Chord charts November 8, 2014 2 CommentsChords! Lots of them! http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/29lLIM Man, there’s a lot of these things. The problem isn’t that they’re not useful. The problem is that they encourage you to stop exploring. What if you need an Ab9 chord, but you don’t like the sound of the one on the chart? Just use the one on the chart anyway? Well, there’s this. http://jguitar.com/chordsearch/Ab9 Make your own stuff Or you can learn some basic chord theory and key signatures. Then you can make your own stuff instead of depending on someone else. You also need to know where all the notes are on the neck of the guitar. This type of work develops your brain and allows for creativity. Learning a chord from a chart doesn’t. It just trains your fingers. Exploring C major Take the C major triad. It’s made of three notes: C, E, and G. Find as many combinations of those notes on the neck as you can. Find a C on the G string, then find the closest G and E. Now find the C on the D string. Where’s the closest G and E? Play the open high E string and the C on the G string. Where’s the G? Now use this same procedure for a G chord. Or any other chord. Move between the C chords and the new chords. Chords, keys, and notes Here’s a post that talks about building chords. http://davewallmusic.com/making-your-own-chords/ And another one that talks about building chords in different keys. http://davewallmusic.com/making-chords-in-every-key/ Here’s one on notes on the neck of the guitar. http://www.cyberfret.com/first-fret/note-names/ Once you start moving between the chords you make, it begins to feel a lot like composition instead of just going between the same old C an G chords. You start getting new ideas. And you don’t have to depend on outside resources if you don’t want to. guitarShare : Tweet
Interactive techniques November 6, 2014 No CommentCall and response Call-and-response shows up in all sorts of music, from the blues, to chain gangs, to different parts of the Catholic mass, to English sea shanties. It’s a pretty simple concept. One person plays or sings a musical phrase and another repeats it. This famous scene from Deliverance illustrates the idea. Aside from an example of call-and-response, it’s a beautiful example of how different cultures connect through music. You can use it in a song – singer sings a melody, guitar player repeats it; the drummer plays a rhythmic phrase, guitar repeats it. It’s difficult to be subtle about this. Use it sparingly. More interesting is to think of other ways that people interact. Such as… Hocket The hocket is like interjection or interruption. One person speaks and another jumps in with a related (or unrelated) statement. The idea is that you take an extended idea, and pass it around between different people in the group. This can be the lyrics, a rhythmic idea, a melodic idea, something else… Example: player 1 plays the first 4 notes of a melody, player 2 plays the next 4 notes, player 3 plays the next 4 notes, etc. Each player plays their notes alone. The effect is that the entire phrase jumps around from place to place in the performance space. The challenge is to make it sound smooth. Here’s an example of a rhythmic idea. Here’s that same idea passed around between three players. Interlocking The interlocking technique can be a beautiful thing. Do this with two to four players. More if you can make it work. Each player plays something different, and everything that’s played “interlocks” into something that works as a single thing. Here’s an example: Notice how notes are played together in only two places: the first beat and the third beat. This can work with chord progressions, too. Substitute the notes in the example for chords, and have the guitar player play the top rhythm while the piano player play the middle rhythm. Try it with just one chord. The bass player plays the bottom staff rhythm. Make up some other interlocking rhythms. You can make it simple or complex. songwritingShare : Tweet
Groove November 2, 2014 No CommentThis term gets thrown around a lot. But what does it really mean, and how is it developed? First of all, if it grooves, you’ll be moving your body. This happens most naturally in funk, rock, soul, latin, and big band jazz. It’s not usually associated with folk. Certain styles of country make you want to move, but not all of them. Here’s Part 3 of a collection of music that grooves (there are 7 parts in this collection that I know of). The first tune will show you what groove is, but you might as well listen to it all. The pocket The phrase “in the pocket” means playing with great feel, usually in the middle of the beat. It can imply the bass player and the drummer feeling the downbeats together, but a single person can play in the pocket. I’ve heard singer-songwriters playing solo that do it really well. Many people feel that the question is not so much what the pocket is as much as how you know when you’ve achieved it. If it feels as though all the rhythmic parts have merged into what feels like a single instrument, you’re there. If you’re playing solo, it kind of feels like the instrument is playing itself. No speeding up or slowing down, just a consistent rhythmic pulse. Everything happens naturally. You can play a groove in three basic ways: in front of the beat, which feels kind of rushed and energetic behind the beat, which feels really relaxed or right in the middle of the beat, which just feels solid The metronome Get a metronome. They’re free on your phone. Use a medium tempo (somewhere between 80 and 100) and just play a chord every time the metronome clicks. Or beeps. Or whatever sound yours makes. Each sound equals a quarter note. Try to stay aware of where you’re playing the chord. Is it in the middle of the beat? It’s not always obvious. You might hear the metronome sound after you play the chord. That means you’re in front of the beat. If you hear the metronome before you hear the chord, you’re behind the beat. Or you might not hear the metronome. That means you played exactly in the middle of the beat. Try to put the chord in the same place every time. Think of it as a game. Give yourself points every time you play in the same spot as the last time. Or see if you can do it five times in a row. After awhile, you’ll start to feel where the metronome sound is going to land. Once you can feel that, you can put the chord anywhere you want, and do it consistently. guitarShare : Tweet
No Art Day October 30, 2014 No CommentBill Drummond, conceptual artist and former rock star from the UK, has created something he calls No Music Day. Check out the website: http://nomusicday.com/home.php. The possibility of no music is a good thing to keep in mind if you’re the type of person that makes things. Even if you’re not. The idea sprung from the fact that we have to listen to a lot of music that we don’t choose to: Muzak, the band next door rehearsing, music bleeding onto the sidewalk from storefronts, the CBC playing random tunes on talk radio, etc. But what’s interesting to me is the impact that no music in general might have. Get rid of it all For maximum impact a day isn’t long enough, and eliminating music doesn’t goes far enough. It should be a week (a month!) long and all things art or connected with art should be eliminated. What would happen? No music anywhere, art galleries closed and tarped (don’t want to be looking in the windows), architectural beauty covered, live theatre closed, no movies, video stores closed, fashion shows cancelled, radio and tv stations turned off (some of that stuff is art), no bands in clubs, etc. And no computers. There’s way too much art to be made/accessed there. And then… Danger Keep track of world events during that week. I’d stay inside myself. There may well be a spike in violent crime and alcohol intake. But I get the feeling that, after a few days, people would start making their own art. Or crafts. Or something. If you’re not allowed to be an audience then you’ll have to be a creator. thoughtsShare : Tweet
Art and thoughtfulness October 25, 2014 No CommentI like to think about art as something that creates transformation through an act of courage. The stuff we call art demonstrates an act of caring, of going through a process of thoughtful engagement with the materials instead of trying to make something that sounds like something else. This means using lyrics and instruments, chords and melody, etc. in a way that communicates your feelings most clearly. That’s always better than just habitually plugging in chords over words. This approach can take some courage. It often means making something that people aren’t used to. It means risking rejection. Struggle And it means struggle. How do you decide on the best instrument to express a feeling of loss? Or the right combination of chord and melody to express yearning? Should you arpeggiate the chord instead of strumming? Maybe you only have to play part of the chord. How does loudness and softness figure into this. There’s a lot to be thoughtful about. And it isn’t overthinking. It’s listening internally and considering your musical options. There are a lot of those. Sweet Billy Pilgrim We can hear thoughtfulness in the work of Sweet Billy Pilgrim. Their attention to craft and detail is apparent in each song. Check out “Truth Only Smiles” from Twice Born Men. What kind of band is this? Should we establish a genre? Should we care? First verse The tune shambles into view dragging a bassoon and organ behind a broken-legged guitar (sorry if that’s overly poetic; it really sounds that way to me). The organ leaves right away, but the guitar and bassoon carry on. Along the way, a lazy snare drum roll, a triangle (or is it a glockenspiel?), and a twangy mid-range keyboard sound insert themselves into the texture. The music effectively and painfully supports lyrics that describe dying love. It’s really bleak. Second verse Was that a fart or the bassoon? A bit of twinkling, a cabassa on every beat, other things on the edge of consciousness (chattering snare?), and a banjo at the end of the verse with tentative cowbell. Chorus Extend that and add organ just before the chorus erupts with what I’m only able to describe as transcendent joy and hope. Where have I heard that melody before? The move from a musically depressing verse to the certainty of love in the chorus is an interesting variation on the old quiet verse/loud chorus idea (think Nirvana and Smells Like Teen Spirit). Third verse The third verse returns to the limping guitar. A single bass note in the piano fools us into thinking that the bassoon is back. But it’s gone, replaced by other colour that supports lyrics that give different images. Why keep the music the same in each verse if the lyrics are saying something different? Chorus Which leads to… The bridge Listen to how they enter the bridge. It sounds at first like they’re just extending the chorus, but it keeps on going. The music recedes to nothing and slowly and naturally builds to the last chorus. The feeling of yearning is palpable. Listen for instruments I haven’t mentioned (or that I’ve missed) hiding in the texture. There’s a lot going on, but it doesn’t seem busy. Everything they use has a reason for being there. All this detail tastefully, thoughtfully, and caringly rendered in the service of a beautiful expression of yearning for something lost. This is art. songwriting, thoughtsShare : Tweet
Timbre October 23, 2014 No CommentWhat does an acoustic guitar sound like when you strum it at the bridge? How about at the 5th fret? What happens when you mute the strings by laying your palm on the bridge? Play a chord progression that you know, and switch between these techniques. Each is a unique timbre. Timbre means the sound-character of the instrument. And you can change the timbre simply by strumming in different places on the guitar. Adding life to your writing Emphasizing timbre changes the way you think about your playing and your writing. Make timbre a focus, and you may find yourself introducing subtle changes in your songs that give them more life. A simple idea is to strum over the sound-hole on the verse, and strum close to the bridge for the chorus. This kind of idea adds a quality that isn’t obvious, and introduces an organizational element without getting needlessly complex. Just because it isn’t obvious doesn’t mean that people won’t notice. It means that the noticing is unconscious. They’ll keep coming back to the song to figure out what they’re hearing without knowing that that’s why they’re coming back. Electric guitar If you’re using the electric guitar, there’s way more choice of timbre given the amount of effects available. Try relating timbre to emotional content. For example, distortion can be related to anger, anxiety, or confidence. A clean sound might make you feel more relaxed. Figure out what different effects mean for you, and then figure out how they might relate to the lyrics you’re writing. Thinking this way allows you to make decisions based on supporting the song with timbre instead of just using an effect for the sake of it. songwritingShare : Tweet
