Mixed Notes-Per-String Permutations

Show and Tell
#1

Hi. I wanted to share some of the mixed notes-per-string permutations I have been working on. I got these from Paul Gilbert. I took away the hammers and pulls, making every note picked. I also sequenced the chunks ascending horizontally, and descending vertically. I like to practice each permutation sequence starting with both a down stroke and an up stroke. As touched on earlier, Paul does not pick every note in these patterns. He sets up the picking pattern with mix of picking and legato so that every string change uses outside picking. Inside picking is entirely removed. What’s cool is that when you pick every note, depending on if you start with an upstroke or downstroke, sometimes the notes that Paul picks line up perfectly with the pure alternate picking. In other words, the picking patterns Paul uses line up perfectly with pure alternate picking, it’s just some pick strokes are omitted.

I have been practicing these permutations mostly for mechanical purposes, rather than musical ones. My longer term goal is to be able to alternate pick jazz lines using CAGED scales. The sequences do not fit neatly in CAGED scales. However, they don’t seem like a bad place to start for learning the motions necessary to play mixed notes-per-string jazz phrases.

1-2.gp5 (2.2 KB) 1-2-1.gp5 (2.6 KB) 1-2-2.gp5 (3.0 KB) 2-1.gp5 (2.3 KB) 2-2.gp5 (2.7 KB) 2-2-1.gp5 (3.0 KB) 2-3.gp5 (3.4 KB) 3-1.gp5 (3.3 KB) 3-2.gp5 (3.4 KB)

New and improved fingerings: 2-3 new.gp5 (3.4 KB) 3-1 new.gp5 (3.3 KB) 3-2 new.gp5 (3.4 KB)

3 Likes
#2

Thanks for sharing Calvin!

FYI I Moved this to Show & Tell as it seems the most appropriate place for it! I’m going to give a shot to these sequences and I expect I’ll be humbled :smiley:

#3

Man, these are EVIL. Thanks for sharing! What motions are you using with these?

#4

Hi guys, thanks for your responses.

@tommo
thank you for moving the topic to the appropriate place.

@Shredd
I’m not entirely sure. I think it’s like a blend of forearm rotation and some wrist motion.

Also, some additional notes. I can’t play these at the tempos in the guitar pro files, those are just the tempos I want to be able to play them at. Additionally, some of the fretting hand stuff is a little different from what I notated in the files. I can try to post some different fingerings I like to use later.

#5

What are you all using to open these files?

#6

Guitar Pro 7 opens 'em up for me!

Hey - thanks for these, really awesome!

#7

Thanks for these @CalvinScarified!
TuxGuitar also works and it’s free & opensource.

#8

i downloaded TuxGuitar but when I open the files from this thread or at least attempt to, nothing happens

#9

Hi guys I added three files with different fingerings. They seem to make the sequences a bit easier on the fretting hand.

@carranoj25
Maybe it’s because I made them with an older version of TuxGuitar? Do you think if I updated TuxGuitar and saved them as TuxGuitar files it might work?

#10

maybe! i just downloaded tux guitar last night haha. Could you try it if you have time?

#11

Dunno if it helps but with my version of Tuxguitar I can only open tabs by opening the software, then going to File → Open (and then browse to find the file).

If I double click on the tab file or do “right click → open with tuxguitar”, it doesn’t work :thinking:

#12

that worked! this is a cool program! can this also “auto-tab” what you are playing?

#13

There is no such thing as “auto-tab”. Maybe in the future, we’ll see some application of AI to music notation - but nothing like that is commercially available in the present.

#14

There are programs which automatically notate playing from a MIDI keyboard. I don’t know how well they do it, but it’s definitely a thing.

To “auto-tab” for guitar would probably require a guitar shaped MIDI controller, kind of like the SynthAxe.

#15

MIDI to notation works as long as the recording is heavily quantized, otherwise its a total mess. Audio to MIDI/notation has been done in a very limited way - monophonic audio can be quite accurate. MIDI based notation still does not intelligently map to efficient fretboard layouts in tab, although some programs will at least limit “impossible” fingerings and try to optimize pathfinding.

The point being that if you want accurate results in notation you need a skilled human, for the time being.

#16

Like I said, I don’t really know how well the whole MIDI to notation stuff works with keyboards, I just knew it was a thing.

My point was mostly that the idea of plugging a guitar into a computer and it tabbing out what you play in real time would probably require a special purpose built controller rather than a conventional guitar.

As for auto-tabbing from audio, I’d doubt it’s actually feasible. I know the functionality of MIDI pickups is still very limited and the reliability is questionable, and they’ve been around for decades now.

#17

Something like the Fishman Tripleplay would give you note output but you’ve still got the question of picking which fingering to go with which note.

#18

I’m certain it’s not an impossible task to create software that would render MIDI guitar pickup output to a per-string note/fret input for notation/tab display. The challenge is this particular niche does not have a large commercial or academic demand to pursue the research+development needed to accomplish it - otherwise we would already be using the technology.

Sorry to OP for turning this into an Auto-Tab thread lol.

#19

All good.

On another note, I’ve been wondering if maybe these permutations CAN be applied to CAGED scales, even though the sequences don’t really fit. I’m wondering if you can link different permutations together inside of CAGED fingerings to make longer, interesting phrases. I’ve been tinkering with this idea for a while now, although I haven’t developed any lines yet.

For 3 notes-per-string lines, I like to take “chunks” and link them together into long phrases. John Petrucci talks about this in Rock Discipline as using scale fragments. I think it would be cool if I could develop a similar idea with CAGED scales.

The 9 permutations I posted are by no means exhaustive. There are more, especially if you expand from 2 or 3 strings to 4 strings. Not only that, but all these patterns are “circular”, meaning they don’t include other sequence styles, such as going from “top” to “bottom” and starting back at the “top”, or going “bottom” to “top” and starting back at the “bottom” etc.

#20

It would seem to me that rather than trying to force a certain set of coordinations into the context of CAGED scale patter, it would be more natural and more beneficial study particular CAGED based lines you like, analyze them and find the common repeating coordinations within them. Then, practice those repeating coordinations.

From there, you can go nuts. You could try adding stretches, string skips, position shifts, while maintaining the transferable coordination.