Guitar Player Magazine Chopsbuilder Column featuring:
Fourths, Fifths, Flash by Jean-Marc Belkadi / October 2002 Issue.
Perfect Fourths are easy to find on the guitar. Just strum the open strings in standard tuning and you’ll hear
several fourths. Perfect fifths, too, aren’t hard to spot. Bang on an open-position E chord, and you’ll find one
between the two lowest strings. Ironically, though these simple intervals sound cool and are right at our fingertips,
few guitarists know how to incorporate them into their solos.
However, hotshots like Joe Diorio and Rodney Jones- perhaps inspired by intrepid Jazz pioneers such as John
Coltrane and Mc Coy Tyner- play spectacular lines like the one in EX1. Starting on the end of beat four in the pick
up measure, this pattern uses descending fifths and ascending fourths to surf the F major scale in a dazzling
manner. (The pattern also works in D minor.) If you can play just the first six notes, you’ve got this lick nailed. To
complete it, just repeat the same fingering three frets down, starting with the 4th finger at the twelfth position. Voila!
Fuse the catchy riff from “ Message in a Bottle” by the Police with the exhilarating head to Eddie Harris’s modal
classic, “Freedom Jazz Dance” and you might get EX. 2. It introduces two new fingering shapes for rising and
falling fourths and fifths. Try these moves over the Am11 chord shown here, or in the keys of E minor or C major.
Finally, see if you can integrate all three of these fingerings into a solo. In EX. 3, the 12 pitches that cover the
first three beats twice employ the six-note shape we learned in EX.1, while the rest of the example uses grips from
EX.2. The amazing thing is how angular, adventurous, and “outside” all of these diatonic licks sound-they add wild
colors, yet never step out of their respective keys.
Fourths, Fifths, Flash by Jean-Marc Belkadi / October 2002 Issue.
Perfect Fourths are easy to find on the guitar. Just strum the open strings in standard tuning and you’ll hear
several fourths. Perfect fifths, too, aren’t hard to spot. Bang on an open-position E chord, and you’ll find one
between the two lowest strings. Ironically, though these simple intervals sound cool and are right at our fingertips,
few guitarists know how to incorporate them into their solos.
However, hotshots like Joe Diorio and Rodney Jones- perhaps inspired by intrepid Jazz pioneers such as John
Coltrane and Mc Coy Tyner- play spectacular lines like the one in EX1. Starting on the end of beat four in the pick
up measure, this pattern uses descending fifths and ascending fourths to surf the F major scale in a dazzling
manner. (The pattern also works in D minor.) If you can play just the first six notes, you’ve got this lick nailed. To
complete it, just repeat the same fingering three frets down, starting with the 4th finger at the twelfth position. Voila!
Fuse the catchy riff from “ Message in a Bottle” by the Police with the exhilarating head to Eddie Harris’s modal
classic, “Freedom Jazz Dance” and you might get EX. 2. It introduces two new fingering shapes for rising and
falling fourths and fifths. Try these moves over the Am11 chord shown here, or in the keys of E minor or C major.
Finally, see if you can integrate all three of these fingerings into a solo. In EX. 3, the 12 pitches that cover the
first three beats twice employ the six-note shape we learned in EX.1, while the rest of the example uses grips from
EX.2. The amazing thing is how angular, adventurous, and “outside” all of these diatonic licks sound-they add wild
colors, yet never step out of their respective keys.
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