OSIRE - Videos I.
Scales and scale patterns in practice
Learning a song or learning a system of scales?
Scales and scale patterns in practice
Vivaldi - The Four Seasons - Summer - Solo part 1
Vivaldi - The Four Seasons - Summer - Solo part 2
Vivaldi - The Four Seasons - Winter - solo part
Bach - Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 - part
Bach - D minor toccata and fugue - part
Paganini - La Campanella - main theme
Kodály - Háry János - Ebelasztin's song
Videos show much more than a thousand words. This is the way I am going to demonstrate the fundaments behind OSIRE in this section, accompanied with some words of mine, just in case you missed them...☺
First, here is something we need to clarify:
Is there really a need for OSIRE, i.e. what makes it preferable to the ordinary methodologies?
In the below paragraphs I will convince you that OSIRE is a unique methodology that mainly focuses on scale systems and scale patterns with a technical approach, which none of the other methodologies apply.
Learning a song or learning a system of scales?
During my instrumental studies, which included the guitar, the bass guitar and the piano, I came across many methodologies, none of which were logically structured. Each and every one of them gave me knowledge on certain things, but never in a structured and clear way. Some random scales here, some songs there. One of my former teachers once even asked me: 'What do you want to do in today's lesson?' Not a single trace of employing a solid teaching methodology.
Those so-called 'methodologies', as you can see, are no competitors to OSIRE. So the question is more like why focus on scales rather than on learning the chord progressions, solos etc. of songs.
Here is a little list I made on the five fundamental things that are necessary to call something a musical creation.
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Musically defined sound
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Consonance
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Scale formation based on nature's acoustic phenomena
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Tonality
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Music's inherent rhythmical symmetry
These things are the prerequisites to what is basically called music. (However, European roots music is a more complex thing) A little bit of restructuring will make the list elements music components:
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Rhythm
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Tonal system
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Scale system
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Harmonics (chord system)
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Melody
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Song
Apparently, all criteria must be met when composing even a simple song. Virtually, there is no music without tonal system, scale system and chord system. Here is a little figure for illustrating this:
One should first comprehend and learn these musical systems and then apply this knowledge when learning or composing musical creations, i.e. songs. The problem is when the second step comes first.
Taking a closer look at the figure, you can come to the conclusion that scale system is the first level that can be considered a base for comprehending the whole system. Although the tonal system incorporates all the key notes, which are the twelve semi-tones in the European twelve-tone equal temperament system, and these notes make up a scale (chromatic scale), music as such can only derived from the five and seven-note scales, also called pentatonics and diatonics.
To avoid misinterpretations, I have to note here: Although I have put rhythm at the bottom of the pyramid and, in fact, it partially defines what we call music, the rest of the components above it are not derived from the rhythm.
What is also apparent in the figure is that the chord system and even the melody can be derived from the scale system. However, the scale system can never be derived from the chord system or the melody. Consequently, the scale system is what's taught first and foremost to students. The OSIRE scale software can be a huge help with that.
All in all, if you want to have a global insight of music, you will have to dig way deeper than just learning songs and melodies.
But thanks God, my methodology gives you exactly what is necessary to get that knowledge.
Scales and scale patterns in practice
The previous subsection proves that the sooner you learn the scale systems, the better. This subsection intends to demonstrate how the scales and melodies, the latter appearing to be scale patterns in Pénzes Methodology, are part of the songs and solo parts (with real life examples).
First let's check out the music sheet version:
No question that even this little easy song involves serious scale systems; the songs starts out in E major (the key note), then three half-note transposings up the pitch will follow, which results in the following:
E major → F major → F sharp major → G major
(The music sheet only indicates the initial part of the song in E major)
The solo line, to which the music sheet comes down, can be played in many ways from a guitar point of view. What's important is that it remains transposable up the pitch.
OSIRE helps plot the basic scales associated with the song tonality. First here comes the E major scale:
Since this figure is just for demonstration purposes, the whole scale system needs to be broken down into the seven basic scales, in a way that all seven basic scales involve three notes per string. These three-note structures are called trichords. So here come the seven basic scales:
However, these are only for demonstrating the basic scale structures and not for matching the concerning solo line into one of them. You, provided that having the necessary knowledge over the scale systems, will find it very easy to put the solo line into these scales, whereas guitarists that only learn songs and melody lines may try to employ their superficial knowledge but will eventually fall short of the job.
Getting back to the song, the first part goes like this (it is where the F sharp Dorian and the G sharp Phrygian scales overlie each other):
The second part is kind of tricky, as it applies not only scales but triads and also four-note chords, which are played in arpeggio. For playing arpeggios there are more than one options. Here is what I pick for an E Major triad (E-G sharp-B)...
...and for a B7 (B-D sharp-F sharp-A).
Needless to say that what's been discussed so far is just scales and chords, no word said yet about scale patterns. So let's see: the general rhythm structure of the song is triplet.
OSIRE demonstrates this with 000 digits. Two chords, however, represent another triple structure, which I call shifted triple 1, demonstrated with 001 digits, and 100 digits after the back turn. The latter is used in the second part of the song, in an ever-accelerating way.
As a conclusion, the higher level of organized knowledge one has on the scale systems, the quicker and more confident these situations can be handled.
Vivaldi - The Four Seasons - Summer - Solo part 1
Mentioned and played in the Introduction with music II section, this nice solo part is a perfect example of employing many musical patterns yet being a valuable piece of music, which reflects the composer's real talent. Let's see what this part looks like:
The key note is G minor, to be more precise a G harmonic minor. Here is the full G harmonic minor scale:
The solo part can be smoothly played in two consecutive G harmonic minor scale degrees, which are the first (Minor) and the seventh (Locrian) degrees and have a trichord structure.
As for the scale patterns:
1. the first part is a descending twelve-sequence 10 scale pattern,
2. then a two-sequence 0012 3456 7654 pattern follows,
3. after that there is a six-sequence 0101 descending pattern,
4. then comes a 4012 3456 7654 scale pattern for one sequence,
5. and finally alternating notes of a G minor scale
Although this solo piece requires solid experience with guitar, Pénzes Methodology and OSIRE can considerably reduce the time and efforts necessary to learn it. The solo piece is further analyzed in Section dedicated to classical music.
Vivaldi - The Four Seasons - Summer - Solo part 2
First check out the video...
...then the music sheet:
The key note is G minor, to be more precise a G harmonic minor. Here is the full G harmonic minor scale:
The tricky part of this solo piece is not the scale patterns but the rapid chord breakdowns, which is a technique pretty hard to master. Pénzes Methodology, with all that tremendous amount of scales, helps break down the difficulties.
You can download the music sheet in Section dedicated to classical music.
Vivaldi - The Four Seasons - Winter - solo part
First check out the video...
...then the music sheet:
First of all, you have to be very well-prepared to play the semidemiquavers.
Although there are many alternative scale structures that can be used playing this solo piece, the key note must be F harmonic minor (keys: four flats), which goes like this in a full structure:
And broken down into its scale degrees:
The interpretation Zsuzsanna presents involves many dynamical trichord structures.
Consisting only of semidemiquavers, the solo piece runs at a fast pace from start to finish. Yet, you can still find traces of different scale patterns:
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In the middle of the solo piece (from the fifth bar in the music sheet) you can hear a distinct pattern that I would classify as a purely musical , i.e. non-mathematical scale pattern.
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Right after that (from the tenth bar in the music sheet) comes a descending mathematical scale pattern, describable with 1012 digits (the inverse of 1210). The whole pattern repeats at the end of the solo piece.
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In between the two 1012 digit patterns there are some other patterns involving frequent string change.
You can download the music sheet in Section dedicated to classical music.
Bach - Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 - part
Let's check out the music sheet first:
As you can see, the key note is D major. Here is the full scale structure to the D major:
There are many options to play this solo part. However, I went for the following trichords (A Mixolydian, G Lydian, F sharp Phrygian):
There is a very apparent main melody pattern, which I call double or 00 with OSIRE digits:
The rest of the melodies are either sequential scales or non-scale pattern melodies.
Bach - D minor toccata and fugue - part
This little part of the whole piece of music is intended for piano (or organ), with the right hand playing the melody. Before publishing this section, I seriously considered if taking only this little part out of the whole music was the right thing to do. Then I reassured myself; this is the one solo part that's had the greatest immediate impression on all my students. Even if they are amazed of this solo part, yet usually they still can't feel D minor toccata and fugue to be a monumental masterpiece, as it is, because only having listened to the complete musical piece several times can you be aware of that fact. This one thing leaves us having to start with the little parts so that the whole will gradually get known. "If there are quotes from poems, there must be quotes from music, too."
Like this one little quote from the masterpiece of Bach:
Two key things to take into account:
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The tapping technique is employed
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Consequently, one-string scales are predominant
The key note is, needless to say, D minor, and as typical of classical composers, the harmonic minor. So here is the D harmonic minor scale:
The solo piece I play has been transposed to an entire octave upper the pitch in the following music sheet, due to the nature of the tapping technique.
The figure below shows us what basic scale fits to the D minor played on one string, the E string. It would be the E Locrian scale...
...which means the following notes on the E string:
However, the notes of the solo piece will just almost fit in the E Locrian scale, as the D harmonic minor has an augmented seventh degree (C sharp), ...
Source: www.soton.ac.uk
...making the scale we are looking for look like this:
This proves the fact that not only the notes of a certain scale can be used when composing a melody. Think outside the box; that's what quality music is known for.
You can download this solo part in sections Tapping technique II. and Section dedicated to classical music.
Paganini - La Campanella - main theme
The video of the main theme:
And here comes the music sheet:
These basic scale patterns are easy to discover for an advanced guitarist:
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110
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101
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210
You might also find out the two typical arpeggio structures at the end of the main theme. Apparently, the main theme is so tuneful and ever-changing in pitch that the trichord structures, in my opinion, are not the optimal structures to play this. In addition to that, the music sheet involves some mordents, which are very hard to play in two strings. As guitar being the instrument you play, you have a bunch of alternatives to get around the problem. Personally, I would use one-string scales, in this particular case the E harmonic minor one-string scale, as it being the key note. It goes like this:
Since the parallel scale associated with E minor is the B Phrygian, the one scale I use is the B Phrygian scale, to be more precise the B Phrygian dominant scale:
Here's what the one-string scale looks like on the B string:
The melody changes a little in the second part of the main theme, but the one-string Phrygian scale structure will also help handle that.
There are some additional notes and a 210 digit scale pattern. I used the middle section of F sharp Phrygian scale structure to play this:
Plus, the mentioned two arpeggios, which are in fact tonic (E minor) and dominant (B major) triad arpeggios:
E minor triad arpeggio
B major triad arpeggio
You can download this solo part in Section dedicated to classical music.
Kodály - Háry János - Ebelasztin's song
The below video was intended for the Pénzes guitar contest and features some special video effects.
Playing this solo part is not a piece of cake. First, here is the music sheet to take a look at:
The problem with the music sheet is that it actually does not contain anything but the respective notes and the rhythm; a regular guitar tab would on the other hand only focus on a guitar-oriented solution, not taking into account and explaining the potential technical mistakes a guitarist may make. Pénzes mirror image method, however, represents a fully technical point of view, as far as scales and their structures. The key note is C harmonic minor, so the full scale structure looks like as follows:
I found the fourth, fifth and sixth (Dorian, Phrygian and Lydian) degrees the optimal to play:
I would like to note that the above scale degrees are only my optimal way of playing this solo part; everyone can have the choice of their own to find their optimal way, which they eventually do. The only proof of someone's choice being really the optimal one is whether it can be played at a faster pace. Speed will always give you the answer.
Peculiarly, there are no certain scale patterns in the song. However, there is a fast G major arpeggio in the middle part.
You can download this solo part in Section dedicated to classical music.
First here is the video:
There are some facts about the songs that are worth mentioning. First, Hevia is a bagpiper of Spanish origins. No wonder that this particular piece of music has a hint of the Spanish flamenco, which is reflected through the A Phrygian dominant tonality. The below figure shows the A Phrygian dominant scale, in a trichord structure:
On the other hand, the majority of the song is in A Mixolydian.
It is indeed a very unique musical idea and an even better realization of it.
This song may be the first to appear on this website with a tonality different from the usual major-minor or the pentatonics. Consequently, it is worth a question how to show the Mixolydian mode in a music sheet. Those familiar with Pénzes Methodology immediately know the answer - the A Mixolydian belongs to the D major / H minor basic scales. This will define what key to put in the music sheet. Here is the table that helps with this:
So we need to put two sharps to define the key note. Let's take a look at the music sheet of the main theme:
You can find a bunch of scale patterns in there:
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0000
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0121 (and its inverse being 2102)
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0101 (and its inverse being 1010)
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3210 (and its inverse being 0123)
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etc.
As for the scale structures: the full A Mixolydian scale structure...
gives a lot of options as to how to find the optimal way of playing the song. My choices were the lower section (E6-A5 strings) of the A mixolydian scale degree...
...and the lower section (E6-A5 strings) of the G Lydian scale degree:
I also made use of the open A string, playing the 0000 scale pattern on the open A string. The closing of the main theme, which involves a lot of E notes, is also very optimal to play in an open E1 string, so that that a one-string E Dorian scale is played with the E notes being the open strings. There is one G sharp note that does not belong to the E Dorian scale, which alters the structure to look like this:
