Showing posts with label lesson. Show all posts

Friday, August 14, 2009

A little general harmonic advice for starting out:

from http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=164330

Roots of chords a fourth and a fifth apart generally sound good.
Roots of chords falling a third is good.
Roots of chords rising a third is good strong to weak, but bad weak to strong. (In 4/4, the strongest beat is the 1st, then the 3rd)
Don't sandwich chords (ie, have at least 2 different chords before having the same one again).
Try to use a mixture of root position and 1st inversion chords. (Avoid second inversions)
Avoid diminished or augmented chords (eg. chord VII, and chord II in a minor key)
Avoid chord III.
Avoid the progressions II to I, and V to IV.
Avoid the bass note of a chord on a strong beat the same as the bass note of the preceding weak beat.
The top line and the bass should not approach an octave or 5th in similar motion, except by step in the top part.

The bass is also very important.
It should generally move by step whenever possible, and should not leap around all over the place.
Contrary motion between the bass and the top line is good.

My posts on Voice Leading, and my Introduction to cadences might also be useful to you.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Alternate Tuning Guide

Alternate Tuning Guide

An Introduction to Alternate Tunings

Alternate Tuning PDF

A Crash Course in Open and Alternate Tunings

chord-o-matic excel file

Monday, May 25, 2009

Making backing Tracks bob notes norton

Making backing Tracks

Thursday, May 21, 2009

across the fretboard

fretboard generator

Guitar Fretboard in Depth

So, what is the correlation between guitar tuning and the guitar fretboard?

This is actually a key point to consider, in order to understand how notes are arranged on the fretboard, as any change in tuning will produce a completely new array. Although there are potentially limitless ways of tuning the guitar, the most useful tuning to know (at least at an initial stage) is the standard one: six strings tuned at the interval of a perfect fourth from each other, except for the second and third strings, which are tuned a major third apart.

Examples: using shell voicings - pdf

tetrachords

Tertachords and where they exist in almost every common scale

Tetrachordal Trickery

Four tetrachords relevant to our present Western music system and to Jazz are the :

Guitar Fingerings for the Major Scale and its Modes
using "The Brent Box Sets"

Monday, May 18, 2009

export Yamaha style

export Yamaha style files to realband, or other sequencer, for processing and\or saving to midi

MidiPlayer 2

find style files here

http://www.1manband.nl/freestyles.htm

http://www.1manband.nl/links.htm

Thursday, April 23, 2009

approach to songwriting

I was asked for my approach to songwriting and wrote the following. Others might find it helpful...

Notating the Melody

If you are a singer then your dilemma re songwriting is the same as mine and probably for the same reason - we are primarily singers and think as such rather than instrumentalists and thinking as such. It is easy for us to write the lyrics and think of a good melody - arranging is our problem. To get around this, I use Melodyne. The programme does take some learning but you can also get a training video for it. This enables me to record a vocal melody and then use the programme to convert the melody into MIDI notation.

Remember to use a metronome or simple drum pattern to record the vocals against, this will help with the timing and placement of notes. Nothing fancy, just a 3 time or 4 time beat. Set it to start with at 120bpm as this is the median of the RI tempos. You can always speed it up or slow it down a little but stay, if possible, within the 100bpm to 140bpm range so that you will be able to make good use of the RIs. There is a reason why PG maps everything to 120bpm and the key of C - not only is it mid-range tempo it is also the easiest key.

Arranging

Once the notation is down, it is very easy to arrange. Import it into BIAB and this will tell you what key your notation is in. A good clue to the melody key though is usually the most common note in the series and / or the final note of the song. Next step, transpose it to the key of C (no incidentals to worry about) which makes it very easy to see the chords to arrange it to. You can cover all the notes using 3 chords (I, IV and V7) - in the key of C, these are C, F and G7. Every note in the scale is covered with these. Look for the 'key' notes, these are the longer ones or the ones that come on the beat and are most often the first and third beats in a 4/4 bar (in a 3/4 song it is even easier because you just need to look at the first note in each bar).

In C, the I will match against C, E and G, the IV will match against F, A and C, the V7 will match against G, B, D and F. The V7 will also resolve nicely back to the I. Now that gives us every note...

C - I / IV
D - V7
E - I
F - IV / V7
G - V7 / I
A - IV
B - V7

Ok. This is simply a 3 chord trick but you can spice it up by using substitution chords. In the key of C, D can be substituted with a iim and A with a vim (i.e. the IV chord can be substituted with either iim / vim). If you want fancier chords, you can always add the extensions (2, 9, 11, 13, etc) or flatten a note in the chord to cover something in the melody where the chord you really want to use (because of a progression such as I-vi-ii-V7-I) will clash, such as an augmented chord or a b5... These extra chords are just added for flavour. Remember, EVERY song can be boiled down to the simple I, IV and V7 chords. Most probably, though not always your song will start and end on the I. Remember the Beatles? They wrote an entire song using just one single chord, which was of course the same as the key (G, if I remember right). Once you have the melody, of course, you can always use the Re-Harmonist feature in BIAB to generate a chordal progression for you but if you follow my outline above, you won't go far wrong. I mainly use the Re-Harmonist if I want to find an alternative progression in a part of a song if I am trying to avoid using a certain chord (I can play every chord in the book but some of them are preferable to others for ease of playing and for sound properties). Once you have this, you can then use the Vocal Wizard to set it to the right key for your voice (and for our area, that is primarily either C, G, D, A or E). Believe me, the above may seem very simple but it really is! About 15 or so years ago, I analysed in depth note-for-note over 250 all-time hit songs from ABBA to ZZ Top to work out how they did it and created a Decision Support System that enabled me to spot the patterns and how they were arrived at. It took a couple of months and the above was the outcome. It works.

Selecting Instrumentation

Having done this, select the instruments you would like to have in your line-up and can imagine being played by real musicians in a band you put together and then use the RIs to reflect this. The rest is down to your ears and the mixing and mastering techniques as very simply outlined by Ray in his tutorial on RB. Don't go creating arrangements with different instruments each time - we may have the ability to do this with RB but would we in real life? We can't afford to tour a whole orchestra with us just because we want an alto sax solo or a bassoon for one single number in a repertoire of 20 songs or so! Use your ears and your brain / imagination!

Selecting a Style

As to Style selection, I start with something very simple and only one instrument (usually a strumming acoustic guitar), not even drums. I want people to be able to play this at home for themselves and therefore it is very important to KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). I want to walk along a beach one day or take an underground train and see a teenager playing and singing my songs on a guitar! Once I have this, I will add a second instrument (this used to be a bass but now that my g/f wants to play with me, it is an acoustic piano). These are my two main instruments - bass, rhythm and fills can be achieved with these two instruments alone (think James Blunt).

For recording purposes, I will then add drums, bass (I have an e-bass, so that is what I go for as I know I have one) and possibly, though not always, a lead guitar / sax. I will use these instruments for the backing tracks and can always have them recorded for use in live performance (still only 2 real musicians, myself and my g/f). The choice of instruments can be varied - I have an acoustic guitar, a strat clone and a jazz guitar so I have a choice of 3 different guitar sounds, a jazz e-bass and keyboards so I know I have the instruments to be able to play this line up by myself if need be.

Recording & Performance

So now we have the music, add a good quality mic for recording and we can produce great songs. Add a good PA system and you are ready for gigs.

Additional Tips

Another tip is to spend as much time as possible hanging out around the forum - on all the boards. So much can be picked up there about all sorts of things from gigs to performance techniques to tricks with the software and stored away in memory for possible future use.

HTH

--------------------
http://www.pgmusic.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=196068&an=0&page=1#Post196068

Sam

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

midi drum kit

the Standard Drum Kit. Click here a list of the drum sounds that correspond to each MIDI note in the Standard Drum Kit. The Brush Kit is usually the same as the Standard Drum Kit with the following three exceptions:

Note #38 is a Brush Tap instead of a Snare Drum.
Note #39 is a Brush Slap instead of a Hand Clap.
Note #40 is a Brush Swirl instead of a Snare Drum.

Some Yamaha synths use a somewhat different map for the brush sounds. On these synths:

Note #25 is a Brush tap.
Note #27 is a Brush Slap.
Note #26 is a Brush swirl.

midi drum kit note names

BRUSH DRUM KIT “STIR” TUTORIAL

create click track

youtube-using Audacity to generate a Click Track

Saturday, April 18, 2009

online lessons

Learn music online from anywhere, with a schedule that fits your life. Study with Berklee faculty.

Welcome to the Berklee Shares Web site. Here you will find free music lessons that you can download, share and trade with your friends and fellow musicians.

Friday, March 27, 2009

first steps in keyboarding

the map

generic map

Thursday, March 26, 2009

harmony

7 harmonies tutorial

Monday, March 23, 2009

Chord Progressions & songs

make your own guitar chord

moneychords

The Best Free Jazz/Standard Chord Changes on the Web

Click a song title to view The Vanilla Book chord changes.

This web page contains a list of songs that have similar chord progressions and tonal shifts (modulations) and then links them to the "Vanilla Book".

The Buddy Holly - VIb-chord

Rhythm changes 4 guitar
Basic Rhythm Changes

While there are many possible chord progressions, there are a few basic building blocks that account for many of the chord changes you will see

chord charts to over 800 songs

Jazz guitar free sheet music , tabs, mp3

jazz guitar chords
Guitar Chord Progression

Here are some examples of the I-V-VI-IV chord progression

The I - V - vi - IV (or C - G - Am - F) is a very common chord progression in popular music, and I put together all the songs I could find that fit it. All of the songs fit this chord progression in some way (I - V - vi - IV, V - vi - I - IV, vi - IV - I - V, or IV - I - V - vi).

cannon in D
(2 per bar): D ABm F#mG DG A I-Vvi -iiiIV-IIV-V

vi-IV-I-V Sensitive Female Chord Progression

Standard Chord Patterns For Basic Song Segments

I IV (one of the most basic, and most overused progressions around. Used in James Brown - Sex Machine)

i IV (Used in Tito Puente - Oye Como Va and Herbie Hancock - Chameleon)

I IV V (happy pop sound. Used in Green Day - Time of Your Life)

I V IV (thanks, Third Eye Blind, all your latest hits use this progression. Also used in Blink 182 - All The Small Things (chorus))

I V vi IV (hooray for Blink 182, *cough*)

i VII VI V (Hit the Road Jack, and several Flamenco pieces)

I vi IV V (50s happy doowop. Used in Ben E. King - Stand By Me, the first chords of The Beatles- This Boy, and Every Breath You Take by The Police)

I VII IV (rock)

ii V I (jazz standard. Autumn Leaves begins with these chords)

I IV I I IV IV I I V IV I I (12 bar blues, another jazz standard. Used in Jimmy Hendrix - Red House and B.B.King - Everyday I Have The Blues)

LEARN TO COMPOSE

Saturday, February 21, 2009

music theory 4 add

music theory 4 add
Swing Vamp Patterns

Altered Tunings
The Pentatonic Major Scale -- Five Notes You Need
Pentatonic Major Scale Patterns
Notes On The Fingerboard
Using Octave Notes to Get Your Bearings
The Famous Circle of Fifths
3 Note Movable Chord Forms
Swing Vamp Patterns
Anatomy of a Diminished Chord
"Fake Swing"

Monday, January 19, 2009

transposing

Transposing notes for a Bb clarinet?

Common Transposing Instruments

Transposing Instruments Basics

The alto sax is in Eb. This means that when the alto sax player reads and plays the C major scale, s/he thinks of it as "C major" but the pitch we hear is Eb. Applying this principle (and not worrying about octaves) gives the rule that the pitch that the sax player reads is a minor third lower than the pitch we hear. So, if the song is written in E, a minor third lower is C# (enharmonically the same as Db) and this means that the sax player would need to play in C# or Db to be in tune with the backing in E.

To make it easier for the young guy, I encourage you to transpose your song to Eb rather than E because then your printout would be in C. Transposing is very easy in BIAB and I'm sure the young guy would find it much easier to read music in C than in Db (or C#).

I always think of the alto as a major 6th above concert pitch (same as down a minor 3rd) because it is easier for my brain to transpose. The 6th is the relative minor, and that is an important association. Plus when I think of chord structures, I generally think up rather than down. So in the key of C I would play the Major 6 arpeggio as C-E-G-A and A is the relative minor or the alto sax pitch. (Note: that arpeggio is the "meat" of the bass line to zillions of songs)

BTW, The Tenor (a Bb instrument) is a whole step above concert pitch.

I played tenor and alto in guitar bands most of my life. Guitar players like E and A concert, so I learned to play the sax in the keys with lots of sharps in them.

As a result, I actually prefer to play in keys like E and A to what are supposed to be easier keys like Bb and Eb.

It's all a matter of what you get used to. F# is not any more difficult for the fingers than any other key. IMHO the sharp keys are actually easier to play than the flat ones. I don't know if it is what I'm used to or not, but the hands actually seem to be more comfortable in those keys. The transition from B to C# is much more fluid than B to C on the sax and the Bb is always a bit of an awkward note to play in fast runs (which is why there are alternate not-quite-in-tune fingerings for that note).

I encourage all sax players to learn to play in E and A concert because there is so much music that is played in those keys.

Insights and incites by Notes

from

Musical Instrument Range Chart

musical instrument ranges & names

Sunday, December 21, 2008

videoTabs

videoTabs

youtube guitar lesson

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

keyboard lessons

This psrtutorial page provides a number of links to internet resources available for those who want to enhance their musical training..

from http://psrtutorial.com/index.html

Chord Secrets - While we don't teach much music, learning chords is critical to someone who wants to master an arranger keyboard. I found an excellent series of lessons on learning the "Secrets of Chord Progressions" authored by noted pianist Duane Shinn. Duane provides the lessons through a "free" newsletter service with a new lesson each week. He has agreed that psrtutorial can carry the lessons on our site as well. There are 39 lessons in the complete series. Believe me, if you work through these lessons, doing the recommended exercises, your playing will improve tremendously.

Chord progressions