Tag Archives: Lessons

11 May

Sharing Video Recordings

Over the last year we have made a lot of video recordings or ourselves playing.

Smartphones and Tablets have truly incredible cameras. For example, my iPhone 11 can record HD video at 4k and 60 frames per second! This is great if you want to preserve memories or make a summer blockbuster. Unfortunately it often makes files that are too large to send  by eMail.

There are a few workarounds:

  • Record at a lower resolution (iphone only)
    • Go to ‘SETTINGS’
    • Scroll down to ‘CAMERA’
    • Choose ‘RECORD VIDEO’
      • select a lower quality. 720p is often plenty. If you want to make a high-quality video, choose 1080p.
    • You can return to your original settings as soon as you’re done
  • Compress the video after the fact
    • There are a number of Video Compressor apps for both iPhone and android and you should be able to find them fairly easily. These will lower the resolution of the video after the fact so be sure to duplicate your video before trying this for the first time.
  • Use the cloud to share your original video
    • Cloud storage systems such as Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, etc. allow you to share very large files. The main limitation is going to be your budget (how much space you need) and how much data you already have stored on the cloud.

 

 

 

24 Oct

Intro to Rhythm Guitar: Combo Rhythms

Hopefully you’ve had a chance to read my lesson on Subtractive Strumming. This week we’ll take the next step as Rhythm Guitar Players with Combo Rhythms.

In my four Combo Rhythms, we take the same concepts we learned in Subtractive Strumming and put the notes in a different order. This gives us more variety and an opportunity to read trickier rhythms.

Remember that just as with Subtractive Rhythms:

  • Each of the following rhythms should be played separately. Do not go directly from #1 to #2.
  • These patterns can be played with any chord.
  • Counting and strumming indiciationshave been left out of these four exercises.
    Quarter-Notes should still be played with a downstrum, Eighth-Notes should be strummed down-up.

combo

Be sure to keep your strumming steady and count out loud.

First practice each pattern on a single chord, repeating many times. Once you feel comfortable, add a chord change. Then try applying the rhythm to a song.

Practice these four rhythms for a solid week (or until you feel you’ve mastered them). Spend some time keeping up with your Subtractive Rhythms.

Once you feel you’ve mastered these eight rhythms, look ahead to my lesson on Creating Your Own Rhythms.

10 Oct

Why Learn Music Anyway?

A few months ago I had an interesting exchange with a young student. I asked him a question I’ve asked hundreds of times before “Why do you want to learn the trumpet?”. Usual responses include “I don’t know”, “because my parents say I have to”, “I want to be in the school band”. Rarely I’m treated with “I love the music of Louis Armstrong”.

This one student’s response stopped me in my tracks: “I just want to learn the trumpet to make lots of money, then I’m going to quit”.

Wait, what? How did I miss out on this trumpet player windfall?

As a business, music is cruel. You will never get out of the music business in money what you put into it.

 

So why learn music in the first place?

Music is universal. Every culture on the planet has created art for our ears. You can’t go anywhere without encountering music. Buskers are on the streets and subways. Music plays in restaurants & stores. We hear it in advertisements. Music enhances the emotional impact of television and movies. Music is everywhere. Religious institutions have been using the power of music to enhance prayer for thousands of years. We listen to music in our cars and wander the streets with headphones on. Music is, simply, everywhere.

We too often answer this question with music’s ancillary benefits: Music helps us learn math, science, etc. Students who study music tend to graduate and go to college. Joining band or orchestra keeps kids out of trouble.

 

Still, why study music?

  1. Music makes us smarter!

    The human brain is like a muscle in that the more it is used, the stronger it becomes. An engaged mind will become smarter while the disengaged atrophies. With increased interest and understand, every musical can become a mental workout.

  2. Become better consumers!

    Noone wants to listen to bad music, but like a bad burrito many people don’t realize that it was bad music until they don’t feel quite right on the way home. Casual listeners often lack the vocabulary and ears to know what they want. A little bit of education can help us to value music.

  3. Free our society from the social network!

    Music has long been a group activity. Before the 20th century brought us radios, records, tapes, CD’s, mp3s and streaming, you had to go to concerts or make music for yourself. Families could form string quartets, bluegrass bands & choirs just for the joy of making music! While I’m a big fan of keeping our (musical) history alive, I’m more interested in continuing this trend into the 21st century. Make use of live DJ equipment, electric guitars, even internet based collaboration to make music for the sake of making music!

 

Ultimately we play music because we love it. We love listening to music. We love making music. Those of us fortunately to make a living as musicians didn’t get into this racket for the money.

19 Sep

The Anatomy of a Major Scale

What Is A Scale?

In music theory, a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch (Wikipedia).

Scales are constructed of intervals. An interval is the harmonic space between two notes. The smallest intervals we regularly deal with are Minor Seconds (half step) or Major Seconds (whole step / two half steps).

The Major scale is the most well known scale. Walk past any practice room and you’ll hear the common pattern: ‘Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do’. Knowing your major scales is fundamental. Just about every audition or jury will expect you to be able to play them. Having scales under your fingers makes music easier to play (since almost all music is constructed from scales of some sort). Our thinking on improvisation and music theory is often built around using scales.

Let’s look at the C-Major Scale:

majCThis scale is built mostly of major seconds. In fact there are only two minor seconds, between the third & fourth notes and the seventh & eighth notes.

majC

So Let’s Look at Some Other Major Scales:

 

F-major?

majFThere are those half steps between notes 3-4 and 7-8

 

G-major?

majGThe half steps are there again.

 

It’s safe to say that all major scales contain half-steps between notes 3-4 and 7-8 the rest of the intervals are whole-steps.
Alternatively, you can think of the major scale as: Whole-Whole-Half-Whole-Whole-Whole-Half (WWHWWWH).

wwhwwwh

So What Now?

You are going to have to learn (and memorize) all twelve of your major scales. There are two ways to do this. The first is rote memorization: get a book of scales and play them until you can’t forget them. Unless you have a photographic memory that means alot of time spent drilling your scales, leaving you less time to work on music.

Understanding how these scales are constructed (half-steps between notes 3-4 & 7-8 / WWHWWWH), you can build each scale from the ground up: just pick a starting note and go.

At first practice writing all of your major scales. Write a scale play it, then do the same for another. Soon you can throw away the pencil and paper: try figuring out the scale in your head and playing it straightaway.

Be sure to play different scales every day. Don’t be afraid of the less familiar scales (F#, Db, etc).

 

Bonus:

Write and even improvise music using any major scale.

 

Do you appreciate these lessons? Considering donating to help keep them coming!
Even better, sign up for a lesson!

 

12 Sep

Intro to Rhythm Guitar: Subtractive Strumming

Teaching guitar to hundreds of students since 2004.

In music there is nothing more important than rhythm. Appropriately, the Rhythm Guitar Player is fundamental to any band.

Rhythm Guitar provides the harmonic and rhythmic underpinning. A good rhythm guitarist will help the band keep the beat, establish the groove and give us a recognizable chord progression. A good rhythm guitar player is all you need, supporting or even taking the place of a drummer and bass player. On the other hand a bad player will be a real drag on the band.

 

Subtractive Strumming

Subtractive Strumming is my approach to Rhythm Guitar playing. Before attempting these excercises, be sure you know your rhythm fundamentals (whole notes, half notes, quarter notes & eighth notes). You should also be prepared to play a few chords.

  • Each of the following rhythms should be played separately. Do not go directly from #1 to #2.
  • These patterns can be played with any chord.

subtractive

  1. We start with straight eighth notes. Play these by strumming ‘down-up-down-up-down-up-down-up’ while counting out loud (one and two and . . .)
    • Counting out loud keeps you honest.
    • Keep a steady tempo throughout.
  2. Here we’ve taken away (or ‘subtracted’) the first upstrum on the ‘and of one’. By removing the upstrum, we’ve turned the pair of eighth notes into a quarter note.
    • Make sure your strumming arm keeps moving at the same pace.
    • Don’t forget to count.
  3. Now we remove the first and second upstrums leaving us with two quarter notes and two pairs of eighth notes.
  4. Turning the first three pairs of eighth notes into quarter notes, the only upstrum is on the ‘and of four’.

 

All four of these rhythms are solid strumming patterns. First practice each pattern on a single chord, repeating many times. Once you feel comfortable, add a chord change. Then try applying the rhythm to a song.

Practice these four rhythms for a solid week (or until you feel you’ve mastered them).

08 Sep

The Practice Method

I use this method myself in my own daily practice. You can use it to learn how to play almost anything!

  1. Take a small section (2-4 notes).
  2. Play it 1x, 2x, 3x perfect.
  3. Take another small section.
  4. Play it 1x, 2x, 3x perfect.
  5. Combine the prior sections, play 1x, 2x, 3x perfect.
  6. Repeat as necessary.

A few notes:

  • Work smaller sections than you want to. Make it manageable and avoid mistakes.
  • Perfection is the key. If you make a mistake working on playing it 3x, go back to 2x. If you err on 2x, go back to 1x. If you make a mistake playing it 1x, choose a smaller section.

 

06 Sep

Practicing vs. Playing

Are we or practicing or playing today?

Lets look at the differences:

 

Practice

Practicing is what we do to grow as a musician. This includes any warmups, scales, technical exercises, etudes as well as learning new music.

Practicing, often, is not pretty. Just listen to any beginning trumpet or saxophone player and you’ll hear all sorts of strange sounds. When you practice you’ll make many mistakes. This is good. We learn from our mistakes.

Practicing is tedious. Noone wants to hear you play the same thing over and over again but that’s the only way to learn.

Most of all, practicing is necessary.

 

Playing

Playing is really any time we pick up the instrument.

Playing is fun.

Playing is when we revisit the music we already know.

Playing is performing (even if its just for yourself).

 

Balance

Be sure to balance practicing and playing. If all we ever do is play the music we know, we’ll never improve. If all we do is practice, it’s easy to lose our connection to why we started playing music in the first place!

 

One More Thing . . .

While we’re at it, I’d like to quickly point out the difference between group practicing and rehearsing.

Practicing as a group is still practicing. When we’re trying to learn or write new music we are practicing.

Rehearsing is about putting music together as a group. Players who arrive ready to rehearse should have already practiced their own parts. This way we can spend time locking in the groove & putting the music together.

 

Now go out and practice, play, rehearse and perform!

19 Feb

Where to practice?

When it comes to learning a musical instrument, we all know that practice is critical. A weekly lesson can give you the tools but you have to learn to use them on your own.

You can’t get in good, regular practice without first finding the right practice room.

 

Choose Someplace Convenient

Practicing alone at the top of a secluded mountain like some warrior monk you saw once in a movie may seem idyllic, but its just not practical. By the time you gather your equipment and hike to the top of Kilimanjaro you won’t have any energy to work on your scales & etudes.

There are fore more convenient options closer to home: bedrooms and basements are great options!

Make it Practical

Don’t make practice an inconvenience. Leave your case out where you can see it. If you have a low-traffic room to practice in, leave your instrument out on a stand. If you have the guitar in its case under your bed -well- you know what they say: out of sight, out of mind.

Your music should be well organized and accessible. The week’s assignments should be ready to go at a moment’s notice. Buy yourself a music stand. They are inexpensive. You’ll thank yourself later.

Make sure that you have plenty of light. It’s amazing that I arrive at many students’ homes and can barely see the music myself! When I work in pit orchestras or dimly lit club, I always use a stand light. If moving a lamp is out of the question, think about getting a stand light yourself.

Avoid Distractions

Your piano looks beautiful in your living room, but is that the best place to practice? We put the drum set in the basement along with the kids’ toys.

Yes you want the practice area to be practical and convenient, but distractions will make it impossible to concentrate. It will take much longer and be much more frustrating to learn Chopin if there’s a basketball flying past your head every few minutes. Simply put: if you can’t concentrate, you can’t practice.

If you’re not working on music together, do not practice simultaneously with another musician in the same area.

Setting up a practice area in an out-of-the-way room will also help keep the noise down for the rest of the family!

Bedrooms, basements, offices and living rooms are all great options, just make sure that it’s far away from the action. Just remember to find someplace Convenient, Practical and Private.