The Guitar Player's Resource
It's great to be back! In this lesson we are going to learn an Etude that I wrote. This piece is very classical sounding, but it doesn't matter. I like to play many styles of music and sometimes I like to play violin pieces. It's great for your chops and it's musical sounding. So let me explain this piece.
This C minor Etude starts out with a Cm add 9th arpeggio and then leads to a pedal point on the G, on beats 4 and 5. This pedal point technique is used a lot in classical music. Then we proceed to a Bb add9 arpeggio, also with a pedal point like the Cm. Notice the first 3 bars are in 5/4. In Bar 4 we have a diminished 7th arpeggio moving in minor 3rds (those who don't know about the diminished 7ths, they can have four different roots). In this case this we have an (F, Ab, B, D) diminished 7th arpeggio. In Bar 5 we resolve to the relative major (Eb), then back to the diminished arpeggios.
In Bar 6 we continue the diminished arpeggios but in a four note pattern up and down minor 3rds until we resove back to Cm in Bar 8. The notes in this Etude are based on the C harmonic minor scale (C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, B) and the C minor scale (C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb). Make sure you use a metronome and alternate picking.I use a lot of similar techiques in the song "Crash And Burn", off my CD "Full Circle". So check it out. For more information go to www.mikecampese.com. OK, good luck!
MP3 - Etude slow
MP3 - Etude fast
Mike Campese is an all-around music performer, session artist and teacher competent in many musical styles, electric and acoustic. He has studied at G.I.T. (Honors Graduate), and with Paul Gilbert, Norman Brown, Stanley Jordan, Scott Henderson and Keith Wyatt.
