Octave Displacement

Octave displacement (or Oktavenverschiebung in German) describes a technique in which we — as the name suggests — play notes in different octaves.

Octave Displacement with Major Scale

A normal C major scale from one root to the next:

Here I have shifted every second note by one octave. Notes marked in red are shifted up one octave (i.e. higher) and notes marked in green are shifted down one octave.

Octave Displacement and Tapping

Of course, as always, there are no limits or restrictions. So tapping is also allowed! 🙂

Someone has already shown us how to do it: Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal.

In his song “Abnormal” he plays more or less the chromatic scale, but shifts the octaves by tapping. The original lick:

I have slowed it down considerably so that you can hear the individual notes. But if you put the octaves back together, or try to arrange all the notes as close as possible, you get the following:

So a lot of chromaticism. In the second bar everything is even chromatic, without interruptions.

Octave Displacement in the Chromatic Scale

We all know the chromatic scale and have probably heard it a million times. Therefore, there could be a danger that the scale could become boring. Octave displacement could also help here.

Pat Martino has also demonstrated this with a chromatic scale. The starting scale is again:

And by means of these octave displacements it then sounds like this:

The whole video can be watched here by the way:

Books

There are also many books about it. For example, one by Scott McGill

Or:

Or one that is limited to church modes: