The Goal is to Tell a Story with one single note

Hi Dave ,

I hope and pray all is well you and your family

My question is about phrasing

If You only had to play just one single note and to keep everything easy I am in the key of

C so I am playing over the I Chord

Keep in Mind Only One Note and You and

The Goal is to tell a story

Aim is to get as much emtionaly feeling out of that one note and I can You can pick anyone of these notes C E G to be use over the I Chord

I would realy like to hear how You would think and aprroches this phrasing conecpt

Becuase I could be wrong but if I know all the scales in the world and cannot tell a story with just one note then the rest of the notes in all the scales go to the watse side that just my thought on this

Can you tell a story with just one letter...one word?

You might have better luck with NO notes, as per John Cage's 4'33".

When you say one note, I'm going to assume you mean not just one note played a single time, but one pitch that could be played multiple times. I'm not sure that any one note (C vs E vs G) is better than any other.

As for what to play, I would experiment with playing the same note across different octaves and against different inversions of the C chord. Maybe have the single note of your choice "chase" the chord around. You still have rhythm and volume to use so you could do something with that. I suspect one could do some interesting stuff with poly-rhythms and so on. Maybe play distinct but overlapping rhythms in different octaves that collide and seperate and alternately reinforce or negate each other.

And last, if you wanted to tell a literal story, you could use the note of your choosing to play a series of morse code dots and dashes which spelled out the text of any story you wanted.

Opps I left I will be playing over the I Chord C to the V Chord G

Here is what I was thinking

like You said this is a experiment

1.Changing up The rythm

2.guitar type characteristics techniques

bending,hammer ons ,etc...

3.And playing the one note as many times as need be

but I am looking for practical micro nuances to look out for that I my not see or hear at this time

things I can put into practice over the I V Chords

if you're doing bending and hammer-ons though, you're no longer doing one note.

Great topic gentlemen! If one were to play a 'hammer-on from nowhere' then that constitutes as 'one note.' Another approach is to play the 'one' note (in this case 'C') over different chords and listen to how it affects the chords: Over a 'C' chord 'C' is the root and sounds obvious. Over an 'Am' chord 'C' is the minor 3rd and has a different harmonic feel. Over an 'F' chord 'C' is the 5th doesn't sound as colorful as the 'b3rd' over 'Am'.

Here's where it gets interseting: try playing 'C' over 'Dbmaj7'. It's the 'major 7th' and is jazzy sounding. How about playing 'C' over a 'Bb major or Bb minor chord', which produces a '9th' sound, or 'C' over to get a 'Ebmajo7' '6th' sound.

Also try experimenting with vibrato and sliding into the note from above or below.

I hope this helps!

-Dave

If you would only play one note then it wouldn't be music but rhythm or poetry.

Over the C chord if you would play the root note it would sound strong and resolved like the end ( maybe happy ending ) of a story, if you would play the 3rd ( E ) it would create tension that could go either way, more like a question to which you don't know the answer yet and if you would play the fifth ( G ) then it want's to resolve to C but since you are only aloud to play one note then this would keep you at your hunger because it can't resolve and would cost you your sleep at night LOL

Just my 50 cents Herman