IT'S ALL PATTERNS

No matter how you cut it -- whether you talking scales , chords, chord progressions, notation -- learning to play a musical instrument involves memorizing patterns. Thank goodness the human brain is well equipped to handle them all. Indeed our very thoughts form patterns.

Deciphering the patterns of music itself, in other words understanding the theory of it all, is difficult enough. There is nothing symmetrical about music, in fact it's the deviation from regularity that gives it such a richness of possibilities. Add to that the kink in the standard tuning of the guitar, and you've got yourself a real puzzle. No wonder so many beginners give up trying to figure it out.

Where to begin?

Let's start with music itself. To my mind, the most important pattern of music is the relationship of the seven notes / chords of the KEY. I've said it many times before, but knowing your 12 keys -- inside and out, backwards and forwards -- literally is the key to coming to grips with it all. Because the pattern of the Major Scale, that Do Re Mi sequence, is irregular ( tone tone semitone, tone tone tone semitone), and the pattern of seven chords built from that sequence is also irregular ( Major, minor, minor, Major, Major, minor, half diminished), the pattern certainly doesn't leap out at you. It's pretty smeared out, but once you do remember it and form a mental picture of the structure, it become totally reliable and will forever more provide the framework to everything else, especially when you get to the point of actually hearing the pattern.

After all these years, when I listen to the radio I can't help but mentally chart each tune as I hear it. I don't have perfect pitch so I can't actually name the chords as they come and go, but my brain hears them as One chords, Two chords, Three chords etc. OF THE KEY. Each of the seven chords has a particular function within the key, a certain sound, a certain context to the key, which I simply hear. It's easier than it may seem -- most of us know the sound of the three chords of the 12 bar blues progression ( for example E, A and B). They are the 3 major chords of the key. The three minors are a little more difficult to pin down, the half diminished is not worth worrying about, but once you hear them, you'll always hear them.

Here is the pattern:

Chromatic scale:  |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |
|    |


Major scale:         I        II      III  IV      V       VI     VII  I


Chord:                 M      m      m  M       M      m      h/d M

So that's the music side of it, in a very small nutshell. Believe it or not, almost all music is contained within that structure. Now we must apply that irregular, smeared out pattern to a fretboard which is also irregular. That kink, where the B string is tuned to the 4th fret of the next string down, as opposed to the 5th fret rule all the other strings follow, is the main source of angst. It's not easy to mentally accommodate that kink. All patterns come undone when they hit that kink -- chord patterns change, fingering patterns for scales change, double stop patterns change.

So what's the trick?

Many years ago, I decided to minimize my thinking. My brain was awash with patterns. What I was looking for was a pattern that contained all others. I found it hiding in chords, specifically, triads. A triad is the smallest chord possible, containing only one of each required note -- a One, a Three and a Five. I won't go into the detail here for a couple of reasons: one, as simple as it is, explaining it takes a while. Two, because of reason number one, I wrote a book about it called PlaneTalk.

It's a comic strip conversation between the guy who knows and the guy who doesn't. I have them sitting together on a plane, hence the title. I drew all the pictures, which took me months and I also invented the Guitar Slide Rule, which encapsulates the technique at a glance. I also recently finished the video which demonstrates it all, so forgive me for being cryptic here. Suffice it to say that there is an all encompassing pattern, a compact method of viewing all music on the fretboard, from nut to sound hole. A master pattern, so to speak.

If you're interested in reading more about the book, which goes out all over the World now, drop in for a visit: http://lorange.kirk.net There's plenty of free stuff there too, such as slide lessons, dropped D tuning lessons, 'fretscapes' and if you go to http://mp3.com/kirklorange you can download a bunch of my slide instrumentals for free. If you're just starting out, I recommend my site http://www.guitarforbeginners.com Its plain English approach is proving a hit with beginners.

All the best from Tamborine Mountain, Australia.

Kirk