Microtonal Guitar Book

My main approach to the Twelve Tone Ultra Plus Guitar features three different perspectives. First, I like to explore the difference between the equal tempered scales and chords in comparison with their equivalents based on the different tunings that we’ve looked at. Second, I like to take equal tempered songs that I think would work well with the “new” notes available on the instrument such as blues tunes and re-arrange them incorporating the “new” notes. This approach works very well in the open position for blues tunes as we have the 7 limit “just intonated” intervals such as 7/6, 21/16, 7/4 etc., as well as the 11/8 raised 4th. I also like the minor scale with the 14/9 interval as the minor sixth in addition to the 7/6 and 7/4 intervals. In the Open D tuning the 2nd’s, 4th’s and 5th’s fall within 2-4 cents of their pure counterparts and work well as they fall within my limit of discrimination.

I chose the Open D tuning as it helps to lead us into what La Monte Young refers to as a “drone state of mind”. Young refers to this his concept in his performance notes to his Theatre of Eternal Music String Ensemble’s performance of Composition 1960 #7 when he talks about his use of continuous sound environments. Young states,

“frequency environments set up a drone state of periodic composite waveforms in the nervous system, establishing periodic patterns. These patterns are the internal representations of the external air molecule patterns, which vibrate the eardrums and send pulses throughout the nervous system. Once this so-called drone-state-of-mind is established, the mind should be able to embark on very special explorations and in new directions, because it will always have a fixed point of reference to come back to, to relate to; it could perhaps go further into more complex types of refined relationships than it can in the ordinary state. If, however, the tones are always little tiny short points, it is almost impossible to compare them.”

The tuning of the instrument to all roots and fifths, the same tuning the North Indian drone instrument the tamboura is tuned to, affords us,

“to better isolate and listen to the harmonics. The harmonics can assume a greater relevance to the fundamental musical material, allowing greater opportunity to work with them and to produce other tones that are related to them.“

The added frets on the 12 Tone Ultra Plus Guitar not only allows us to explore more consonant intervals but also to explore little charted territories such as the “emancipation of the comma”. When two notes less than half step apart are played simultaneously they create distinct beat patterns and “harmonic clouds”. Harmonic Clouds are chords based not only the notes being played but also notes created by the “difference tones” created when one or more notes are played together. Michael Harrison notes in the booklet to his recording Revelation,

“The microscopic intervals between two slightly different versions of the same note, which are tuned via two different sequences of intervals, are called “commas.”  These commas exist only outside the confines of the twelve notes tones of equal temperament.  In fact, tempered tunings were developed over the past four hundred years precisely to avoid the commas that are heard whenever music with moderately complex harmonies is played in just intonation.  I have discovered that incorporating the commas into the harmonic fabric of my music frees it from the need for tempered tunings and opens up a new approach to tonality.”

Melodically , I like ending phrases by adding with a note the next fret over as well as my target note.

The following musical examples are ways I’ve put together the scales, chords, and above concepts we looked at earlier and make music out of them. In the Open D position we’ll be looking at a traditional Chicago style blues, Everything’s Gonna Be All Right, an original composition of mine, Time Will Tell, and the jazz standard Afro Blue, which all utilize the half-minor scales, harmonies and cloud tones. Re-arrangements of songs in the 7/6 tuning work well with major scale based music as well as minor. We’ll look at major based transcriptions based on Freddie King’s Hideaway and the track Somewhere Over The Rainbow from the Wizard of Oz. A minor based blues, Harlem Nocturne concludes the section on the 7/6 Tuning. Finally we’ll look at an excerpt from my band, Stone Crazy Blues Band, called Workin Blues as well as a few tabs of cloud shapes.

Click on links below to hear sound bytes.  Please note these are slightly “lo-fi” versions done with some midi drum tracks etc.

Everything’s Gonna Be All Right

Time Will Tell

Afro Blue

Hideaway

Harlem Nocturne

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Workin’ Blues

Clouds

Check out Video of Workin’ Blues from the Stone Crazy Blues Band Below:

[flashvideo filename=http://www.bluemuseandspirittest.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/workin.flv /]