Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns

I'm having trouble using Nicolas Slonimsky's book entitled Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns whick I bought last month. It doesn't provite any explanation whatsoever. If someone can give some insights with regards to the topic, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. :confused:

I have the book - the version I have is notation only and any discussion is based on piano, so it's fairly hard going for guitar players. It is an amazing book though...

Can you be more specific on where you're having trouble? Alot of ground gets covered...

-ren

I have been studying music theory all by myself for four years now. But honestly, I'm having trouble in getting started. I mean, I have no idea on how to use the book in its entirely and I have never read the discussion based on piano.
Although I have played some of it, I have never quite understood its music. I am hoping that I could get some insights on how to apply the contents of the book. Thanks...

Originally Posted by: shredevilI'm having trouble using Nicolas Slonimsky's book entitled Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns whick I bought last month.

The purpose of the book was to give the "modern musician" (circa early 1900's) a resource for playing all the weird patterns that modern classical composers were putting into their weird pieces.

Typically, when a musician practices, they work on scales, chords and permutations of those because that is what they will encounter in actual musical pieces. In "modern classical" (atonal, polytonal, serial, pandiatonicism, etc.) regular tonal patterns were completely avoided. So when it came time to attempt actually playing these pieces many musicians were very ill-equipped (ed. note: which is not a bad thing IMO :p ).

Slonimsky's book was one way of dealing with problem. But it was done based up a very specific premise: he "splits the octave" in non-standard divisions, and then proceeds to methodically apply various permutations.

"Splitting the octave" means to arbitrary divide an octave or more of notes into equal segments and then play those segments as if they had musical function unto themselves. (Which frequently they don't but that is another discussion).

So let's take an octave of notes starting on C:
c-c#-d-d#-e-f-f#-g-g#-a-a#-b

And "split it" in "two equal pieces":
(c-c#-d-d#-e-f-) (f#-g-g#-a-a#-b)

Leaving the space between f and f sharp at the "center". This is why the first exercise (one of the first?) has c and f#. Then you "approach" the notes c and f# from one step below and above and call it "interpolation" and "extrapolation", etc.

Try a more complicated one: an octave of notes starting on C:
c-c#-d-d#-e-f-f#-g-g#-a-a#-b-c

And "split it" in three equal pieces:
(c-c#-d-d#) (e-f-f#-g) (g#-a-a#-b)

Then you have the "nodes" c - e - g# - c to work with (augmented) in various permutations. But here's where things get even weirder: using more than one octave and splitting it in unusual places.

2 octaves (later he does 5, 7, 11 octaves!):
c-c#-d-d#-e-f-f#-g-g#-a-a#-b-c-c#-d-d#-e-f-f#-g-g#-a-a#-b

And "split it" in three equal pieces (later in 4, 6, 12 parts, etc.):
(c-c#-d-d#-e-f-f#-g) (g#-a-a#-b-c-c#-d-d#) (e-f-f#-g-g#-a-a#-b)

The "nodes" are c - g# - e over two octaves with all the permutations written out.

Supposedly, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker and other jazz giants used this book to practice really "outside" lines and come up with ideas of "outside" lines to play. I've been told Shawn Lane found it quite fascinating also. The most I have ever been able to use it for is "interesting things to play over the V7 chords of jazz tunes."

While this does generate some interesting patterns the entire premise is somewhat misleading: splitting the octave amongst any given pattern gives no guarantee of musical function. In fact, splitting the octave based upon counting half steps will almost guarantee you are working against the actual acoustical nature of sound.

Last additional thought: the octave is already "split" in half by physics: the ration of frequency from any note to its octave is 2:1. And the half way between every pair of octaves is the fifth of the scale: from 1st scale degree to 5th scale degree is 1.5:1.

Shredevil,

I bought Slonimsky's book years ago and never got anything out of it either. I think I read an interview with Vai where he mentioned it.

If you want something that is much more guitar oriented and full of musical ideas you should check out Jack Zucker's Sheets of Sound book. It has tons of patterns and ideas for guitar using efficiency picking. It's in tablature and standard notation and includes pick directions and fingers where needed. It will give you a lot of new ideas for improvising and great picking exercises. I hope this helps you out.

Shredevil,

I bought Slonimsky's book years ago and never got anything out of it either. I think I read an interview with Vai where he mentioned it.

If you want something that is much more guitar oriented and full of musical ideas you should check out Jack Zucker's Sheets of Sound book. It has tons of patterns and ideas for guitar using efficiency picking. It's in tablature and standard notation and includes pick directions and fingers where needed. It will give you a lot of new ideas for improvising and great picking exercises. I hope this helps you out.

Iwould like to thank the Guitar Tricks instructor for giving me an idea of the book's utilization. I hope to explore the book in detail so I can share some insights to fellow guitarists in this forum.

As for Jack Zucker's book recommended by Paul Tauterouff; I'll try to get a copy of it sometime next month and see if can get plenty of insights. Thanks again. ;)

You're welcome Shredevil. As I said, Sheets of Sound has very musical examples. I spent an hour an a half playing through some of the examples the other night. You won't find anything with as much information in it for it's price. I should add that it's for intermediate or advanced players.

Hey Paul, I might have to check that out as well!

As far as what has helped me understand the subject more then I ever have is a combination of several confusing books and mostly a Improvisation Class I've been getting from the world class shredder, Tom Hess. If you have an interest you can view some information about the class on his website.

What a coincidence, I am in Tom Hess' Music Careers Mentoring program! It's really cool and I am learning a lot about the music business.

I've heard of this Hess fellow. Suppose to be realllly gooood. I wanted to say thanks for the ex. of first book, and thanks Paul for the suggestion of a more readily accessable alternative. Good Luck and Thanks again.

Stephen