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@@gbalulis thanks brother! The bridge pickup seems okay! Is there something I should consider replacing it with?

@@angelperezmonarrez9892 Wayne Shorter was just a jazz musician, he couldn’t afford and ESP guitar! Ha

@@danielceline9505 yep it’s always a blend, you can control the amount of MM3 content

Thanks, Barry! All I did was spend a lot of time tinkering and horsing around w M3

@@Nazhorous you like the metal?

@@labontetrevor sure I do!

@@P3t3rPizzarelli thank you!

@@duanuzun Thank you! The hard part is in the improvising, having to make up my ideas as I go along, and try not to mess up the execution

@@Cambodia69 haha NO. Not YET. Good idea though. Maybe I will bring a Xiphos, Warrior, or Ironbird to the jazz jam and film it.

@@YsAbTones thanks! It’s a BC Rich Eric Rutan sig Ironbird.

@@huuexx thanks! Me too!

I'm on track to watch all your content, man this is the sound I need to learn.

@@davidhayter7954 thank you! Just two days ago I learned these voicings, stick around to say where it all goes! Before, I was just playing the mode, but now I have some of Messiaen’s coolest voicings. Already I’m getting a lot closer to the QftEoT vibe I wanted. I can’t wait to start soloing over the chords. I need to buy a looper.

@@TruthSurge yep it sounds pretty wild. And the color/flavor is complex, but the scale is simple! It’s also very difficult to use! Thanks for listening. Try messing around with this scale and see if you can get it to work! It’s fun! Tinker. Explore.

@@TruthSurge one huge difference between me and the ‘Holdsworth community’ is that I made up all my own vocabulary and have never studied Holdsworth in depth, never transcribed a single lick of his playing. I do not play transcriptions of Holdsworth solos, everything I play is improvised. A majority of the Holdsworth clones are not really jazz competent. I played lots of jazz in all kinds of different idioms. Especially early jazz. I’m coming from Dixieland, swing, gypsy, bebop, and a whole lot of Wayne Shorter, and Woody Shaw.

@@TruthSurge in fact, even Holdsworth himself did not play jazz, he started from scratch and made up his own language. He did not study and transcribe different players, like every other jazz musician is expected to do

@@labontetrevor for every scale shape that isn't the standard maj/min, you gotta learn ANOTHER 7 shapes/modes. :( It took me forever just to learn maj/min. But for composition, I can see dabbling into these areas. For ad lib? fuggetaboutit! :)

​@ But your tone is very reminiscent of Holdsworth's and the chords used in this vid are very reminiscent of Holdsworth's and even the solo tone leans towards Holdsworth's so maybe you like his tones and this one vid is the only one you have that sounds like him. ? I didn't call you a Holdsworth clone or wannabe. I just said those chord changes sound very much like what Allan used to do. Unusual intervals and for most players, off the beaten path, we might say. I've never been attracted to jazz music so... it's not all that interesting to me ref learning any of it on guitar but if I were to try writing some piece of music that I wanted to sound unique and kind of.... alien/foreign, then this scale could definitely work. I'm more of a hard rock/metal type myself. 70s rock, 80s metal. So... I just click vids randomly sometimes. Rock on!!!

@@barrysebastian9584 Thank you, Barry! The big benefit to f this ‘triadic construction’ approach is that it always works. Meanwhile you will be thinking like a composer while you improvise. No meandering solos, no ‘hit-and-miss,’ and it also dispenses with lots of nerdy, useless extra music theory, modes, etc. Look at any real melody, it’s not scales, it’s not arpeggios..what is it, then? It’s this stuff. Cheers

@@taylorius absolutely! Thank you, I’m pleased you like them. The voicings are explained in this video: th-cam.com/video/yEc2ymHoT2g/w-d-xo.htmlsi=9AfDEGIFKk7h5lmT

@@taylorius and the particular voicing you are asking about is just Bb Eb B E, that’s from low to high. Or, transposed, F# B G C, and again, D G D# G#. Believe it or not, in addition to fitting in three places in Messiaen mode 3, it also fits into the major scale! It just sounds pretty dissonant because it has two b9 intervals, separated by a perfect fourth. In C major, it would go like this, low to high: B E C F. There are 5 other great voicings, all in that same eight-chord sequence (there are two repeats). All six different voicings are shown and explained in the link I provided. Sorry for the nerdy theory talk, to me these chords are all just sounds, but I needed to describe them. I don’t like nerdy musician talk, I just like chords that sound cool. Cheers

@@labontetrevor Thank you so much! So it's a 4th, minor 6th and 4th stacked on top of each other. That's a fascinating sound! I will watch your linked video now!

@ yep!! hey you’re so welcome. I’m delighted you are enjoying the chords

Btw in some other videos uploaded in the last week, I talk and explain most of my best voicings, arpeggios, and melodic ideas. Hope to keep seeing you here!

I like that you teach ideas rather than licks!

@ yes that’s the whole point, that you don’t need any licks. Licks are a good way to get started in jazz, but I think there is a next level, where we get more fluent and can actually compose ideas in real time, one note at a time. And isn’t it funny how simple it can be? Step one: pick out a note. Step two: play another one. This is the entire process. We never really needed any licks. In fact, licks are anti-musical, and defy the very concept of improvisation. They become less and less useful or necessary as we progress along the path to Jazz. I still use a few, but they are like a crutch, or a set of training wheels

@@huuexx you’re so welcome! More videos coming soon. I have lots of inspiration right now, not only from the comments but also because I learned some actual Messiaen voicings from his famous Quartet, and am having an absolute blast playing them all over the neck, in every position, both as chords and as arpeggios.

@ awesome Trevor, I’ll definitely check them out when you do, also I was wanting to ask you how your getting your shimmery pixie dust effect. Are you using a harmonizer pedal or plugins? Thanks

@ no plugins, it’s just a Boss DD-3T for a delay, and an Electro-Harmonix ‘Ocean’s 11’ pedal set to ‘shim.’ When I hit the distortion pedal, it’s the Amptweaker ‘Tight Metal Pro II.’ The amp is a Fender Hotrod Deluxe, and the speaker is just a few inches away from my phone’s mic. That’s my whole tone. Get it? ‘Whole tone?’ Ha. That’s a little Messiaen mode 1 joke for ya. Yuk yuk!

@@labontetrevor rofl, thanks for the detailed reply, u rock 🤘

@@RealCurrencies Hey Anthony! Good to see you. I agree. I just want to add that although I am using a lot of one of Messiaen’s modes, I’m just improvising, and only know half of a bar of Messiaen’s actual music. Btw I learned from documentaries that Chopin and Bach and some of the other classical composers were devastatingly good improvisers. It’s too bad there was no way to record them. It said that your boy Chopin loved to improvise, but apparently thought composing was an exercise in self torture, pacing around his apartment, pulling out his hair, writing, erasing, rewriting, and re-rewriting his passages. As for the speed, I find it quite natural after awhile, like our brains and bodies were built for it. A certain amount of rapidity is actually essential when playing lines with dissonance, as the notes are then shorter and this reduced the dissonance. Playing a D flat over a C major chord, for instance, is much less clashing when played as a 16th note than when it is played over a whole bar, as a whole note. So there is an entirely practical reason to play fast here, one which has nothing to do with wanting to make a display of one’s technical capabilities. I like to pause for a long time on some of the notes, usually the strong ones. Cheers Ol’ buddy, so great to see you always.

@@labontetrevor Likewise brother, I've been keeping an eye on this channel, if only for old times' sake. I'm on Twitter, these days, FB wouldn't have me any longer after the Lockdown started, but I write in Dutch these days. Are you still active anywhere? Anyway, I have no problem with rapidity and virtuosity at all. For some it becomes a goal in itself, which is silly, but guys like Chopin used many notes as background for the main theme which was often a quarter or a half note, accompanied by 16ths or even faster. I'm just super impressed that a guitarist can even achieve such speed, although I think I actually got it watching you play just now: you produce the notes just by touching them with your left hand, and don't have to play them with your right as on a classical/non-electric guitar, right?! Anyway, thrilled to have this little interaction, you're a pro alright.

@ sometimes I pick every note, some are hammer ons and pull offs. Everything is at least partially picked. There are several techniques used. However, the focus is always on notes, intervals, and ideas. The technique is not the primary focus.

@@baraharonovich2926 thank you! Hope you get a chance to apply this material to the fretboard. It’s more fun to play it yourself than to watch some random schmo on YT.

I dunno im impressed i think you play really well 😅 But i hate compliments too

@@baraharonovich2926 no my friend I do appreciate the compliments, especially since I am playing material that I developed while mostly trying to entertain myself. I didn’t know others would necessarily be able to hear the reasoning behind the note choices. I pretty much kept it to myself, thinking others might not hear it the same way I do. Anyway thank you very much. I love that you think it is ‘beautiful,’ that’s the goal!

@@Hadri_ART No, daddy, no! Aghhhhh!!! Haha. Long live Allan!

@@Hadri_ART one thing I must say is that I never copied his licks, and only know how to play the chords to ‘Texas,’ and the E vamp section of ‘Letters of Marque.’ Although I arrived at a similar place, I’ve never been among the many Holdsworth clones. Holdsworth despised people copying him, and I’ve never transcribed him or sought to recreate any of his improvised solos. I see people playing his licks and solos, but I’ve never seen anyone recreate his PROCESS, or learn to improvise by copying him.

@@Hadri_ART btw your comic book art looks astonishing. Thank you for stopping by

@@labontetrevor nah no probelm dude, i didn t mean you are copying him, it s just a similar vibe that made think about him👌🏼 thanks for appreciating my drawings tho 😎🙏🏼

@ you’re right, it is a similar vibe, due in part to the legato execution and the harmonic material. I have some even more recent videos up, where I go much more in depth and give away more of my favorite voicings and linear ideas. Cheers

@@dr_b_bass you’re the first person to make that declaration, it’s an honor! I will keep going, thanks for the inspiration, you are the wind beneath my wings. Ha

@@labontetrevor hehe, your technique is flawless and deeply creative, do u have a background in bebop/jazz at all? either way trippy as hell and i love it x

@ yes! I was obsessed with playing jazz, for about 22 years. I know about 40 Wayne Shorter tunes (he’s my favorite), and learned lots of bebop and hard bop solos, especially Woody Shaw. I also played many jazz gigs, including many standards duos with singers, including really old standards like ‘Stardust,’ ‘Deep Purple,’ etc. I learned lots of Louis Armstrong, Barney Kessel and Django solos and can improvise fluently in those styles, because I obsessed with it until it became second nature. I played with the best jazz players in town, including being hired to front a trio with Tribal Tech drummer Kirk Covington, and another notable drummer named Gerry Gibbs. Stay tuned for sone videos about straight ahead jazz, which I studied very intensively, just before going off the deep end with this wacky triple augmented thing I’m doing now. I made some straight ahead jazz videos about 4 years ago but you’ll have to scroll down a ways. I LOVE jazz, but just ran out of new things to play, because I love it so much and it was all I did for about 22 years. I knew hundreds of jazz tunes and played gigs pretty much every day. I also played lots of country gigs all over Texas, and drove the van+trailer too. My first ‘big’ gig btw was Ringling Bros circus, a touring show with 150 cast and crew, it was called ‘Barnum’s Kaleidoscape,’ from July 1999 through December 2000. I should make some videos where I talk about all this stuff. But I swear up and down that it was my years of devotion to early jazz (Dixieland, swing, gypsy jazz, and bebop) that laid the foundation for me to be able to ‘hear’ this much more modern crazy thing I do now. Great question, thanks for asking. Sorry for the long response!

@@Nazhorous good idea! It just so happens that my most recent upload, entitled, ‘Messiaen-based improv (w/o talking),’ starts off with some extreme metal riffing. I will keep your request in mind with my next videos, @Nazhorous, since I love using Messiaen mode 3 for METAL. Watch for ‘Metal Messiaen, pt 1,’ coming later today. And another new series, ‘Jazz Quartet for the End of Time,’ which is jazz that is so evil that metal musicians ought to be scared of! Thanks for listening, brother. See you very soon

@@barrysebastian9584 Hi Barry! I made a bunch more videos since this one and go way more in depth there. And the one called ‘Sad, Spooky chords’ in the title has lots of blues applications I bet you will like.

@@labontetrevorThank you - I did see your other M clips after I watched this - I will check them out👍! Thx for putting them up - I know it’s kind of a niche sound, but I’m looking at it as a “spice” for throwing in to tweak the ear away from pentatonic, etc stuff😂.

@ precisely, it’s to temporarily relieve the relative monotony of, say, the pentatonic scale, or the minor scale. Reset the palate, like in between eating bites of sushi, you eat the pickled ginger. Or do a sake bomb

@@sonicabulary yes they have the same axis of symmetry. I’m pretty sure that Giant Steps was lifted from the Slonimsky book. I saw a page that had all the key centers of it mapped out, although it was using a major scale and modulating it by major thirds, it never used the Messiaen mode. In fact I think Slonimsky’s thesaurus came out in the mid 1800s, and Messiaen wrote his famous quartet in the 1930’s. But I do see Messiaen mode three as a kind of unified field theory for Coltrane’s Giant steps and modal period. He allegedly got a lot of his harmonic material from McCoy Tyner as well, however I don’t hear McCoy or Trane ever play Messiaen’s 3rd mode. There is a great jazz pianist named Peter Stoltzman who uses it sometimes. His father Eric Stoltzman is in the Messiaen QFTEOT CD I showed in the video. I recorded an album for one Armin Marmolejo and Peter was the pianist on the sessions. It’s very much a straight ahead jazz CD though, no wacky Messiaen chords

@@sonicabulary god, I’m an insufferable nerd haha. Sorry

@@labontetrevor Thanks man, great info!!

@@ryanl3260 I actually think I only got into some death metal because I needed a context where I could use these kind of lines. They’re a little hard to fit into ‘Take The A Train’ and ‘Struttin’ With Some Barbeque.’ Or ‘Nuages,’ ‘Minor Swing,’ etc.

@@labontetrevor makes sense lol.

@ plus I started playing drums 8 years ago and found out that jazz and funk is really hard. I saw the Dennis Chambers Drumeo video and he said he likes Cryptopsy…I clicked over to Flo Mounier’s video and thought death metal drumming looked fun, and the athleticism of it appealed to me.

@@labontetrevor i'm the same, after i started drumming is when i started looking at all these death metal drummers on youtube. Check out David Diepold if you haven't already! He's a beast. Purely from a listener's perspective I love early Cannibal Corpse. it's just so weird and satisfying for some reason.

@ that’s awesome, I do love those guys. I think that Alex Webster has written at least one riff with some chromatically descending augmented triads, it works great for death metal. And I’m pretty sure I’ve heard Pat O’Brien play some grotesquely beautiful solos that might use this scale too. I love his playing a lot. And yes the old CC with Chris Barnes is the best. The butcher at the local organic grocery store tipped me off about the final demo he made with them, I forget what it’s called. ‘Born to kill’ or something along those lines.

@@passanova I know, I’ve completely lost my mind! Great to see you, you da baddest

@@passanova thanks for stopping by, Matt! It’s an honor. You’re an amazing player. Scary

@@MrGrayhenry thanks buddy! Keep kicking ass! See you over at your channel, thanks for stopping by mine again!

It seems that way! This is what I kind of THOUGHT he might be doing. But after viewing Turrigenous’ nearly 5 hour compendium of all Holdsworth’s recorded lines, there are almost no examples of him actually using this scale. He seemed to only use it very briefly, and in a very simple way, before quickly moving on to something else. Holdsworth’s harmonic concept, he said, was inspired by Slonimsky’s Thesaurus, a book he said he NEVER READ, only the chapter index page! I have the book, the examples are not very musical imo, however it does set forth the idea that that the major scale and its modes can modulate symmetrically. One chapter is about modulating by tritone, splitting the octave in half. Then you can modulate in major thirds, which is where Coltrane lifted the idea for ‘Giant Steps,’ in fact it was lifted nearly verbatim from Slonimsky’s exercises, which is why it sounds like a fucking exercise and I dislike the tune, it’s wonky af and everyone instinctively hates it, since it is basically just ugly, pointless, ‘modern art’ a code word that people take to mean ‘shit.’😂 Anyway you can modulate up or down by minor thirds, whole steps, halfsteps, and fourths. I think Holdsworth does a lot of tritone modulated superimpositions, they are a quick and easy way to gain access to all twelve tones, which is really the main goal of chromaticism. Someone can correct me if they know, but according to the Turrigenous guy who painstakingly transcribed everything Holdsworth played, he did not use this scale much…which means that all the material I came up with to try to attain that Martian bebop chromatic effect is actually my own language. So I am Holdsworth-inspired on this one particular concept, but never cloned or copied him at all. This means we can all gave our own individual way to approach chromaticism

@ holy moly! Let me grab my spectacles 🤓

ok if I’m understanding correctly, Allan wasn’t using the true messian mode 3 but literally modulating the major scale by 3rds, 4ths tritones etc. Very interesting. I’ve honestly never done more than skim over slonimsky book as it was “way above my pay grade”. But I think I’m at the stage where I could handle it now. And shout out to John Vullo his aforementioned work is amazing. Thanks for taking the time to enlighten me with your knowledge sir

@ take Slonimsky’s ideas about symmetrical modulations but ignore his examples, they are not very useful. I think Holdsworth did mostly tritone-modulated superimpositions. Also the real fun is in the mystery, so there’s a line i will not cross, I take concepts from the masters but not verbatim licks, I want my own style. Plus, I noticed that people who memorize transcriptions rarely learn to improvise well. I’m convinced the only way to go is to just slowly train yourself to improvise, to compose your ideas one note at a or one cell at a time

@ I totally agree! You’re doing a great job really digging the work so far. I’m going to challenge myself as well, very inspiring

@@cincypiper thanks again! I hope you start trying some of this stuff out on your instrument and let me know how it goes. Really appreciate the comment

@@ramirointrocaso3578 it’s pretty addicting, the possibilities are endless, I can’t imagine ever getting bored. And no need to sit and rehash things eight million guitar players have already worn out! This is a new universe of expression unlocked, as far as I’m concerned.

@labontetrevor well expressed Sir! I'll follow your content.

@@5haNe5eb_71 awesome, thanks for listening! there are three sets of perfect fourths hidden within Messiaen mode 3, and six sets of p4+aug4, plus there is just a generally exotic sound associated with both quartal harmony and triple augmented harmony. Interestingly, a ‘fourth’ in Messiaen mode 3 is actually a major third, its four notes away. And a fourth from the major scale is a fifth in this world. It’s wild stuff!

@@sonicabulary thank you! Your channel sounds interesting btw! Sonicabulary, I will have to investigate what that is!

@labontetrevor yes I have some material I think you might be interested in.