LESSON } Shaun Baxter’s Creative Rock
MIXED INTERVALS
In this month’s column Shaun Baxter combines all the different interval types studied so far in this series, into a veritable intervallic smorgasbord.
ABILITY RATING
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ Advanced
Info
Key:
A (A7)
Tempo: 160bpm
Will improve your Visualising of intervals Use of various intervals Creation of lines using intervals
This current series of lessons has been devoted to employing different intervals within the Mixolydian scale. In this penultimate instalment, we are going to combine all of the simple (within one octave) and compound (beyond one octave) intervals that we’ve studied so far.
Greg Howe moved from metal to jazzrock, and is also a top session player
ETHAN MILLER / GETTY IMAGES
Basically, an interval is the distance between two notes and Diagram 1 provides useful reference information on the distance between a pair of notes within any mode of the Major scale (like Mixolydian).
Up until now, we have tended to focus exclusively on one interval at a time. It’s good to start with that approach because, apart from avoiding having too much to think about, such a limitation will force you into digging deep within each concept, helping you to establish a fresh collection of creative and ear-catching ideas. However, now that you have had a good grounding in the various interval types, freely mixing them should help you to produce much more well-balanced results.