The Perfect Circle and Day 56

Getting a little nerdy here, but maybe you'll find it interesting.  The first part might look like a text book, but keep going.

Most western music is separated into a measure.  This is a musical unit that transcends all instruments.  When written down, you see a fraction used to help tell you how to play the piece of music.  The most common notation is 4/4, and it is called "common time signature".  It is literally the most common found.  From blues rock, to pop music, 4/4 is found all over the place.  On paper it looks like this:

What the numbers mean is pretty easy, and this isn't really an educational post.  The first or "top" number is the number of beats in the measure, and the bottom number is the length of the notes.  This means 4/4 means 4 quarter notes used in each bar.  Don't dwell on that too much.  What we're looking at today is the C that is written there.

Well, 4/4 time is known as several things.  The term "Common Time" is a more recent one that has come over time.  Many people think that the "C" there is for common time, but the notation is older than this name.  The "C" came many many years before the fact that 4/4 emerged as the most common.  We need clues.  Well 4/4 is also known as "Quadruple Meter".  That one is simple... maybe not any help to us.  It is also called "Imperfect Time".  Oh, hey, there we go.  Imperfect time.  If 4/4 is imperfect, what is "Perfect".  The time signature of 3/4 is "Perfect Time".  But why?  Well what changed.  There's a 3 in there.


When all this notation was being created, much of it was for religious usage.  The bulk of higher educational music was being done by the Church for their choirs.  Is there any Christian religious significance to the number 3?  The Holy Trinity.  This is why it is considered perfect, it is a holy number.  To Christians perhaps the holiest number.  The problem is that there are so many numbers used in notation, it could be confusing, so they needed another symbol for "perfect".

That's where the "Perfect" circle comes from.  A circle is a continuous line going on forever, unchanging, and perfect.  So 4/4 timing is not so perfect, its "Imperfect", but its close.  How do we show that something is "Imperfect".  How about a broken circle?  That's right!  The C used to represent 4/4 timing is not a "C" at all, so it can not stand for Common Timing.  It was originally a broken circle to stand for Imperfect Timing.

Day 56

Yesterday I had the epiphany that the Minor and Major Pentatonic overlapped in a way that certain shapes were the same on either side, and opened a huge amount of alternate ways I could play along in certain keys.  Today I learned that you can take the shapes you like, and find them in the same key in both minor and major pentatonic.  Because I am new, it is the first minor pentatonic shape(E at the 12th fret) that I know well and can call upon the easiest when I'm doing improv phrasing.  Now I know that if I just shift my hand and keep the same shape, I hit the MAJOR E pentatonic at fret 9.  That is super close and makes it very easy to have a kind of duality to my improv in a very simple way.

I really should just focus on learning the other shapes as well, and combining them.

I still have my same flaw, through all of this new playing and learning.  I learn, and I can talk theory, but I'm not as good with the application.  This is my same flaw in many hobbies and non-hobbies.  I'm strong on the "book learnin'" and not so much on the application.  I call it the "lazy supervisor gene" or some such.  It seems to do nothing but piss people off haha, including myself.

Along with Knockin' on Heaven's Door, which I need to play more but the Pentatonic realization has had me practicing other things lately, I have been playing some other songs just to... I don't know, test the waters? or some other appropriate phrase.  It feels really good to be watching and realizing what the favored scale of a song is.  I'm not "there' yet, but I'm getting able to see what's underneath a song.  That these songs aren't just magic that take place, but are methodical in approach.  Actually, I am quite looking forward to finding a good song that defies my ability to classify and "see" the method.

Actively Watching and Day 54

Actively watching.

I have noticed that in the interviews I watch with more recently famous guitarists, they talk about watching their heroes.  They hardly ever talk about what they do themselves, and talk about who they were watching when they learned it.  I saw an interview with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, and most of the interview was him talking about what he learned while talking to Billy Gibbons.  The same interviewer talked to Billy Gibbons and guess what... all Billy talked about was the guitarists he got stuff from when he was 12 years old watching old blues players.

Back in the 90's, I had friends and relatives that had these massive stacks of VHS's and later DVD's of their favorite players.  They had minutes and seconds memorized, they would go to remembered spots and say "look how he did this, I've been working on doing this for weeks" and "someone showed me this, but they were wrong, look how he does it live at this concert".  Do not just watch people, ACTIVELY watch people.  Watch their fingers, watch how they play, watch how they keep beat, don't just listen, WATCH.  When you see them play, don't just think "that bend sounds cool" you should wonder "what note is he bending from and bending to?"  or "was that a powerchord or am I missing what he's doing with his pinky?"

We now have Youtube and we don't have to chase down these stacks of videos.  Youtube is going to be credited for the biggest inspiration to musicians since The Beatles.  In twenty years all the players are going to be talking about who they watched or how much they watched Youtube.  I do not quite seek out live performances yet, but I do watch a TON of gear reviews.  Now, you might be saying, "you gearslut" but no, no wait, listen.  The good reviewers have jam sessions and improv playing during their reviews.  You can learn a lot while the camera is focused on the guitar being reviewed while they play.  Find the people you like to watch playing doing their improv and you will learn MUCH more than when they play their own songs.  You will get a peek inside their head, how they come up with phrases, sounds and songs.

I have also noticed in interviews that sometimes guitar players are doing things they don't realize are "mystical" or "difficult".  Especially Billy Gibbons.  It really sounds like he's surprised that people are marveled by some of the stuff he does.  Instantly he can tell you what old blues player he learned that from, and he's always "oh its just a simple this right here".  So it pays to watch.  You might learn more watching actively than being taught passively.  They do not keep their "secrets" on purpose, I'm finding that the players just do not know they are "secrets"


Day 54

Book learning day.

Well it started out as diagramming, and in the process of diagramming out the scales and keys I learned a lot.  Things like lowest note on lowest string.  I'm also seeing what patterns work with what chords.  Well.. the chords I know.  All this makes me sound like I know more than I do, please don't take that as me knowing my stuff haha.  I am still in the dark about chord progressions and so I'm just beginning to learn basic ways of playing with that.

Rocksmith's Session mode taught me the single most transcendental thing I have ever learned when it comes to playing with people; find the key the chords are being played in and then you can play scale notes in that same key and sound like you belong there.  It is probably "duh" to some people, but holy crap has it helped my confidence.  I am diagramming the minor and major Pentatonic scales so I can learn my memory where each key is... and realizing that it is just the lowest note(most bass) on the lowest(thickest) string.  It is something I should have already knew, but sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees.

I already knew the G minor pentatonic, E and D because I love playing in those keys.  I "zoomed out" and learned the 2 frets to the left as well as the main shape.  This is because I felt like the lowest notes on the B and high E were just not enough high notes to play in, so I extend it back.  I did this mainly for when I was playing in G, but the beauty of the pent scale is that its the same wherever, so learning it for the G I automatically learn it for all other keys.

Rocksmith's session mode is SOOOO good for learning these lessons.  It is so very good for taking notes with too.  I get these questions in my head, and before I'd have to Google it and go through several pages of trying to translate someone talking about music to get my answer.  With the session mode, I can change a few settings and... there I go.  Its right there in front of me, visually in a way I can understand it, and it "clicks" in my head.  Its like the best interactive theory book ever.