Workshop 38 mini-test

1. How do you count the sixteenth-note grid in 4/4?

2. What is a ghosted attack?

3. Why should a funk vamp be practiced without pedal?

4. What distinguishes F Dorian from F Aeolian?

5. What is F minor pentatonic?

6. What note adds the basic blues ♭5 color?

7. Why is rhythmic displacement so powerful over static harmony?

8. What is the difference between keeping a riff fixed while harmony changes and transposing the riff with the harmony?

9. Why can one chord sustain a complete musical form?

10. What is the deepest lesson of Workshop 38?

Answers

1. 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a.
2. A precisely timed but extremely soft/percussive attack whose rhythmic contribution matters more than its pitch prominence.
3. Because pedal can hide poor articulation and smear the sixteenth-note grid; dry playing exposes whether the groove is actually precise.
4. F Dorian has D natural (6); F Aeolian has D♭ (♭6).
5. F-A♭-B♭-C-E♭.
6. B natural, between B♭ and C, functioning as the blues ♭5 relative to F.
7. With little harmonic movement, changing where a familiar riff falls against the sixteenth-note grid creates strong tension and novelty while preserving thematic identity.
8. A fixed riff lets the same pitches be reinterpreted by different bass/harmony; transposition preserves the riff's interval/function relationship as the whole harmonic world moves.
9. Because form can be generated through rhythm, density, articulation, dynamics, register, repetition, silence, and groove rather than through chord progression alone.
10. In groove-based music, rhythmic placement is as specific and meaningful as pitch.

The central lesson of Workshop 38 is:

Once the harmony stops carrying the story, every tiny rhythmic choice starts carrying it instead.