Pat Martino is a true guitar player and he can teach you how to think like one. Encouraged by his father, a professional
singer and guitarist who loved taking his son to
Philadelphia’s jazz hot spots to hear the likes of Wes Montgomery
and Les Paul, Pat Martino (born Pat Azzara in
1944) began playing guitar when he was 12 and left school
in the tenth grade to devote himself to music. Also inspired
by Johnny Smith, the preteen prodigy raised Les Paul’s
eyebrows, dropped out of school at 15 to hit the road with
jazz organist Charles Earland, and then followed his 6-
string muse to Harlem, where honed his craft as a sideman
for tenor sax man Willis Jackson and Hammond B-3 giant
Don Patterson, which led to stints with Richard “Groove”
Holmes and Brother Jack McDuff. Martino soon signed
on with Prestige and recorded El Hombre (1967), his debut
as a leader and the first of a string of releases that included
Strings! (1967), East! (1968), Baiyina (The Clear Evidence)
(1968), and Desperado (1970). With each title more adventurous
than the previous one, these recordings pushed
the boundaries of post-modern bop and established Martino
as a major jazz artist. He joined the Muse label for
Live! (1972), Consciousness (1974), Exit, and We’ll Be Together
Again (both 1976) before jumping to Warner Bros. for two
forays into fusion, Starbright (1976) and Joyous Lake (1978).
As GP’s Darrin Fox put it, “Martino’s awe-inspiring technique,
endlessly inventive lyricism, and driving feel—thanks
to a wicked picking hand that can deliver endless streams
of notes with a stunningly beautiful and powerful attack—
have made him one of jazz guitar’s most dynamic, singular
exponents.” During the late ’70s, Martino was also a frequent
visiting instructor at Hollywood’s G.I.T., where he
was revered as a guru, and his brilliant seminars enlightened
students with improvisational ideas and concepts
that had as much to do with geometry as music.
But in 1980, fate intervened as Martino was stricken
with a brain aneurism, and the reparative surgery left him
with virtually no memory of family, career, or how to play
the guitar. Some might call his recovery a miracle, but it
was Martino’s inner drive and lust for life that eventually
led to a complete recovery, and the deep-thinking guitarist
seemingly picked up where he left off, recording more than
ten albums, including his comeback, The Return (1987),
Think Tank (2003), and his latest, Remember: A Tribute to
Wes Montgomery (Blue Note). Pat currently maintains a
healthy teaching and touring schedule (he’s gigging and
conducting seminars in Tokyo as I write this), as well as
a splendid website (patmartino.com) where you can check
out bio info, a complete discography, multimedia presentations,
and stream non-stop Martino audio. So you want
to play guitar like a real hero? First, you’ve gotta...
1 IMPROVISE
The art of improvisation has always been
one of Pat Martino’s main areas of musical
exploration. He points out in the
introduction to his groundbreaking book,
Linear Expressions (first published in 1983
by REH Publications; buy it!), how all serious students of the guitar spend years of
practice overcoming such initial obstacles as
lack of technique and physical dexterity before
they begin to focus more on what is being
played as opposed to how it is played. “The
quality of the music is now the primary concern,”
Martino philosophizes. “With this in
mind, the maturing guitarist will temporarily
sedate his on-going urge to play lightening
fast guitar licks and flashy feats of fingerboard
gymnastics. Finally, the guitarist comes face
to face with the nemesis of every budding
musical artist, namely, improvising over chord
changes.” Early on, Martino mastered the “correct”
traditional method of memorizing scales
and arpeggios, and treating every chord in a
progression individually with the proper device,
but found this piano-centric process to be
complex, cumbersome, and very un-guitaristic.
In retaliation, Pat came up with an
ingenious, simplified system that utilizes only
minor scales to cover any type of chord sound,
wrote it down, and the results are astoundingly
empowering and totally guitar-friendly.
Though Linear Expressions’ streamlined convert-
to-minor concept can change your life (it
changed mine.), Martino is also quick to point
out the value of exploring all avenues of study:
“The art of improvisation is by no means to
be considered simple or easy and should not
be taken lightly.” From where does one draw
such deep inspiration? You’ve gotta...
2 THINK HOLISTICALLY
Martino’s natural tendency is
to view music and the world
from many different angles—
to embrace the simple
alongside the complex—and
this holistic attitude has
opened his awareness to numerous parallels
and connections between music and the cosmos
at large, many of which he generously
shares with students. His conversion-to-minor
system, which we will be exploring in depth
momentarily, epitomizes Martino’s ability to
look at both sides of the coin equally. And for
a truly cosmic example of how Martino sees
music in everything, just Google or Wiki a
gander at the plate of 64 hexagrams found in
the I Ching, the ancient Chinese book of wisdom.
To dedicated followers and scholars,
these ancient symbols represent truths and
wisdom, and have been pondered for centuries,
but Martino looks at the plate and sees
“all that was ever done on this 6-string instrument,
all that is being done at the moment,
and all that ever will be done.” Yipes!
Martino detailed his perspective in a 2003
interview with Victor L. Schermer posted on
his website: “The skeletal framework for the
system of symbols that the I Ching is based
upon is 64 symbols (hexagrams), and each
has six straight lines. There are two types of
lines: One is whole, the other is broken. Now,
the guitar has six strings. The broken line
stands for a string that isn’t used. Therefore,
if the fifth and sixth are broken, and the other
four are not, wow, that’s the fourth, third, second,
and first strings of the guitar. That’s string
use. Any chord that can be played on those
strings, that’s what that symbol and any of
the other 63 symbols represent, included ‘all
strings broken’, which is silence.” In other
words, Martino sees a holistic representation
of every possible way to play one-note, twonote
intervals, and three- to six-note chordal
groupings on six strings—every combination
of guitar strings. And guess what? He’s
absolutely right. You’ve gotta check this out!
3 PLAY LINE GAMES
He admits that the guitar is
his favorite toy, but gear is
probably the most insignificant
element in the Martino
equation because what Martino
plays has always been
more important than what he plays it on. More
significant than the Gibson Les Paul Customs,
ES-175, L5-CES, and Johnny Smith model guitars
and Fender Twin Reverbs he used in the
’60s, or his current Gibson Pat Martino Signature
model paired with an Acoustic Image
Clarus head into a Mesa/Boogie 4x12 closedback
cab, are the super-heavy strings he’s
always strung up with (currently an .016 set!),
an early habit Pat adopted to offset his brutal
right-hand pick attack. Martino dabbled with
auto-wah effects and synth controllers on Starbright
and Joyous Lake, and used custom Abe
Rivera and Parker Fly solidbodies on 1997’s
guest-laden All Sides Now, which paired him
with legends and rockers from Les Paul to Joe
Satriani and the late Michael Hedges (who,
by the way, was a devout Martino disciple),
but most of his records feature a warm, fat
sound achieved by rolling back the tone control
on his neck pickups.
With that in mind, let’s begin our fantastic
journey into the mind of Martino by
getting a few of his signature moves under
our fingers. The quintet of melodic lines in
Examples 1a through 1e cover the entire fingerboard
with hip, two-bar eighth-note runs
that fit comfortably into the trinity of basic
chord sounds—minor, dominant, and major.
Approach each line as a pure melody (don’t
worry about how or why it works for the
moment), and precede each one with the
suggested chords to observe how it behaves
in each harmonic climate. See how all three
chordal climates reference a partial barre
shape at the third fret? Where do these lines
come from? Why do they sound so dang
cool? How do they work over multiple chord
sounds? Can we use them to play over chord
changes? Glad you asked. First, you’ve gotta...
4 GET TO KNOW YOUR
FINGERBOARD (IN A
MINOR WAY)
The first step in Martino’s
simplified system for improvising
over chord changes
(detailed in full in Linear
Expressions) is to organize the entire fingerboard
into a matrix of interlocking minor scale
patterns. Ex. 2 maps out five distinct G minor
scale fingering patterns, which Martino calls
“forms” and you may already recognize in a
different order as five Bb major scale patterns,
and highlights their four resident Gm7 chord
inversions voiced on the sixth, fourth, third,
and second strings. (Hmm ... that’s hexagram
#49 from the King Wen sequence, right?)
Note how scale patterns #4 and #5 share the
same Gm7 chord grip. Concentrate on memorizing
the relationships between G minor
scale patterns and Gm7 chord shapes first,
and then get to work transposing the entire
matrix to every other key. See you in a week.
5 ACTIVATE THE
MELODIES WITHIN
“Faster and faster, my playing
concepts are being
reduced to just melody line—
melodic development
through tension and resolution,”
Martino revealed in the June 1977 issue
of GP. Appropriately, the next step in Martino’s
Linear Expressions system involves
dividing the fingerboard into five playing
areas and memorizing five G minor line
forms, or “activities,” each of which is derived
from one of Ex. 2’s scale patterns and embellished
with chromatic passing tones, plus
excursions into melodic minor and harmonic
minor territories. Ex. 3 reprints the first four
bars of each G minor activity from Linear
Expressions. Again, you want to approach these
activities as pure melodic line form. (Note:
To my ears, these line forms tend to reflect a G Dorian, not Aeolian, tonality. To accommodate
this, you may wish to shift perspective
by re-numbering and relocating the G minor
scale patterns in Ex. 2 as follows: use pattern
#3 with chord form #1, pattern #4 with
chord form #2, pattern #5 with chord form
#3, and patterns #1 and #2 sharing chord
form #4.) Without doubt, you’ll have to invest
some time here. Start in G minor and learn
each line in bite-sized two-beat chunks, two
beats at a time, and append each new grouping
to the previous one. Martino tends to
pick every note, but once you’ve nailed each
activity you can add slurs, explore each key
chromatically, run the lines through intervallic
cycles of major 2nds, minor 3rds, major
thirds, perfect 4ths, etc., and try starting them
on different beats. It may take months to fully absorb these activities and relate them to
their chord forms, but believe me, the payoff
is worth it as you gradually discover how
to incorporate these lines into your own musical
vocabulary.
6 CONVERT TO MINOR
Now comes the revelation:
All of the preceding minor
line forms are interchangeable
and can fit into virtually
any harmonic climate (i.e.,
chord progression, i.e., song).
Once you’ve absorbed and assimilated Martino’s
five G minor activities and become
facile with each one in all 12 keys, it’s time
to try them out in different harmonic climates
by applying the following substitution
rules, which also illustrate transposition formulas
for converting a variety of common
chord types to minor
Given: Gm, Gm7, Gm9—Play: G minor
(as is for Dorian), C minor (P4th higher
than root for Aeolian), or F minor (M2nd
lower than root for Phrygian)
Given: Bb, Bbmaj7(9), Bbmaj7b5—Play:
G minor (m3rd lower than root for
Lydian), or C minor (M2nd higher than
root for Ionian).
Given: C7, C9, C11, C13—Play: G minor
(P5th higher than root for Mixolydian).
Given: C7(9,13)alt. (b5, #5, b9, #9)—
Play: Bb minor or Db minor (whole-step
below or half step above root for altered
dominant sounds).
Given: Em7b5 (Note: Em7b5 = C9)—
Play: G minor (m3rd higher than root for
Locrian).
Given: Caug—Play: A melodic or harmonic
minor (m3rd lower than root for
augmented sounds).
Apply these minor subs to any chord progression.
Start with a simple 12-bar blues in
C and play G minor lines for the I chord (C7),
C minor lines for the IV chord (F7), and D
minor lines for the V chord (G7). You should
be able to hear the chord changes in your
lines. For a major IIm-V7-I progression in
C, play D minor lines for Dm7, F minor or
Ab minor lines to create altered tensions for
G7, and A minor lines for Cmaj7. The same
minor subs also work for the relative minor
IIm7b5-V7-Im progression—Bm7b5 - E7 -
Am. Pretty cool, eh? Transpose these progressions
and subs to all keys, explore modal
cycles, and most importantly, put ’em to
work in standards like “All the Things You
Are,” “Stella By Starlight,” “The Days of
Wine and Roses,” “Summertime,” “Blue
Bossa,” etc., or incorporate them into your
favorite songs. But how about those unorthodox
progressions with strangely named slash
chords? You’ve gotta...
7 BE FEARLESS
Every guitarist has at some
point had to deal with a set
of triad-over-bass-note chord
symbols, or slash chords,
where the bass notes no
longer represent the root of
the chords. Well, fear not, because now you
can simply convert any major or minor slash
chord to minor by learning to recognize the
triads within and applying the appropriate
minor line forms. The following chart lists all
12 major and relative minor slash chords and
their minor conversions. Trust me, they work
Given: C/C or Am/C—Play: A minor
(m3rd lower than bass note)
Given: C/Db or Am/Db—Play: Bb
minor (m3rd lower than bass note)
Given: C/D or Am/D—Play: A minor
(P5th higher than bass note)
Given: C/Eb or Am/Eb—Play: C#
minor or E minor (whole-step below or
half-step above bass note)
Given: C/E or Am/E—Play: A minor
(P4th higher than bass note)
Given: C/F or Am/F—Play: D minor
(m3rd lower than bass note)
Given: C/F# or Am/F#—Play: A minor
(m3rd higher than bass note)
Given: C/G or Am/G—Play: A minor
(whole step above bass note)
Given: C/G# or Am/G#—Play: F, A, or
C# minor (m3rd lower, half-step above, or
P4th above bass note
Given: C/A or Am/A—Play: A minor
(as is)
Given: C/Bb or Am/Bb—Play: G minor
(m3rd higher than bass note)
Given: C/B or Am/B—Play: A minor
(whole-step lower than bass note)
8 WRITE YOUR OWN
CHORD BOOK
“There are many ways to reuse
information that you already
know to help you grow,” Martino
told GP in June 1977.
“The guitar can give you
access to creativity.” While deconstructing traditional chord construction and harmony,
which designates major and minor triads as
primary building blocks, Martino discovered
how symmetrically formed augmented triads
may just make better parental units, and
he’s definitely on to something. Witness how
lowering any note in the 4th-fret Caug cluster
shown in Ex. 4a by one fret results in three
different inversions of three different major
triads a major third apart (E, G# , and C),
while raising any note a half step produces
three different minor inversions of C#m, Fm,
and Am, which also happen to be the relative
VIm chords of the three major triads.
Since any augmented triad fingering inverts
and repeats every four frets due to its symmetrical
construction of major thirds, the
same moves applied to the same fingering
played at the 8th and 12th frets will yield
the same results—two trios of related major
and minor triads, albeit with each triad
switching order and jumping to its next
inversion. The implications are huge. By
repeating these six chord conversions at the
5th, 6th, and 7th frets (4 positions x 3
chords), and then repeating the entire
process beginning first on the 8th, and then
the 12th fret, one can produce every inversion
of every major and minor triad. Take
into account that this formula works with
any three-note augmented chord voicing,
and the six grids in Ex. 4b (along with those
64 hexagrams!) will go a long way when it
comes to writing your own chord book, or
coming up with off-the-beaten-path chord
progressions. Likewise for the Edim7 fingering
in Ex. 4c, which Martino uses to produce
four dominant seventh offspring (each a
minor third apart) by lowering each note a
half step. Diminished chords invert every
three frets, so repeating this quartet of onenote
alterations at the 3rd and 4th frets will
give you all 12 seventh chords (3 positions
x 4 chords), and repeating the whole deal
starting at the 5th, 8th, and 11th frets will
yield every inversion of every chord. From
this we also learn that any diminished 7th
chord is actually four different 7b9 chords,
which can be converted to minor using the
altered dominant sub rule from thing #6.
Follow suit with the grids in Ex. 4d, and check
out Jude Gold’s “Sacred Geometry” in the
April 2004 issue of GP for more of Martino’s
chordal chemistry.
9 DISPLACE OCTAVES
Octave displacement, which
involves raising or lowering
one or more notes in a
melodic line by one or more
octaves, is a signature technique
Martino uses to
generate out-of-the-ordinary lines. “I take
melodies and transpose the notes to various
points in three octaves, write them down,
and practice the results.” In Ex. 5a, we extract
bar 2 from Ex. 1a and displace by one octave
one additional note per bar. (Tip: Try this
with any part of any previous activity.) Regrettably,
I missed Martino’s 1978 seminar at
G.I.T., but my bud, the late Kimbo Smith,
hipped me to Pat’s zany displaced chromatic scale shown in Ex. 5b. The up-stemmed notes
present a descending, one-octave chromatic
scale beginning on F, while the down-stems
document Martino’s wild and crazy multioctave
displacements. But check out how
something that at first seems random reveals
under closer inspection a pair of identical sixnote
fretboard shapes played a tritone, or
flatted-fifth, apart. Work out your own displaced
chromatic scales, then drop these
monsters into your next jam and watch the
fur fly!
10 HAVE A
BEAUTIFUL
MIND
Perhaps the
ultimate manifestation
of Pat
Martino’s ability
to find music in everything and then share
his discoveries is revealed in the story of
how he composed the title track from Think
Tank. “I had a student in 2001, a professional
musician, who was interested in [John
Coltrane’s] ‘Giant Steps,’ and more than anything,
because of what it brought to him
regarding facility, to be able to move through
those changes quickly. If you ask for the complex,
I will give you the complex, but I also
will give you the simple, primarily because
the totality of it has to be seen holistically,
otherwise you only have half the coin. So I
took the alphabet from A to Z, and I took
the Aeolian mode, A-B-C-D-E-F-G, in the C
major scale, and I took those notes and
spanned them from A to Z so that the entire
alphabet now became that A minor scale.
And then I took C-O-L-T-R-A-N-E, and CO-
L, and T-R-A-N-E, and then T-E-N-O-R,
and there was ‘Think Tank.’ There was the
alphabet, and an interface of two systems
that transcended a musicianship, a musical
hunger for accomplishment on his behalf.”
It’s in this spirit that I’d like to close this
session with a personalized gift of melody
derived from the alphabet and a looped chromatic
scale starting on C (Ex. 6a), and the
notes derived from the letters P-A-T-M-A-RT-
I-N-O and G-U-R-U (Ex. 6b). Rhythmically
and harmonically, it could have gone a hundred
different ways, but Ex. 6c is what I ended
up with. (For a rhythmic variation try starting
the first two notes in bar 1 and the last
four notes in bar 4 on beat three of their
respective measures.) And while two harmonic
climates are suggested, feel free to
come up with your own—it’s the gift that
keeps on giving.
I know this is a lot of homework, but
folks, this is the s**t! I can’t begin to express
the impact Martino’s virtual teachings, especially
Linear Expressions, have had on my own
playing. Absorb and assimilate these concepts
and I promise that your playing will
never be the same. Thanks for sharing, Pat.
You’re beautiful!