Last week, I showed how we could start generating scale patterns built around the circle of fifths. As promised, we’re going to up the stakes this week.
As you might recall, we created two kinds of exercises: “templates” (large patterns for navigating the circle of fifths) and “cells” (little patterns to play on each note of a template). Today I’m going to introduce two new types of cells: up a fourth and down a fifth.
First, our “up” cells – we could also use these as “tags” by adding them to the end of the simple cells from last week.
Now, our “down” cells – personally I think they sound a little better in the upcoming key (hence the b-flats):
Now we have plenty of material to mix and match. A nice way to practice this might be to print out the templates only and follow along with those as you try various “cell” combinations.
As you might have noticed, some of the up cells are obvious matches to the down cells, while others contrast melodically or rhythmically. It might be easier to start by matching, eg: iv-v.
For more challenge, let’s try a “mixed” example:
