Finally, the CDs have arrived! And they look great, the colors are sharp, everyone’s name is spelled right, and when you put the CD in a CD playing device, you hear music!

Unfortunately, the FedEx guy dropped these off at 5:30 today and I won’t be able to ship them until tomorrow morning. Never the less, I’m thrilled to finally have them, and will be shipping the to everyone that pre-ordered first thing in the morning.

My solo guitar arrangement of “Everything Means Nothing To Me” by Elliott Smith. This arrangement is used in a recording I made with Erika Lloyd, from our album Pour A Little Everything Else, available on iTunes.

As you work through these exercises, pay attention to the pattern of your picking hand. It is the common denominator for all these patterns. That is to say, you will pick the strings exactly the same way for every exercise.

Click on the image below for a larger, easier to read size.

Exercise 1a: Pentatonic Scales

Let’s start with an A minor pentatonic scale in 5th position. The trick with this pattern is using the same finger on two adjacent strings smoothly. Start with your 4th finger (pinky) for the first two notes, then use your 1st finger (pointer) for the next two. Moving down you’ll start using your 3rd finger in place of your 4th.

To play the first two 16th notes of each beat, simply flatten your 3rd or 4th finger to bar the next string. To play the last two 16th notes of each beat, you have to begin by barring two strings with your 1st finger. For cleaner articulation, don’t allow more than one note to sound at a time. To do this, roll your finger through the barring motion so it only really presses one string at a time. It’s a little tricky, but once you get the hang of the pattern the motion will become fluid, especially as you speed it up.

Exercise 1b: Displacement / Sweep Picking Pattern

Staying with the same pentatonic scale, let’s play the first note as a 16th note pickup. This gives the pattern a very different vibe, placing the accent on the highest pitch of every four notes. Practice with your metronome set to 8th notes and try starting the pattern on different parts of the beat. How about playing triplets? What happens if you throw a rest in every five notes? The possibilities are nearly endless.

Now look at the picking pattern I’ve notated. One downstroke followed by three upstrokes in a sweep-like picking style. This makes playing fast much easier.

Changing your picking pattern can be tricky. If you play the first note on the downbeat, like in Ex. 1a, the upstroke might feel awkward. Try starting the pattern with two downstrokes to make it feel more natural. Alternately, you could play two downstrokes / two upstrokes repeatedly, sort of like alternate picking, but catching two string with each movement.

Exercise 2a: Dorian Mode

You might have noticed that this pattern uses two notes per string. As such, it can apply to various modes by playing notes from two adjacent chord shapes. In Ex. 2a, we’ll use two minor chord voicings commonly used by guitarists and pianists. In fact, these are the same chords Bill Evans plays on Miles Davis’ tune “So What” from the iconic album Kind Of Blue.

Notice how similar this pattern is to the pentatonic scale. However, this isn’t actually a pentatonic scale because we play all seven notes of the D Dorian scale. The half steps are displaced by an octave.

Exercise 2b: Lydian Dominant Mode

Now let’s try applying this to an altered scale. Ex. 2b explores the Melodic Minor modes. This pattern is derived from an F Lydian Dominant scale, the 4th mode of the C Melodic Minor scale, using the chord shapes of a G9 and F9(#11). Sounds pretty cool, right?

I also play this particular pattern for the Super Locrian mode, or the last mode of the Melodic Minor scale. In this case, it would work over a B altered dominant chord, like B7(#5 #9). You’ll really hit all the color tones and outline the harmony nicely.

Further Applications

Practice playing this pattern over all your pentatonic scales, and explore shifting one or two notes on the fretboard for some interesting results. For example, start with one scale for the first two beats, and then switch to a different scale for the last two beats. What about changing modes for each beat? As I said at the beginning, the common denominator is your picking hand. Allow the scaler leaps that result from the picking pattern to enhance the patterns in your other hand.

If you found this lesson helpful, please see my other guitar related posts, and check back occasionally for more Woodshed Wednesday free guitar lessons.

Know the Mechanics

As much as I hate to say this, and you might hate to hear it, music is just math. It’s aural geometry. There is symmetry in music. Between C and C, you have Gb. For every chord, there’s an opposite, an equal, and a parallel. Between every chord lies a handful of passing chords. Understanding how much functions will help you learn every possibility. You’ll start to see similarities in different styles of music. Charlie Parker starts to sound like Bach. A Neopolitan VI chord is a fancier name for a tritone sub. Or is it the other way around?

Yet the magic happens in music when you stop looking at it as math. Each possibility is connected to an emotional response, and that’s why you’re writing the song in the first place, right? So what was the emotion you were feeling when the idea came to you? Or what are you trying to portray with the music? What are they lyrics saying?

Some would argue that there have been great songwriters and composers that just had a knack for writing, and formal learning can hinder the creative process. I disagree. Those great composers learned what we’re learning, just differently. If music is your language, you ought to be constantly expanding your vocabulary until you’ve mastered the lexicon.

Just as great painters understand the use of color and perspective to move your eye across the canvas, or renowned authors know how to use metaphors to describe what’s in their protaganists’ hearts, the best composers know how to choose the right combination of melody, harmony, and rhythm to fan the flames of emotion.

Common Mistakes

I think the biggest rookie mistake is doing too much. Trying to fit too much into one spot because you can’t decide what works best. I’ve been guilty of not knowing which chord to use, so I use option A the first time and option B on the next pass. All those songs ended up getting trashed. If I could have just decided one way or the other, the rest of the good decisions I made in the song might still be alive today.

Another mistake is forgetting about both ends of the pencil. Nothing has to be permanent, you can use the eraser. I now regularly change songs I’m writing after hearing my band play it a few times. I think that should be part of the process. The worst thing you can do is write yourself into a corner thinking you’re stuck with decisions you made earlier. It’s painful to think about how many times I’ve done this to myself, but over time it’s gotten a lot easier to just scrap a mediocre idea that seemed great last night but now is leading nowhere.

Eliminate Your Choices

When you write a song, it’s either because you’re feeling something or want to feel something. Once you can identify that feeling you’ve eliminated 99% of the options and the song writes itself.

“Fulfill” from the Green-Wood EP by Little Grey Girlfriend

Directed and Filmed by: Brad Coffman and Felipe Maya
Stylist: Aaron Gray
Crew: Erol Gurol

Starring: Erika Lloyd and Nathaniel David Becker
With Band Members: Brad Whiteley, Cameron Mizell, and Kenneth Salters
Music and lyrics by: Erika Lloyd

“Fulfill” is the opening track to Green-Wood, the latest release by Little Grey Girlfriend. To hear the rest of the album, visit littlegreygirlfriend.com.

Tributary CDs are “at the plant,” as I used to say in production meetings at Verve. That means they’re out of my hands, in production, and will be ready soon. I haven’t been able to say that in a couple years, and it feels good!

I still need to finalize the artwork for the t-shirts and hot sauce, but those items will go into production soon. If you ordered a shirt but didn’t tell me what size you need, please email me, or I’ll be in touch with you in the next few days. My schedule got busy this month, a welcome change to keep my mind off Tributary for a little bit, but once CDs are in my hands I’ll begin booking trio shows again, starting with a CD release party.

More soon!
- Cameron

Haven’t bought Tributary yet? You can still order a CD and get an immediate download at Bandcamp, or just download it at iTunes, Amazon, or anywhere else digital music is sold.

“Hooch!” performed by Collective Pursuit at the Bowery Poetry Club in 2009

Collective Pursuit is now defunct, but for a while it was an outlet for me to write for a horn section. Actually, it was an outlet for everybody in the band to write for a larger ensemble, this just happens to be one of my tunes. It’s hard to support a band this size in NYC, not to mention schedule rehearsals, but someday I hope to get back to this sort of thing.

The Tributary Pre-Order is coming to an end!

This Sunday, August 8, will be your last chance to buy one of the Tributary pre-order packages. The support so far has been humbling and very encouraging. Thank you to everyone that has helped me reach my goal, and thank you for your patience as I take the time to get these things taken care of all by myself!

I am now ready to move forward with manufacturing CDs, and a few days after that I’ll place the order for the t-shirts and hot sauce. CDs will of course continue to be available for a long time, but the other items are being ordered based on the pre-order demand, and extra quantities will be limited. Currently, I don’t have any plans to re-order these items. If you’re interested in a t-shirt or bottle of Junior’s Swamp Sauce Hot Sauce, you should order them now!

Once the pre-order is closed, you will still be able to buy the album (CD and download), plus the remaining other items, at Bandcamp. Tributary is also available to download wherever digital music is sold.

Where do ideas come from? Is there an endless supply?

When I listen to prolific improvisers like Keith Jarrett or John Coltrane is seems like the ideas never run out. Sure, there is repetition in solos, and if you really study the playing of any great improviser you will find some archetypal motifs or licks for that particular musician. Nobody plays a great idea only once. But what makes these artists original? Why has there never been anybody else like them before?

While studying jazz in college, some students really looked at improvising as math. There are only so many notes and so many chords, surely you can figure out X number of ways to get from points A to B. These guys pointed to books like the Charlie Parker Omnibook or Patterns for Jazz as proof that there are a limited (though vast) number of options. They had a point. The creation of sound and the way it’s organized as music can all be explained through science. However, there have been a number of experiments with music, such as atonal composition, that demonstrate that it takes more than math to create art.

The truth is, it’s a lot of both. Originality comes from a deep understanding of the fundamentals. That’s how you build a vocabulary to communicate in creative ways. It’s the way those fundamentals are translated and applied that makes all the difference. That’s why two musicians can play the same tune and it sounds completely different. That’s why no matter how much writing I do, the fact that I use the same language as him will never make me Shakespeare.

I’m constantly looking for new ideas. Ideas for a song, ideas for guitar, ideas for marketing my music, ideas for writing articles. I often feel like I’m beating a tired idea into the ground because I don’t know what to do next. At times like these I go back to the fundamentals. I listen to music by artists that defined a style, practice some old patterns over a new set of chords, or maybe just read through some Bach. I’m not sure whether or not there’s an endless supply of ideas, but there’s no lack of inspiration.

1. 10 Tips for Beginning Guitarists
2. My Guitar Warm-Up Routine

The warm-up routine above only discusses exercises from a left hand perspective, warming up the fingers on the fretboard. But if you’ve played through some of those exercises you’ll notice that the picking can get a little tricky. So today we’re going to talk about the right hand, specifically, alternate picking.

I started paying attention to my own picking technique lately as I put this lesson together, and I found that probably 90% of the time I’m using alternate picking for melodic lines and to arpeggiate chords while playing rhythm guitar. The rest of the time I’ll use sweep picking or hybrid picking, but only when alternate picking can’t produce the articulation or rhythm the line needs.

Alternate picking is the act of switching between downstrokes and upstrokes. This is much like strumming rhythm guitar–the motion of your arm keeps a constant up-down motion and occasionally misses the strings. The motion creates a steady time feel, but by not hitting the strings on every pass you create a more interesting rhythm. But even though the idea is the same, I’ve witnessed many beginning and intermediate guitarists that play great rhythm guitar really struggle with alternate picking.

Along with the exercises below, use alternate picking on all your scales, arpeggios, or whatever other exercises you practice. Work it into your regular routine until it becomes a habit.

Exercise 1: Countdown

Mute the strings with your left hand so all your focus is on your picking effort. Start on the lowest string with a downstroke, alternate pick four times, and move to the next string, continuing the alternate picking pattern to the top string and back down. Start again with only three plucks per string, then two, then one. Then do the whole thing over again but start with an upstroke. (Click on the image for a larger, easier to read size.)

Notice that when you pluck the first string an odd number of times, the following string starts with an upstroke. Pay attention to how your pick moves from the downstroke of one string to the upstroke of the next, especially when you’re picking once per string.

Exercise 2: Minimal Effort

To increase picking speed, you have to relax your hand and use the smallest movement necessary to hit the string and come back the other direction. You can do this exercise using the same pattern as Exercise 1, and also apply it to Exercise 3 below.

Start with the pick at rest on the top of the string. Pluck the string with a downstroke and then immediately rest it on the underside of the string. Play an upstroke and immediately rest it on the top of the string. Repeat. Go slow and take as much time as you need between each movement. You’ll build up speed as your muscles learn the minimum amount of effort needed to pluck a string.

Exercise 3: String Skipping

This series of exercises is similar to those above, but we’ll be skipping strings, making your picking hand cover more distance. These exercises will help you arpeggiate chords more deliberately, very useful for playing rhythm guitar.

More Guitar Picking Techniques

Speed: Picking fast has always been one of my weaknesses. The key to playing faster is to simply relax. Playing music has never been a feat of strength, but when we run into fast tempos it’s natural to tense up and try to plow through. To help relax your picking hand, relax your other hand. Tension is symmetrical. If you are gripping the neck of the guitar too hard, you’re probably also holding the pick too tightly and have too much tension in your picking hand. Relax, loosen up, and the speed will come to you!

Volume: Picking with minimal effort usually results in a quieter, smaller sound. If you don’t pluck the string very hard, it’s not going to ring very much! I picked up a tip from somebody I play with in a bluegrass band:

If you keep your fingers together, there is more mass focused on the pick, and you’ll automatically get more volume. It’s simply a matter of physics. I’ve also heard of guys practicing with a stone in their picking hand, which just takes the idea a step further.

Keep the fingers of your picking hand together to increase volume.

Velocity also creates volume. The faster the pick moves when it plucks the string, the more volume you’ll get. This doesn’t mean you have to play harder, rather you just have to learn to play through the string. Strike the string like you mean it! The exercises above will help develop the control and confidence you need to do that.

Improving Tone: Ever notices how a dozen guitar players playing the same acoustic guitar can all sound different? This is because so much of our tone comes from the way we pick the strings. I’ve experimented with many types of picks looking for something that suits my playing style, but ultimately, anything with a smooth surface and clean release can produce good tone.

The key is to hold the pick at a slight angle to the string so you are actually picking with the edge, and not just the flat side. Your tone also changes depending on how close to the bridge or neck you pluck the string and what string you play the note on. Great players will constantly adjust their pick angle and where they attack the string to create a more interesting and musical sound.

Hold your guitar pick at an angle to the string for a bigger tone.

Playing Triplets: One of the dilemmas with alternate picking is that you’re locked into an 8th note or 16th note rhythm. The constant down/up is great for keeping steady time when the beat is divided evenly, but what about odd divisions like triplets? There are a few ways to play through triplets:

• Slur – A hammer-on or pull-off between two of the notes prevents the rhythm from interrupting the down/up motion of the pick.
• Double Downstroke – If you alternate pick a triplet, the third note will be a downstroke. Follow that with another downstroke for the next beat. This is naturally easier if the note on the next downbeat is on a higher string, so the pick can continue in a downward motion across the adjacent string, very similar to the next technique…
• Sweep Picking – This is where you pick several adjacent strings in the same direction, literally sweeping across the strings. Like strumming but in a slower, controlled manner. Sweep picking triplets is especially ideal for arpeggios or larger intervals, but with creative fretwork you can work out scaler lines with sweeps.

Articulating: Finally, to keep your playing interesting, you’ll need to learn to accent some notes while ghosting, or barely playing, others. This creates a more dynamic arc to your melodies. To work on this, play the exercises above but accent the first of every four notes, then the second, third, and so on. Learn how it feels to play adjacent notes so the technique can happen naturally when you’re playing melodies.

If you found this lesson helpful, please see my other guitar related posts, and check back occasionally for more Woodshed Wednesday free guitar lessons.