Modern Legato Part 3
MODERN LEGATO
Part ThreeConstructing Lines
by Tom Quayle Hey there guys, and
! welcome to the third part of
my Modern Legato tutorial.
For those of you who are
coming into this series
without checking out parts
one and two I would
certainly recommend them
as a starting point as they
contain all the fundamental
technical requirements and
ideas that culminate in this
lesson. However, they are not
a pre-requisite and should
be seen as stand-alone
tutorials in their own right, so
rest safe in the knowledge
that you are still going to get
a lot of legato goodness
from this lesson.
This tutorial is quite different
from the previous two in that
it deals primarily not with the
technical aspects of legato
Picture by Laurie Monk
playing, but rather the
elements that make up my
thought processes when it
comes to line construction
and changes playing. Youll
be developing key skills that
will allow you to play long,
flowing lines improvisation-
ally, whether dealing with a
single chord vamp or the
most complex set of chord
changes.
1
Modern Legato Part 3
The first element well be
dealing with here is the
concept of breaking down
the long legato lines that I
play into very small,
digestible and more
importantly, manipulatable
fragments. These fragments
can be strung together to
create longer lines that
traverse the fretboard in a
huge number of ways. Well
be splitting our fragments
into four categories - Scale
Fragments, Arpeggio
Fragments, Chromatic
Fragments and Transitional
Fragments.
Rhythmic Awareness
The second part of this
tutorial deals with your
awareness of how many
notes you are playing
within your lines. In other
words, when youre playing
a line do you find yourself
resolving it where you want
to finish or do you trip up
rhythmically and find it
difficult to control the
length and end point of
your phrase. If youve ever
started a complex
improvised line and felt
that feeling of uncertainty
and a lack of rhythmic
control then you know
what Im talking about
here. I often encounter
students with this problem
who can play really cool
lines but find it difficult to
resolve their phrases well
rhythmically and display
control over where the
phrase ends within the bar.
To practice developing this
rhythmic control well be
using a very simple
exercise that can be scaled
to a number of difficulty
levels depending on where
you feel youre at in your
own playing. I recommend
starting from the beginning
for now. The exercise
involves picking a sub-
division of the bar and
working out how many
notes it takes to fill the bar
Scale fragments are small connection tones on fragments and then practice
passages of notes on the adjacent strings, we can manipulating them and
same string. create long and interesting moving between them.
Arpeggio fragments are lines that have an infinite Gradually, this process will
phrases built form 3rd number of possible become so fluid and natural
intervals starting from any directions. to you that youll be able to
finger. Youll find an accompanying improvise lines of the same
PDF file that outlines all of quality that you compose.
Chromatic fragments
the fragments and the video Experimentation will lead to
contain chromatic passing
shows you a host of lines and experience and once you
tones, adding harmonic
ways that you can combine have enough experience
interest to the line.
them to make lines. You will youll be confidently creating
Transitional fragments
also be able to find your own complex flowing lines all
allow for position shifts
fragments and arrange them over the fretboard. Needless
using a pivotal finger
in ways that suit your to say, good fretboard
placement or slides
particular playing style and knowledge is a pre-requisite
By combining each of these
the sound you have in your here.
fragments types together
along with one and two note
head. As ever, learn the !
and play one extra note on
beat one of the next bar.
For example, for a bar of
8th notes in 4/4 we require
8 notes to fill the bar and
one extra note to resolve
our phrase into beat one of
the following bar totalling
9 notes. If we used 16th
notes we would require a
17 note phrase to resolve
onto beat one of the new
bar. For 8th note triplets we
require 13 notes and for
16th note triplets we need
25 notes.
Starting with 8th notes at a
tempo that is comfortable
for you, start to construct
legato phrases that start on creating phrases that are 13 practice playing lines that
beat one and contain the 9 notes long. The feel will be last for two bars, resolving
required notes to resolve different as youre now onto the first beat of the
onto beat one of the next working with odd third bar. You could practice
bar. Each phrase that you numbered groupings as resolving your phrases half
construct should be unique opposed to the even way through the bar on
- you are not trying to groupings of 8th notes. Net beats two, three or four or
develop a catalogue of move on to 16th note even on off beat 8th, 16th
phrases or licks here, but phrases and finally 16th or triplets at any point
rather develop the skills note triplet phrases. You within the bar. The point is
required to improvise them may need to alter the to setup a specific rhythmic
on the spot. After a short tempo to suit your technical scenario and get good at
period of time youll have level but over time youll improvising lines within it.
developed an aural and find that you are building a
physical awareness of what significant ability to
a nine note phrase sounds construct lines that resolve
and feels like and this will in a rhythmically strong
become part of your manner. Once you feel
rhythmic vocabulary on an comfortable with all of
improvisational level. Now these sub-divisions you can
repeat the same exercise start to move the end point
but with 8th note triplets, of your phrases. Perhaps
2
Modern Legato Part 3
The final part of Modern
Legato part 3 deals with
the problem that occur
when attempting to
improvise using legato
technique over chord
changes. Many of the
challenges you face when
playing over chord
changes are of course not
unique to legato
technique, such as
fretboard knowledge,
chord scale relationships,
phrasing, motivic
development and
harmonic/aural
awareness. These
elements will be left to
other tutorials and Ill be
making the assumption
that you have at least
some awareness of what
scales to play over each
chord and where those
scales are located on the
fretboard. If not then I
suggest working on those
aspects of your
knowledge and playing
before worrying about the
topics in this section of
the tutorial but even if you
only know minor
pentatonic scales and the
Dorian mode youll be
able to get a lot from this
section.
One of the biggest
problems with legato
ENJOY THE VIDEO &
GOOD LUCK!
technique is that we all
get very familiar with
particular scale and
arpeggio fingerings that
flow under our fingers in
one key or harmonic area.
As we approach each new
string the layout of notes
feels familiar and usually
fits under the fingers in a
logical manner. I
demonstrate this idea on
the video to give you a
better idea of what Im
talking about but if youve
ever run up and down a
Dorian scale using legato
Im sure it feels very
familiar to you by now and
requires little in the way of
thought. Once we change
key or scale to fit a new
chord, the transition from
our previous scale to the
new one can throw our
fingers out of sync and
feel unfamiliar to most
people. Usually, once
people are into the new
scale, they are fine
(providing their fretboard
knowledge is good
enough) but the transition
often causes problems
and if the transition goes
awry then the rest of the
line will follow suit. In
order to solve this issue
we need to practice those
transitions, developing
Legato Over Chord Changes
the ability to think ahead
somewhat with our line to
negotiate the more
complex fingering and
aural/visual issues that
occur during the chord
change. If you have
become adept at the first
part of this tutorial and
can construct lines that
are interesting over one
chord then this new idea
shouldnt be too hard to
practice as it is achieved
in much the same way. In
order to practice the
changes between each
scale effectively we simply
need to slow down and
visualise the transitions at
a tempo that allows us to
think ahead a little bit and
be ready to negotiate the
more complex fingerings
required to make the
scale change smoothly.
Thinking ahead a few
notes is similar to the way
chess players think ahead
a few moves in a match.
You want to slowly build
up the ability to see and
hear where the line wants
to go and have the
technical facility to
negotiate that line without
tripping up over the
unfamiliar fingerings.
Because you cant
possibly practice every
fingering that might occur
in the middle of the line
you are practicing to
develop control over your
technique and not to have
the technique control you
and dictate the direction
of the line down the
easiest path or fingering
every time. Slow practice
yields the best results as
you have time to think,
leading you eventually to
an ability to process this
information on a sub-
conscious level freeing up
your mind from technical
thoughts, allowing you to
focus on the music. The
exercises are explained,
demonstrated and
transcribed on the
accompanying video and
PDF files so youll have
plenty of tangible
examples to try out. The
main thing here though is
to practice those chord
change transitions as
slowly as you need to in
order to develop the
technical and visual facility
to play what you want to
play, not what the guitar
or your fingers tell you to.
!
Tom Quayle