAZZ! Very bouncy, makes me wanna swing! Heck yes! JAZZ! More plz. Collab? lol

@intangible 4d

Super interesting -- and indeed extremely pleasing to the ear. I remember a course I had a very long time ago, where a teacher showed me how the ear perceives microtonal progressions differently depending on if they're ascending or descending. Apparently, we notice the differences more easily when it is descending. 😶 I really enjoy all your etudes, experiments and thoughts on harmony. Really makes me want to learn music theory properly one of these days. And your guitar skills are just outstanding.

@arkka 2d

Thank you! Fascinating, I didn't know about the microtonal directionality thing. I need to try that.

@nadine 4d

Jazz? Here? Sounds awesome! Especially these runs

@coolparadisoMod 4d

yup bright up light down works for me! Nice a clean playing - very pretty stuff

@trashmilk 4d

Clean and crisp like fresh pressed trousers man. That was solid execution on giving a lesson. Bravooo

@kinamlo 4d

So many nice runs in this. I’ve never considered changing scale based on direction. It definitely makes things more interesting. You must really have your theory on lock.