How did I ever forget about fourths? Used to be, I was getting a fairly decent handle on the Angular Interval, but in the course of practicing other material I forgot all about it.

Then yesterday, as I was pondering what else I could do to help me get more deeply inside the key of F# (which I continue to practice religiously–you’d think I’d have it down by now), suddenly it dawned on me: What about fourths? What better way to break away from the tedious predictability of tertian harmony than to reacquaint myself with the spacious, somewhat stark-sounding quartal sound.

So last night I began the process, and tonight I tightened down on what I started yesterday and then added onto it.

In my experience, fourths are more difficult to play diatonically than as sequences of straight perfect fourths. I’m not talking about fourth diads; those are fairly easy to get one’s chops around. But start stacking fourths and then taking them stepwise up and down a scale, and from a standpoint of technique, suddenly the job is no longer quite so simple.

And that’s perfect. Becoming truly fluent in an odd key such as F# is challenging, and to really unlock it, you’ve got to hit it from every angle. Practicing fourths can help you break out of the box, introducing angularity to your playing and helping you to land on notes you wouldn’t ordinarily think of in relation to other notes.

But of course you’d rather find out for yourself than listen to me talk. Since there’s no better teacher than experience, here’s a little exercise that will help you to experience fourths for yourself. It’s one of the patterns I was working on earlier tonight, set in the key of Eb (another key I’ve just started tacking onto F# as one I want to saturate myself in).

Now, it’s late and I’m lazy, too lazy to actually write out an exercise and go through all the hassle of scanning it. So I’m just going to tell you the pitches, okay? They’re arranged in groups of three, which you’ll play as triplets ascending and descending the Eb major scale. Here they are:

Eb-Ab-D, F-Bb-Eb, G-C-F, Ab-D-G, Bb-Eb-Ab, C-F-Bb, D-G-C, Eb-Ab-D; D-Ab-Eb, C-G-D, Bb-F-C, Ab-Eb-Bb, G-D-Ab, F-C-G, Eb-Bb-F, D-Ab-Eb.

That’s it for tonight. I’m tired and more in the mood to read and drink my Dark Horse Raspberry Ale than to write. I’ve already done my heavy lifting on my horn for today. Now it’s your turn.