I’ll second this. IT can be arbitrary, but making it consistently arbitrary… I’m having a hard time following this and the varied numbering sequences is part of that.
2 Likes
So my issue with this, and the many proposed precursors to what has been shaping up into the master work, is the practical application.
What is the practical application? We can even reference patents here since they came up. Even when filing a patent, there is usually (not always) an intent of practical application involved, even if abstract.
Maybe not my place to answer, but maybe an outside perspective is helpful. Who knows.
Broadly speaking? None at all. It’s a compendium of every possible sequence of pickstrokes and string changes up to an arbitrary number of notes. I guess you could argue that makes it akin to a dictionary is to language, which is handy to have but no one ever cites Merriam-Webster Third Edition as their favorite bedtime reading. A dictionary puts it too strongly, I suppose, since not only is it a collection of words, it’s also a guide to spell them, pronounce them, define them, and often times provide some etymology. It’s maybe more akin to a dictionary and Scrabble, in that it simply defines a universe. This doesn’t help you make music.
Specifically speaking? I’ve kind of warmed to the project in this respect, I guess. I’ve done my share of pointless, tedious, and from an outside standpoint probably pretty insane projects here and there as a learning process, and maybe most applicable here I remember one time sitting down and coming up with as many different variations of the 1-2-3-4 chromatic drill as a finger dexterity exercise once. Musically worthless… but it helped me get my head around some things and probably did help me build up fretting hand strength, dexterity, and coordination. And, I think sometimes the act of setting an arbitrary goal and seeing it through to the bitter end can be a really, really good tool - learning process, study aid, heck, sometimes even a songwriting tool. Similarly every once in a while I’ll sit down and make up a music jargon-y phrase, something like “ascending diatonic thirds,” and then just try to do something musical based around that phrase. You could do something similar here, pick “sequence 36,” and then take that picking motif, and then try to write a melody based on it, and maybe that could be an interesting way to jump start the creative process.
But, I think as long as that’s sort of the goal here, no real concern for broader applicability, just “this is a challenge I’ve assigned myself; to diagram out all possible four-note picking sequences and practice them all, as a way of improving my technique,” then, cool, it’s not a rabbit hole I want to go down, but there are no shortages of rabbit holes in this world and we should all find a couple to chase. If on the other hand this becomes more of a “so-and-so isn’t really able to alternate pick because he can’t play sequence 87,” then there’s enough gatekeeping in the guitar world as it is and I might push back a little on that as maybe a not really healthy exercise. Difference between creating an arbitrary yardstick for yourself, and an arbitrary yardstick to hold others to, I guess.
1 Like
This is the vibe I was getting.
1 Like
Initially, me too, but as this conversation’s gone on, I’m no longer convinced. It’s feeling more like a self-test, because how else could you apply this? The odds of all of those combinations organically coming up in a single player’s playing are so astronomically low that it seems hard to look at an outside player’s vocabulary this way.
1 Like
I’ve spent so much time saying this about myself that I’ve neglected a lot of non-alternate-picking aspects of playing guitar, like “sweeping” and “learn one cool tapping lick to impress randos” and “learning songs all the way through.” It’s a very dangerous, corrosive mindset to get into, for sure.
1 Like