Modern Legato Part 3

MODERN LEGATO

Picture by Laurie Monk

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

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 improvisationally, 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.

Scale fragments are small

passages of notes on the

same string.

Arpeggio fragments are

phrases built form 3rd

intervals starting from any
finger.

Chromatic fragments

contain chromatic passing

tones, adding harmonic
interest to the line.
Transitional fragments
allow for position shifts
using a pivotal finger
placement or slides
By combining each of these
fragments types together
along with one and two note

connection tones on
adjacent strings, we can
create long and interesting
lines that have an infinite
number of possible
directions.
Youll find an accompanying
PDF file that outlines all of
the fragments and the video
shows you a host of lines and
ways that you can combine
them to make lines. You will
also be able to find your own
fragments and arrange them
in ways that suit your
particular playing style and
the sound you have in your
head. As ever, learn the

fragments and then practice

manipulating them and
moving between them.
Gradually, this process will
become so fluid and natural
to you that youll be able to
improvise lines of the same
quality that you compose.
Experimentation will lead to
experience and once you
have enough experience
youll be confidently creating
complex flowing lines all
over the fretboard. Needless
to say, good fretboard
knowledge is a pre-requisite
here.

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 subdivision of the bar and
working out how many
notes it takes to fill the bar

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
beat one and contain the 9
required notes to resolve
onto beat one of the next
bar. Each phrase that you
construct should be unique
- you are not trying to
develop a catalogue of
phrases or licks here, but
rather develop the skills
required to improvise them
on the spot. After a short
period of time youll have
developed an aural and
physical awareness of what
a nine note phrase sounds
and feels like and this will
become part of your
rhythmic vocabulary on an
improvisational level. Now
repeat the same exercise
but with 8th note triplets,

creating phrases that are 13

notes long. The feel will be
different as youre now
working with odd
numbered groupings as
opposed to the even
groupings of 8th notes. Net
move on to 16th note
phrases and finally 16th
note triplet phrases. You
may need to alter the
tempo to suit your technical
level but over time youll
find that you are building a
significant ability to
construct lines that resolve
in a rhythmically strong
manner. Once you feel
comfortable with all of
these sub-divisions you can
start to move the end point
of your phrases. Perhaps

practice playing lines that

last for two bars, resolving
onto the first beat of the
third bar. You could practice
resolving your phrases half
way through the bar on
beats two, three or four or
even on off beat 8th, 16th
or triplets at any point
within the bar. The point is
to setup a specific rhythmic
scenario and get good at
improvising lines within it.

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

Legato Over Chord Changes

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

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 subconscious 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.

ENJOY THE VIDEO &

GOOD LUCK!

!
Tom Quayle