This blog has been primarily created to document and showcase various interests of mine. The initial motivation was to help promote my “wood and woodworking” business. In doing this, I have been reminded of other ideas and experience I would like to share. As I put things together, I can only think of time and how indescribably valuable it is. My hands are busy working with wood but I find I want to write about my musical journey and musings. I will be writing and showcasing both (and probably more) here at this site and continuing to explore where they might meet and overlap. My first music/guitar article follows:
Theory of Exhaustion (side note: My 2 favorite guitar books are “Chord Chemistry” by Ted Greene and “The Advancing Guitarist” by Mick Goodrick.)
The theory of exhaustion is the idea of exhausting all the possibilities (combinations, shapes) of a set (or sets). The “set” can be numbers, notes, colors, anything really… it could be a concept or set of rules, etc… This is also like mapping out an uncharted area. Like exploring a video game. One could do this systematically or be like Leroy Jenkins and just do it (or both over time). I’m going to use our right hand and a guitar for the examples in this article.
This theory involves systematic exploration, imagination, structure, and form. Cycling through sets and combining multiple sets produce combinations and connections with multidimensional layers. Hahaha!
When I was a kid, I had a friend print out all the combinations of the numbers 1-12. The numbers represented the Chromatic scale. The idea here is that Western music is 1 big scale of 12 notes and all other scales and chords are derived from it. The same as words are derived from their respective alphabet. Using this list (and others, independently or in combination) I’ve been systematically exploring music ever since. I’ve included a couple examples.
How many ways could one play a note (or notes) on a piano (or guitar for that matter) using the thumb and fingers on one hand. The answer is 31. If we number the thumb and fingers of the right hand as follows:
1 thumb
2 index
3 middle
4 ring
5 pinky
We get these combinations:
1
2
3
4
5
1, 2
2, 3
3, 4
4, 5
1, 3
2, 4
3, 5
1, 4
2, 5
1, 5
1, 2, 3
2, 3, 4
3, 4, 5
1, 3, 4
2, 4, 5
1, 4, 5
1, 2, 4
2, 3, 5
1, 2, 5
1, 3, 5
1, 2, 3, 4
1, 3, 4, 5
1, 2, 4, 5
1, 2, 3, 5
2, 3, 4, 5
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Except for the first 5, these could all be played sequentially (melodically) or simultaneously (harmonically/ chords).
Probably the most common type of guitar is a 6 string version (Modern guitars can contain many different numbers of strings). The strings on a standard 6 string guitar are numbered and tuned as follows:
1 = E “high” (thinnest string)
2 = B
3 = G
4 = D
5 = A
6 = E “low” (thickest string)
How many string “sets” can we come up with? I found 60.
1
2
3
4
5
6
1, 2
1, 3
1, 4
1, 5
1, 6
2, 3
2, 4
2, 5
2, 6
3, 4
3, 5
3, 6
4, 5
4, 6
5, 6
1,2,3
2,3,4
3,4,5
4,5,6
1,2,4
1,2,5
1,2,6
2,3,5
2,3,6
3,4,6
1,3,4
2,4,5
3,5,6
1,3,5
1,3,6
1,4,5
2,5,6
1,4,6
1,5,6
1,2,3,4
2,3,4,5
3,4,5,6
1,2,3,5
1,2,3,6
1,3,4,5
1,3,4,6
1,4,5,6
2,4,5,6
1,2,4,5
2,3,5,6
1,2,5,6
1,3,5,6
1,2,3,4,5
2,3,4,5,6
1,2,3,4,6
1,2,3,5,6
1,2,4,5,6
1,3,4,5,6
1,2,3,4,5,6
Each of the above entries can be played melodically and all can be played harmonically except the first 6 individual strings. Each combination has a particular sound and shape, including physical attributes like string locations and distances. This set would have particular sounds related to the underlying tuning of the guitar. Don’t forget all the patterns above can be mixed and combined into what seems like unlimited patterns.
The applications of this “Theory of Exhaustion” are only limited by your energy.
Let me know if you have any comments or questions.