Hey everybody. I hope your weekend was a delight and that you’re excited for the coming week. This post is about turning an etude into a tune. Though this is an instrumental guitar tune that I wrote from an etude I made, the exercises and applications work for all instruments. Let’s give it a listen right away and then dive into the discussion. Scroll a little further below to see my video playthrough.
Listen here:
What is an etude?
An etude is generally a piece composed to focus on developing a specific technique. I was practicing and found a few hiccups when I was playing between eighth note triplets and sixteenth notes so I decided to write a little etude to work on this. I came up with two different phrases/segments that are in today’s track: the arpeggio section going between eighth note triplets and sixteenth notes, and the opening phrase in different octaves.
I started writing out the opening line and then began expanding on it. This took me from playing the original line to moving it down an octave with a scale passage. Then I repeated this again because of the accessibility on my 7-string guitar. When I reached the lowest portion of the passage I decided to change it up a bit and give it some rhythmic variation. This allowed me to go from working on straight alternate picking of eighth note triplets to working on disjunct rhythms still based on eighth note triplets while adding in a little bit of string skipping and rhythm guitar practice.
The last portion of the guitar section before the melody kicks in was a deliberate attempt to write something in the Locrian mode. Locrian is an odd mode where it isn’t stable and doesn’t really permit melodies or compositions to be written specifically with it because of the home chord being diminished, so I wanted to take a shot at making a section just based on that mode. This ended up lending itself to the first sixteenth note section leading up to the melody in a typical classical passage as seen below (standard tuning on a 7-string guitar):
Once I hit the melody section, I actually just improvised the whole thing while was recording. After that, I went back and transcribed what I wrote into Guitar Pro 8 so I could add bass and drums to it. I wanted to make the etude a little bit more musical and have focus on melody as well as playing expressive phrases, so that helped turn it from an etude on alternate picking to an actual tune. The melody is the first section with arpeggios going from eighth note triplets to sixteenth notes. It also foreshadows what is later to come with the position shifts in the sixteenth note section as seen below:
Following the melody is a truncated version of the opening where I skip past the middle octave section and go straight from the opening passage down to the low rhythmic section. I follow this with the arpeggio section and then the solo section. See how I placed the arpeggios below:
Notice how the arpeggios shift position going up and down. This allows for mobility across the fretboard as well as focusing on each arpeggio triad in their various positions. The next part of this section focused on alternate picking between eighth note triplets and sixteenth notes as seen below:
I wanted to work on a combination of expression and speed for the solo, so I mixed slow melodic phrases with faster passages as seen in the first four bars of the solo below:
After the solo section I just repeated the opening section of the piece and ended with the first bar. This allowed a recall to the different techniques while creating a cohesive and accessible tune that isn’t just strictly an etude but, yet, works perfectly as one.
Video playthrough:
An important thing with any of our journeys in any field that we pursue is to focus on our weaknesses. One of the amazing things about music – and being human, really – is that we can create something beautiful out of just an attempt to improve on techniques or shortcomings. This piece that I’ve presented to you allows you to work on several aspects of playing such as:
- Alternate picking
- Switching between rhythms
- Expressive playing
- Various levels of speed and velocity of playing
- Turning an exercise into a full piece of music
- Developing a single line into various sections and parts
When I was recording this originally I kept flubbing notes here and there and was getting rather frustrated. My lovely partner suggested I take a nap so I did. After waking up I was rejuvenated and knocked off the whole recording in one sitting. Sleeping and naps are the human equivalent of “turning off and turning it back on again.” Sometimes we just need to reset before we can move forward. Another little tidbit with sleeping after working on something heavy or important to us is that it helps us to form pathways and solidify what we’ve been working on and/or learning.
While I’ve been working on writing material, I’m still learning other tracks which were actually inspiration for this whole track and article. The title of the track for today is “Temple of Glasgow” because of the inspiration taken from “Glasgow Kiss” and “Temple of Circadia” by John Petrucci.
Parting thoughts
On all of my recordings, including the solos, I always double track the takes. This means I play it through twice and get it as accurately as possible. You could just copy and paste one of the tracks but that doesn’t work the same way. Double tracking fattens up the sound while copy-pasting just makes it slightly louder. It also lets you know whether or not you recorded the take by fluke or if you’ve actually practiced enough to recreate it to near perfection. This is a great tool and exercise in gauging your progress, strengths, and weaknesses.
Never forget about the advantages of using your metronome. To paraphrase John Petrucci, a metronome is like seeing how much weight you can lift at any given time. It’s a progress bar with a number set to it that we can use to see where our rhythmic strengths and weaknesses sit. Here’s something you’ve heard way too many times: to improve, start slow and gradually increase the tempo. Don’t increase it by 10 BPM each time, increase it by smaller increments around 1-3 BPM. It’s a slow process but it’s worth it.
Another thing that helps is finding a good teacher to guide you on your path to your viewed level of success and accomplishment. I’m offering 10% off lessons and 5% off packages for a limited time, so email me at [email protected] or contact me on my website to inquire and book your slot(s) today.
As always, feel free to ask any questions or leave any comments. Let me know what kind of song/topic you’d like me to write about in the comment section or by contacting me. Thank you for your time and have yourself an amazing week.
All the best,
– Matt