Why guitar lessons? November 25, 2017 No CommentBeginners It isn’t hard to start, but it’s difficult to continue. There are many reasons for this, but the two most common are a pre-existing routine that crowds out practice time, and uncertainty about what and how to practice. Once you know what and how to practice, guidance from someone who has been doing the same thing for much longer, and has training and experience gives you the ability to move along the path quicker. This gives you success, and the motivation to continue. Theory, technique, learning chords, songs and solos are the core of the learning process. Intermediate/advanced If you feel stale, need new ideas, or need to talk about what you’re working on, getting feedback from someone who understands – and has been in your position before – can help. Organizing yourself For each student, I construct a weekly practice plan. This takes the form of a flow chart that they can refer to during the week. For a beginning lesson in strumming, it might look like this, depending on the student. This clearly outlines what to practice (everything on the chart is discussed in-depth during the lesson), and how long to practice it each day. It’s important to see how long it will take. That way, you can figure out how to fit it into your schedule. Breaking it into chunks implies that you don’t have to do it all at once, although it’s a good idea just to make sure it gets done. The optimal result – independence The goal is to get students to the stage where they can confidently teach themselves. It is not to keep them around as long as possible so that you can make more money. At the end of every month, the student and I assess their level of interest and commitment, and discuss the best course of action. This could be ending lessons, continuing on the present course, or introducing new types of material. If they decide to leave and get stuck later, or want to learn something new, they can come back for however many lessons they feel they need. Teaching and LearningShare : Tweet
Music and the Brain November 22, 2017 No CommentThere are good reasons to study music aside from being able to play. Listening to music Simply listening to music “involves nearly every region of the brain that we know about, and nearly every neural subsystem” (Daniel Levitin, This is Your Brain on Music, p. 86). For instance, following along with music engages certain parts of the brain – the hippocampus (memory center) and the frontal lobe; tapping along with music engages others – the cerebellum’s timing circuits. Playing music Performing music uses the frontal lobes for planning behaviour, as well as the motor cortex and sensory cortex. Listening to, or recalling lyrics, involves language centers in the brain. Simply by listening to music, we strengthen our brain. By learning to play, the benefits multiply. So even if you decided to quit playing, music lessons would still have a lasting benefit that positively affects your entire life. UncategorizedShare : Tweet
Upcoming activities October 15, 2017 No CommentHermit Crab is now on bandcamp – https://hermitcrab1.bandcamp.com/releases; on cdbaby – http://cdbaby.com/cd/hermitcrab; and on itunes – https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/hermit-crab/id1289927176 Aside from playing shows, there are a number of projects and/or possible projects coming up – video production with award-winning filmmaker Kyle Armstrong; dance production with dancer/choreographer Nancy Sandercock – https://vimeo.com/user4416477; and theatre production with director Sandra Nicholls, and writers Karen Wall and Michael Andrew. That last one is a theatre production presenting a vision of environmental apocalypse. You know. Rising oceans and drowning cities, crop plagues created by genetic mutation. That sort of thing. Hermit CrabShare : Tweet
Hermit Crab Bio October 15, 2017 No CommentHailing from the northern beauty of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Hermit Crab is the collaborative project between composer Dave Wall and the instrumental post-rock trio Gary Debussy. Using the classic two guitars/bass/drums rock band format, it combines the driving intensity of punk with minimalism and the harmonic sophistication of jazz. Noise, improvisation, and electronics are also part of the sound, creating a focused, exciting, and sometimes unpredictable experience. Hermit CrabShare : Tweet
Placement October 15, 2017 No CommentPlacement of notes is crucial for producing metric tension. Generally, the production of metric tension means notes not lining up with the pulse. Repeat the following example, and the notes in the top stave will line up with the downbeat of every bar, and nowhere else. Does the next example hold more tension or less? Conventional thinking says that more notes equals more tension, at least in terms of rhythm. However, to my ear (at least in this case), less notes makes it less predictable. Because of this, it holds more tension. For someone else, it may hold less tension, especially if they’re hearing a composite rhythm instead of a metric relationship. The measurement of rhythmic tension relies a great deal on number of notes. The measurement of metric tension looks at the relationship between pulse and the notes played against the pulse. Your experience of tension arises from how you are listening. These examples highlight the idea of defining different qualities of tension, instead of defining tension based on quantity of material. Quality is almost completely subjective, however. So how do we define rhythmic quality? Rhythm and MeterShare : Tweet
Circular Rhythm October 1, 2017 No CommentThis image… …informs much of my research. It’s pretty, but what does it mean? Visual template Essentially, it’s a template for visualizing metric and rhythmic tension. The outer circle shows four bars of the pulse in 4/4; each black dot is the ‘1’. Konokol Moving towards the centre, the next circle represents the South Indian karnatic system (konokol) in 1/16 notes; each coloured circle indicates an accented note. More on the karnatic system in later posts. 1/4 Note triplets The next circle is 1/4 note triplets (blue circles) against the pulse, and then 1/4 note triplets (red circles) superimposed against each two notes of the blue 1/4 note triplets. To do this, the blue 1/4 note triplets are conceptualized as a 1/4 note pulse then the red 1/4 note triplets are mapped onto that pulse in the same way that the blue are mapped onto the primary pulse (outer circle). Note that where the red circles line up with the blue layer, and you’ll see the 3:2 relationship. Usul The inner circle is a Turkish usul. Usuller (plural for usul), are rhythmic modes in Turkish makam music. The one that I’m using here is in 11/8. There are two ways to use this usul: as 11 against 4 (as used here) or as 1/8 notes against the primary pulse. Each circle, then, holds a specific rhythmic personality. Different personalities can be inserted by using different konokol patterns, different usurer, etc. I leave it to your imagination to find these personalities. Rhythm and MeterShare : Tweet
