post-shred tetrachordal trick for simple melodies

Okay, check this out. A long time ago I did a little shredder spoof by combining a retarded backing track with the melody of "Bingo was his name-o" -- it was just supposed to be a laugher.

But, even though it was a musical joke, there is something cool going on with the melody even though it is simple and stupid -- and it's a trick you can use as a kind of "multiplier" if you want to add complexity to a melody with few notes.

here's the tune (a small download):

http://www.station185.com/kronoson/kronosonic/Demos_Sounds/Rising%20Farce%20Or%20Bingo%20Yngwingo%20by%20Bofatron.mp3

Each note of the melody (let's assume the basic melody is comprised of 8th notes) has been "multiplied" in a way by playing a tetrachord (4-note scale) in place of the single note (so, in effect, instead of 8th notes you get 32nd notes) BUT! and this is the important part, as you listen to the track you'll notice that the effect is still that you're listening to 8th notes that have 4 sides to each of them them...kinda prismatic 8th notes instead of plain vanilla 8th notes. The surplus notes more or less swirl around the tonic.

The criteria for note choice would be the same for any chord scale:

C = C D E G
G = G A B C
etc...

this works great when the original melody is made up of half notes and quarter notes especially

If you want to give it a try there's a lesson at my homepage that goes more in-depth

http://kronosonic.com

That's nifty! Cool! Like the title too..
I'm a senior member so I have to be quite nonchalent and have only a limited number of exclamation marks at my disposal... (exclamation mark).
I'm happy to keep my full stops though......
Not sure I agree that it's POST shred though..
Post shred'd be tapping in two different timings with each hand, like in 3rds of a bar with one hand and 5ths with the other where there's no even divisor. I'm such a pedant! Not pretending I can do it, God that would be awesome!

Yeah, tapping, I was working on two kinds of tapping in the past: the first kind is tapping with the picking hand while hybrid picking with the rest of the fingers...kinda tough and I didn't stay at it and the 2nd style is what I call "virtual tapping" such that you get the wide interval leaps but not using two hands on the fretboard...it proved possible but difficult to explain except in person. A lot of my demo tunes use it...

Glad you like it.

I call it "post shred" because I'm not a shredder in the neo-classical style yet I can play pretty fast...in a way I was always trying to develop some kind of avant rock style of technical playing...I don't know, kinda tough to express. ;-)

http://kronosonic.com

Good stuff!
I've been working on tapping with my thumb. Yhe thing is you can get some great runs using your right hand thumb as well as your fingers - try some route position arpeggios and use the edge of your thumb. It's actually easier than using just your fingers. You might want to see some of my postings on the topic:

http://www.guitartricks.com/2000/trick.php?trick_id=5625
http://www.guitartricks.com/2000/trick.php?trick_id=6129
http://www.guitartricks.com/2000/trick.php?trick_id=5624

I can now play exclusively right handed melodies at a fair pace.

thanks, I'll check that out. I've never tried using the thumb before...I'll see how it goes.

http://kronosonic.com

by the way, your website looks damn good, I look forward to surveying it on a faster connection. My boss has broadband.

Thanks, I'm glad you like it. I put a lot of work into it over the last few years...seems like I spent more time deleting stuff and revising it than expanding it.
It doesn't seem to get bigger, in other words, but I hope better.

I'm devoting my energy now to writing a book which will be like the site multiplied by 10 if you get my meaning. Maybe before 2004 comes to an end I'll have her finished.

http://kronosonic.com