Generic Shapes item 7. 4GS (A—E) featuring the 20 GS from R1—4 as S1 in BP1.

Generic Shapes item 7. 4GS (A—E) featuring the 20 GS from R1—4 as S1 in BP1.

Most of you will understand what I'm saying in the above title. In fact when dealing with the primary Generic Shapes and the 4 rotations (R) of each 4GS from 4GS (1—4) x the 5 Primary 4GS, one can see that there are only 20 actual shapes before Staggered Starts (S) (1—4) and Basic Permutations (BP) are applied. Notably some one (Lane .A.) called the Staggered Starts, internal rotations, which is quite explanatory and I thank him for that. I will be sticking to my designation 'S' for now.

What I'm proposing as a way to readily learn these is to put all the shapes (4GS A—E) generated by Rotations (R) [1—4] on a single root and number them accordingly 1—20.

4GSA R1 is number 1,
4GSA R2 is number 2,
4GSA R3 is number 3,
4GSA R4 is number 4.

To capsulize and to conserve this idea these numbers (1—20) will be designated as 4GS1, 4GS2, 4GS3, 4GS4. Reducing it to only 'GS' 1—20 would be more efficient at this point. Repeating this process from (above) 4GSA (R1—4), and continuing on using the remaining 4 primary GS, see below: (N.B. this presents a comparative view).

Note that the notes based on a 'C' root or bottom note are presented using only BP1 and S1. The scalar numbers are represented in the column of numbers on the right side, below.

4GSA R1 = GS1     CDEG   1235
4GSA R2 = GS2     CDFB    1247
4GSA R3 = GS3     CEAB    1367
4GSA R4 = GS4     CFGA    1456

4GSB R1 = GS5     CEFG     1345
4GSB R2 = GS6     CDEA     1236
4GSB R3 = GS7     CDGB    1257
4GSB R4 = GS8     CFAB     1467

4GSC R1 = GS9     CDFG     1245
4GSC R2 = GS10   CEFB      1347
4GSC R3 = GS11   CDGA     1256
4GSC R4 = GS12   CFGB      1457

4GSD R1 = GS13   CDEF     1234
4GSD R2 = GS14   CDEB     1237
4GSD R3 = GS15   CDAB     1267
4GSD R4 = GS16   CGAB     1567

4GSE R1 = GS17   CEGB     1357
4GSE R2 = GS18   CEGA     1356
4GSE R3 = GS19   CEFA      1346
4GSE R4 = GS20   CDFA      1246

See Figure 1 which illustrates the above and how all the shapes look like they do when all R (1—4) of all 5 primary 4GS are generated from a single root note. It is interesting to go down the notes column and see the relationships and the similarities of these shapes going up and down that column.

Figure 1.

The processing of R (1—4) from a single GSA as an example.

Here is a summary of 4GS1—20 as described above.

Playing these as exercises in keys from a common tone as illustrated might be useful. I like to apply in tunes over changes and then I usually find out I don't know them well enough through source scales like all Majors, and Minor including Melodic minor ascending (Jazz Minor). Enjoy !!