Allan Holdsworth’s Fretboard Wizardry

Ex. 6 is an étude written in the style of many Holdsworth compositions. There’s a mixture of closed and drop voicings, nearly all of which involve moving notes around in the scale to create more clustered, dissonant voicings. Holdsworth was a fan of not only using seconds in his voicings, but also minor ninths (check out measures 6, 7, and 9). One final note about Holdsworth’s chords: Holdsworth typically played chords fingerstyle, with his pick held under his curled right-hand index finger. Due to the skipped strings in many voicings, strumming these chords with a pick creates many problems with unwanted open strings, so a fingerstyle approach is recommended.

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The other side of Holdsworth’s musical persona is his liquid solo lines full of ear-catching chromaticism and angular leaps. Without getting into the topic of technique too much, it’s worth noting that playing in Holdsworth’s legato style requires a very light touch for both the fretting and picking hands. Holdsworth’s lines have intense energy, yet to obtain the speed and fluidity required to play them, you need to keep the hands very relaxed and graceful.

The next few examples are essentially demonstrations of how Holdsworth organized scales on the fretboard. Many guitarists study 3-note-per-string and even 4-note-per-string scales in the quest to understand Holdsworth’s style, but scale patterns alone won’t unlock the secrets to his lines. Although Holdsworth did frequently use wider stretches, he also incorporated string skipping and position shifting to create more interesting lines. Ex. 7 is based on the G major scale (G–A–B–C–D–E–F#) and uses a standard 3-note-per-string pattern, but instead of simply ascending straight up the scale, every other string in the pattern is skipped. You will notice that the notes on the 2nd string of the example begin on D, and not E, which would be the typical note that 3-note-per-string pattern would start on. This change was done to create symmetry with the 3-5-7 fret pattern of the 6th string. Holdsworth frequently took advantage of guitar fretboard symmetries, and we’ll see more examples of this in a moment.

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Ex. 8 contains two phrases that use the A minor pentatonic scale (A–C–D–E–G). However, rather than playing only two notes per string, this pattern uses three notes on each string. It creates a repeated unison note at each string crossing. Unisons across the strings is a device Holdsworth frequently used, which is an emulation of the repeated notes a saxophonist can get with alternate fingerings. Saxophonists John Coltrane and Michael Brecker frequently used this device in their playing. The second phrase incorporates skipped strings to the 3-note-per-string pentatonic pattern. The unisons are now gone, but it’s not quite the complete scale, either. The string jumps cause one note to be skipped over at each string crossing, creating much wider intervals and breaking up the predictability of running straight up a complete scale.

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Ex. 9 takes the idea of larger stretches and string skipping from the previous example and applies it to the D half-whole diminished scale (D–Eb–F–F#–G#–A–B–C). We start on D, but skip a few notes within the scale to preserve a symmetrical feel. This alternating pattern of larger leaps with notes only half-steps apart again creates a far more interesting pattern than simply playing the complete scale ascending and descending. It’s worth noting that because of the diminished scale’s minor third symmetry, this lick can be moved up and down the fretboard with jumps of three frets. An example of Holdsworth playing a similar lick this way can be heard in the Joe Henderson song “Isotope,” on the 1996 album None Too Soon.

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Most guitarists have “pet” phrases that they use from time to time, and Holdsworth was no different. Ex. 10 is something he would frequently play as a pickup to a new phrase. The lick is made up of ascending perfect fourths, again using unison notes across neighboring strings.

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The G major pentatonic scale (G–A–B–D–E) is a rather easy scale for even novice guitarists, but Holdsworth creates a more linear fingering for Ex. 11. Pay attention to which notes contain slides so you don’t run out of fingers as the lick moves up the neck.

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Ex. 12 is another lick that Holdsworth frequently used as part of larger phrases. He’d typically play this lick on either a Cm or Fm chord. It’s mostly diatonic to either the C minor or F minor scales, but contains a chromatic moving line.

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It’s easy to spot the symmetrical elements of Ex. 13. This lick is very chromatic and doesn’t belong to any particular scale or tonality. It would typically be used to create tension against the song’s harmony, and would be followed by a resolution to something back within the key. Holdsworth’s lines frequently depart from the tonalities of the song as a way of creating tension, but they always land back within the key at beginnings of measures or at the change to a new chord.

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On the topic of resolution, it’s critical that you practice these licks with resolutions. One aspect of Holdsworth’s playing that sets him apart from other guitarists is that his lines are always connected to the chord changes of the song. No matter how wild a solo line may be, it always lands on a logical note when the harmony changes. If you only work on licks like these in isolation (especially ones that are based on fretboard patterns), you’ll find it difficult to weave the lick into the context of a song. Be sure to always include the landing note at the end of any lick as part of the line.

Ex. 14 is a solo étude written over the changes to our earlier chord etude (Ex. 5). I’ve employed a variety of techniques discussed so far: string skipping, cross-string unisons, three-note-per-string pentatonics, diminished scale sequences, and lines using shifts up and down one string.

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