A few years back, I had the great fortune to spend the day at the Vermont recording studio of a jazz musician named Chuck Eller. Chuck recorded my Discover Your Soul Purpose meditation CD, and offered to provide some background piano music as well.
From the beginning, I knew the meditations needed some kind of scoring, but exactly what and how eluded me. There are no entries in the phone book for "Composer - Mystical, Healing, Background Stuff". Furthermore, I had no idea how I was going to 'direct' such a musician. ("More ... creative. No! More ... uh ... uh ... inspiring?") The whole thing was loose enough to be almost frightening.
Meanwhile, the clock was ticking and the meter was running. Enter Chuck. From the moment he sat down to play, things rolled magically. I'd say, "OK, Chuck, in this part they have to be in a wildflower field." He'd think for a minute, and then just start playing the most quintessential wildflower music you've ever heard. Then I'd say, "Now this part is warmer -- like The Waltons." And suddenly we'd be rocking on the front porch with John-boy and Grandpa.
Chuck was able to play these musical inserts totally spontaneously (nothing was composed in advance.) And he ended at just the right spot almost every single time, without even knowing how long the music should be. He did this a remarkable 23 times!
The best part was listening to Chuck fool around on the piano between each recording we made, as he probed around for good musical ideas. We began to fade into the background as he went deeper and deeper into his creative trance. Almost sheepishly, he finally looked up and said, "You know, I could just do this all day."
Working with Chuck got me thinking about how accessible his 'creative channel' was for him -- and how many people we call geniuses share this trait, along with some other distinct qualities. Just for fun, I thought I'd catalog some of those characteristics that belong to geniuses … qualities many of us share in varying degrees. (By the way, these hallmarks can apply to geniuses across the board in business, science, etc.. I'm simply using artistic geniuses here to illustrate my points.)
1. The Creative Channel is on all the time. They simply have to tune in, and boom -- they're off in that wonderful, rich creative place where inspiration lives.
2. They feel things deeply … and need to express it. I notice this particularly around my friends who are actors … their emotions run so freely and powerfully, that they feel everything twice as intensely. Furthermore, they let you know it.
3. They have natural empathy. Geniuses tend to know how you'd feel at any given moment, so they have a need to give away their feelings. An interviewer once asked Broadway composer Steven Sondheim if he could write a song about anything, and he replied, no - but that he could write about anyone, as long as he knew who the character is.
4. They find beauty in unlikely places the rest of us miss. I'm thinking of the 19th century French artists Toulouse-Lautrec and Monet who found enduring beauty in common haystacks and down at the heels prostitutes. True geniuses love the bittersweet, the forgotten, the simple.
By: Suzanne Falter-barns
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Signs of a Passionate Artist - Part 2 of 2
5. They're not afraid to cry. The creative genius knows that tears are the juice of life, whether they are tears of happiness, despair or simply deep relating.
6. They're different and often pay a price for it. Creative geniuses often have childhoods marked with ridicule or isolation. And those tough times can continue right on through adulthood, though modern times have made such non-conformity more acceptable. I'm thinking of people like Oscar Wilde, Frida Khalo, Orson Welles, Michael Jackson, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Andy Warhol.
7. They are brave. Many a genius is trained by social ostracism to be brave and strong in standing up for their work. They know their work is valid despite what the crowd says, and they stick by it steadfastly. And public opinions can sway, often long after the artist's death. Think of Vincent Van Gogh, who only sold two paintings in his entire lifetime.
8. They are prolific. Typically, creative geniuses are always creating. It's simply what they do. Cole Porter, for instance, wrote more than 800 songs. And he wrote them wherever he went: on luxury cruise decks, or weekend jaunts to the country. Porter, who was notoriously stoic, said he finished one of his songs while waiting for rescue, after his legs had been crushed by a horse.
9. They simply can't do a half-baked job. Think about the artists you love ... even a guy like Michelangelo. He was so committed to his work, he'd literally sleep with it. All to get to the edge of perfection.
10. They love their work deeply. Michelangelo, who never married, said: "I already have a wife who is to much for me; one who keeps me unceasingly struggling on. It is my art, and my works are my children."
By: Suzanne Falter-barns
6. They're different and often pay a price for it. Creative geniuses often have childhoods marked with ridicule or isolation. And those tough times can continue right on through adulthood, though modern times have made such non-conformity more acceptable. I'm thinking of people like Oscar Wilde, Frida Khalo, Orson Welles, Michael Jackson, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Andy Warhol.
7. They are brave. Many a genius is trained by social ostracism to be brave and strong in standing up for their work. They know their work is valid despite what the crowd says, and they stick by it steadfastly. And public opinions can sway, often long after the artist's death. Think of Vincent Van Gogh, who only sold two paintings in his entire lifetime.
8. They are prolific. Typically, creative geniuses are always creating. It's simply what they do. Cole Porter, for instance, wrote more than 800 songs. And he wrote them wherever he went: on luxury cruise decks, or weekend jaunts to the country. Porter, who was notoriously stoic, said he finished one of his songs while waiting for rescue, after his legs had been crushed by a horse.
9. They simply can't do a half-baked job. Think about the artists you love ... even a guy like Michelangelo. He was so committed to his work, he'd literally sleep with it. All to get to the edge of perfection.
10. They love their work deeply. Michelangelo, who never married, said: "I already have a wife who is to much for me; one who keeps me unceasingly struggling on. It is my art, and my works are my children."
By: Suzanne Falter-barns
Humor Under The Keyboard
For me, the piano is the symbol of what is stiff, proper and elegant. It doesn’t have faults, it is perfect. Pianists are the most perfectionist people in the world. They should not and can not make mistakes especially when performing. That is how I viewed the piano and the pianists. But then, I just found out I was wrong. A few researches and I have once again proven that appearances can be deceiving.
The pianists we see play appear to be the most formal and respectable stars on the stage. They hold the power and the breath of the audiences. They could look intimidating in their formal suits not to mention the authority and the air of arrogance they exude while on stage. They can be captivating.
But before we forget, these pianists are also human. And humans do make mistakes. Most of these mistakes can be frustrating and depressing. But then, there are also mistakes that are amusing and could also be totally hilarious. It shows how fun could be inserted even in the most seemingly stuffy and proper event.
Here are some examples:
When asked for their definition of a piano, some famous musicians and musical enthusiasts have some famous replies:
· For David W. Barber (The Musician’s Dictionary), a piano is a cumbersome piece of furniture found in many homes, where playing it ensures the early departure of unwanted guests.
· Piano (n.) is a parlor utensil for subduing the impertinent visitor. It is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience, according to Ambrose Bierce, an American journalist (The Devil’s Dictionary).
· A piano tuner is a person employed to come into the home, rearrange the furniture, and annoy the cat. The tuner’s chief purpose is to ascertain the breaking point of the piano’s strings.
Though these definitions may sound humorous, you can never miss the ironies in it. Coming from people who live and breathe the piano, these definitions seem odd.
Here’s more – when asked about their secrets in playing, you would certainly be surprised at how simple their secrets can be, and definitely applicable.
· Australian pianist Artur Schnabel said, “I always make sure that the lid over the keyboard is open before I start to play”.
· “Nothing soothes me more after a long and maddening course of pianoforte recitals than to sit and have my teeth drilled”, said George Bernard Shaw, a writer and a music critic.
I definitely agree with Artur Schnabel’s top secret! I wonder why George found it relaxing to have his teeth drilled after hearing the pianoforte recitals. Check out more of the piano’s funny side:
· Bob Hope, an American comedian commented on fellow comedian Phyllis Diller on her playing the piano: “When she started to play, Steinway himself came down personally and rubbed his name off the piano.”
· A band teacher recalled the title of the song “Claire de Lune” played by a student as “Claire de Loonie”.
· The audiences at a piano recital were appalled when a telephone rang just off stage. Without missing a note, the soloist glanced toward the wings and called, “If that’s my agent, tell him I’m working!”Now, let’s check out some famous questions and answers in the funny world of piano:
· What do you get when you drop a piano down a mine shaft? A flat minor
· What do you get when you drop a piano on an army base? A flat major
· Why is an 11-foot concert grand better than a studio upright? Because is makes a much bigger kaboom when dropped over a cliff.
· Why was the piano invented? So that the musician would have a place to put his beer.
· Why did they say that the pianist had fingers like lightning? They never struck the same place twice.
· What did they find when they dug up Beethoven’s grave? He was decomposing.
· Why did Mozart kill his chicken? Because they always ran around going, “Bach! Bach! Bach!”·
Imagine a singer, a piano player, a bass player and a drummer sitting around the table. Now if you drop a hundred-dollar bill right in the middle and tell them they’re free to take it, who’s getting it? The piano player. Because the bass player is too slow, for the winger it’s too little money and the drummer didn’t get the assignment.
Now that we’ve seen the humor under they keyboards, the piano and the pianists are not as elusive as they seem to be. It is just like discovering a new type of music. The piano and the pianist can take not just the breath out of the audiences but also the laughter as they present not only fine music but terrific humor as well. Having fun is what life is all about.
By: Ismael Tabije
The pianists we see play appear to be the most formal and respectable stars on the stage. They hold the power and the breath of the audiences. They could look intimidating in their formal suits not to mention the authority and the air of arrogance they exude while on stage. They can be captivating.
But before we forget, these pianists are also human. And humans do make mistakes. Most of these mistakes can be frustrating and depressing. But then, there are also mistakes that are amusing and could also be totally hilarious. It shows how fun could be inserted even in the most seemingly stuffy and proper event.
Here are some examples:
When asked for their definition of a piano, some famous musicians and musical enthusiasts have some famous replies:
· For David W. Barber (The Musician’s Dictionary), a piano is a cumbersome piece of furniture found in many homes, where playing it ensures the early departure of unwanted guests.
· Piano (n.) is a parlor utensil for subduing the impertinent visitor. It is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience, according to Ambrose Bierce, an American journalist (The Devil’s Dictionary).
· A piano tuner is a person employed to come into the home, rearrange the furniture, and annoy the cat. The tuner’s chief purpose is to ascertain the breaking point of the piano’s strings.
Though these definitions may sound humorous, you can never miss the ironies in it. Coming from people who live and breathe the piano, these definitions seem odd.
Here’s more – when asked about their secrets in playing, you would certainly be surprised at how simple their secrets can be, and definitely applicable.
· Australian pianist Artur Schnabel said, “I always make sure that the lid over the keyboard is open before I start to play”.
· “Nothing soothes me more after a long and maddening course of pianoforte recitals than to sit and have my teeth drilled”, said George Bernard Shaw, a writer and a music critic.
I definitely agree with Artur Schnabel’s top secret! I wonder why George found it relaxing to have his teeth drilled after hearing the pianoforte recitals. Check out more of the piano’s funny side:
· Bob Hope, an American comedian commented on fellow comedian Phyllis Diller on her playing the piano: “When she started to play, Steinway himself came down personally and rubbed his name off the piano.”
· A band teacher recalled the title of the song “Claire de Lune” played by a student as “Claire de Loonie”.
· The audiences at a piano recital were appalled when a telephone rang just off stage. Without missing a note, the soloist glanced toward the wings and called, “If that’s my agent, tell him I’m working!”Now, let’s check out some famous questions and answers in the funny world of piano:
· What do you get when you drop a piano down a mine shaft? A flat minor
· What do you get when you drop a piano on an army base? A flat major
· Why is an 11-foot concert grand better than a studio upright? Because is makes a much bigger kaboom when dropped over a cliff.
· Why was the piano invented? So that the musician would have a place to put his beer.
· Why did they say that the pianist had fingers like lightning? They never struck the same place twice.
· What did they find when they dug up Beethoven’s grave? He was decomposing.
· Why did Mozart kill his chicken? Because they always ran around going, “Bach! Bach! Bach!”·
Imagine a singer, a piano player, a bass player and a drummer sitting around the table. Now if you drop a hundred-dollar bill right in the middle and tell them they’re free to take it, who’s getting it? The piano player. Because the bass player is too slow, for the winger it’s too little money and the drummer didn’t get the assignment.
Now that we’ve seen the humor under they keyboards, the piano and the pianists are not as elusive as they seem to be. It is just like discovering a new type of music. The piano and the pianist can take not just the breath out of the audiences but also the laughter as they present not only fine music but terrific humor as well. Having fun is what life is all about.
By: Ismael Tabije
Mozart Effect - Not the Only Game in Town
There seems to be a substantial body of evidence in support of the Mozart Effect. While skeptics advice us to take the whole "Mozart Effect" thing, with a very large grain of salt. Whatever the truth, maybe there are other effects that have come from studying Mozart that have had tremendous influence on whole music learning, piano playing through the study and research and practice of new methods and technology aids. And it does seem to work for many people, similar to the Mozart effect.
Mozart was probably the greatest improviser on the piano, ever. Mozart revolutionized various forms of music and put unusual combinations of instruments together. He had an interesting head start, he began listening to his parents play the piano and the violin months before he was born, while most people develop a special fondness for the music they listened to during adolescence.
Plato in ancient Greece believed studying music created a sense of order and harmony necessary for intelligent thought. Plants exposed to classical music grow larger and give higher yields than plants without this stimulus. Countless studies have shown the physiological benefits gained from listening to enjoyable music, as well as studies on the use of music to improve memory, awareness, and the integration of learning style. A relationship between music and the strengthening of math, dance, reading, creative thinking and visual arts skills has also been vastly reported in the literature.
Some of the research and methods utilized today, need to be tried and experimented with when allowing our children to take advantage of the options that are available to them. If you have a piano, let your children bang on it, notice their facial expressions, and see if they enjoy doing it. Give the child the confidence that they need to untapped a new world of experiences and talents. Imagine one note struck upon the piano by them is a melodic concert for him, never heard before. Let him enjoy the moment and the many more that will come, if you just let him.
There is a wonderful method that is on the market today that can speed the keyboard learning process tremendously – Piano Wizard. It comes bundled up in a software package that works with a home computer and a keyboard. It shows that beginner student all the fun elements of music learning in an easy, colorful environment full of instrumental sound options.
By: Jesse Fisher
Mozart was probably the greatest improviser on the piano, ever. Mozart revolutionized various forms of music and put unusual combinations of instruments together. He had an interesting head start, he began listening to his parents play the piano and the violin months before he was born, while most people develop a special fondness for the music they listened to during adolescence.
Plato in ancient Greece believed studying music created a sense of order and harmony necessary for intelligent thought. Plants exposed to classical music grow larger and give higher yields than plants without this stimulus. Countless studies have shown the physiological benefits gained from listening to enjoyable music, as well as studies on the use of music to improve memory, awareness, and the integration of learning style. A relationship between music and the strengthening of math, dance, reading, creative thinking and visual arts skills has also been vastly reported in the literature.
Some of the research and methods utilized today, need to be tried and experimented with when allowing our children to take advantage of the options that are available to them. If you have a piano, let your children bang on it, notice their facial expressions, and see if they enjoy doing it. Give the child the confidence that they need to untapped a new world of experiences and talents. Imagine one note struck upon the piano by them is a melodic concert for him, never heard before. Let him enjoy the moment and the many more that will come, if you just let him.
There is a wonderful method that is on the market today that can speed the keyboard learning process tremendously – Piano Wizard. It comes bundled up in a software package that works with a home computer and a keyboard. It shows that beginner student all the fun elements of music learning in an easy, colorful environment full of instrumental sound options.
By: Jesse Fisher
Learning The Piano At A Young Age
When most people think of learning how to play piano, they already have a certain style in mind. When learning the piano it doesn’t matter if you learn on a baby grand or a bar type of piano, both will do, the more important thing is to learn how to play. You like the way it looks and sounds but you're too afraid to approach the task of learning how to play it. This is most people fear.
Many children in piano lessons are not getting the proper training every piano student needs to benefit from their lessons. It is sad, however, that many children in after school programs offering piano lessons fail to learn, because the children are stretched so thin between all the activities they are in.
Beginning piano students feel the same way and have more control over their progress than they often realize. For some reason students often overlook this important part of piano study. But students have difficulty believing this because when learning something new it is much harder to see how much easier it is to learn when you enjoy what you are doing.
Beginning piano students can become focused on reading the notes and finding the right keys on the piano and miss the point of playing – to make the music sound, well, musical. Most students don't want to wait years before they can create music. There are many ideas to help beginning piano students energize their music and bring it to life with personality and style, the best place to find these ideas is on the internet.
Many parent do not push the classical pieces of music, they rather have their children play more popular pieces of music because the parents thinks the classical pieces will be to hard. With any type of training it always better to push a little, you would be surprised what your children are capable of.
Many people think all you really need is knowledge of a few chords and how to play them. So people like to memorize the primary chords by using an associating method with acronyms which will help remember the chords. This is a good way to learn in the short run but in the long run practice, practice, practice is the only way to get better at the piano.
Here is a quick tip that will help when learning the piano. When playing the piano you can push the damper pedal and it will raise the hammers and the string will have nothing touching them, so when the hammers don’t touch the strings the sound will continue and not stop.
To find a good teacher is not as hard as you think, talk to friends look in the phone book or check online, teacher are usually anywhere from $30 to $60 an hour depending on the teacher and the studio. A good piano teacher is very important to find. If you find the right teacher the learning process is that much easier.
By: David Fishman
Many children in piano lessons are not getting the proper training every piano student needs to benefit from their lessons. It is sad, however, that many children in after school programs offering piano lessons fail to learn, because the children are stretched so thin between all the activities they are in.
Beginning piano students feel the same way and have more control over their progress than they often realize. For some reason students often overlook this important part of piano study. But students have difficulty believing this because when learning something new it is much harder to see how much easier it is to learn when you enjoy what you are doing.
Beginning piano students can become focused on reading the notes and finding the right keys on the piano and miss the point of playing – to make the music sound, well, musical. Most students don't want to wait years before they can create music. There are many ideas to help beginning piano students energize their music and bring it to life with personality and style, the best place to find these ideas is on the internet.
Many parent do not push the classical pieces of music, they rather have their children play more popular pieces of music because the parents thinks the classical pieces will be to hard. With any type of training it always better to push a little, you would be surprised what your children are capable of.
Many people think all you really need is knowledge of a few chords and how to play them. So people like to memorize the primary chords by using an associating method with acronyms which will help remember the chords. This is a good way to learn in the short run but in the long run practice, practice, practice is the only way to get better at the piano.
Here is a quick tip that will help when learning the piano. When playing the piano you can push the damper pedal and it will raise the hammers and the string will have nothing touching them, so when the hammers don’t touch the strings the sound will continue and not stop.
To find a good teacher is not as hard as you think, talk to friends look in the phone book or check online, teacher are usually anywhere from $30 to $60 an hour depending on the teacher and the studio. A good piano teacher is very important to find. If you find the right teacher the learning process is that much easier.
By: David Fishman
How to Play Piano
There are multitudinous websites which declare to teach you to play piano by ear. Does it work? Can you truly prepare to play the piano strictly by ear? This system is somewhat possible, however I consider that this system has its limitations.
Training to play by ear generally means that you need to be able to hear pitch and gage the element of chords with your ear. You would need to be able to distinguish the divergence between major and minor chords, prevalent and diminished etc. Most people do not possess an ear capable of such distinctions and that can lead to problems with this design.
I often cannot tell the particularity between chords. How is someone with no occurrence supposed to do this? Does this mean that my ear isn’t any splendid? Quite the contrary, I have very pleasing relative pitch and can often hear entire chord progressions but often miss the nuances of each specific chord. Therefore an approach which is solely geared to hearing the changes has its limitations.
Another issue with study by ear is that you cannot gain a complete understanding of music just by listening. Music is like a mathematical equation. It has formative structure derived from centuries of musicians and teachers who have dedicated their lives to the understanding a betterment of each specific musical genre. To discount this process and work around it using just your ear is counter productive in my opinion.
For proof, let’s say you’re going to imbibe to play the blues. If you apprentice by ear that would mean you would have to hear not only the paramount seventh chords, then the melody which is derived from the blues scale, the rhythm which comes from structured meter and the re-harmonization of the chord structure all without understanding the words I just said. It would mean you would have to hear all of this without knowing what its called, how it works and how it all comes together. You would master by watching someone else play the piano, copy it and repeat it until it sounds the same as what you just hear.
Not only is this a completely inefficient way of grasping it is highly confined because you cannot gain an understanding of what it is you’re actually doing. Only until you are able to comprehend and dissect each specific aspect of the music can you fully welcome and matriculate from it.
In my humblest opinion, it’s highly productive to imbibe how music is formulated rather than just hearing it and trying to repeat it because you can stretch the boundaries of comprehending and be able to move your playing to another level. Even if you were able to copy certain aspects of learning to play by ear that would severely limit you from moving beyond that point because you easily cannot understand what it is you’re doing.
What is a finer way to learn? Choosing a teacher or online piano lessons that can a helping hand you build a strong foundation. Please pick a course that helps you with the basic understanding of how music works. At this moment you can use your ear to strengthen your understanding because the ear can converse with the mind and come to a consensus of how and why things sound the way they do.
A basic understanding of how chords and scales are made and use that counsel to formulate melody and structure. Your ear can support this process obviously but it’s the scales and chords that produce the building blocks of true musical understanding.
It’s not enough to know how to play a simple F, G, C progression with melody. You need to know why and how this progression works and why it sounds the way it does. Then and only then can you begin to build on that foundation by preparing richer chords, re-harmonization and deeper complicated melodies.
By: Hamza Davis
Training to play by ear generally means that you need to be able to hear pitch and gage the element of chords with your ear. You would need to be able to distinguish the divergence between major and minor chords, prevalent and diminished etc. Most people do not possess an ear capable of such distinctions and that can lead to problems with this design.
I often cannot tell the particularity between chords. How is someone with no occurrence supposed to do this? Does this mean that my ear isn’t any splendid? Quite the contrary, I have very pleasing relative pitch and can often hear entire chord progressions but often miss the nuances of each specific chord. Therefore an approach which is solely geared to hearing the changes has its limitations.
Another issue with study by ear is that you cannot gain a complete understanding of music just by listening. Music is like a mathematical equation. It has formative structure derived from centuries of musicians and teachers who have dedicated their lives to the understanding a betterment of each specific musical genre. To discount this process and work around it using just your ear is counter productive in my opinion.
For proof, let’s say you’re going to imbibe to play the blues. If you apprentice by ear that would mean you would have to hear not only the paramount seventh chords, then the melody which is derived from the blues scale, the rhythm which comes from structured meter and the re-harmonization of the chord structure all without understanding the words I just said. It would mean you would have to hear all of this without knowing what its called, how it works and how it all comes together. You would master by watching someone else play the piano, copy it and repeat it until it sounds the same as what you just hear.
Not only is this a completely inefficient way of grasping it is highly confined because you cannot gain an understanding of what it is you’re actually doing. Only until you are able to comprehend and dissect each specific aspect of the music can you fully welcome and matriculate from it.
In my humblest opinion, it’s highly productive to imbibe how music is formulated rather than just hearing it and trying to repeat it because you can stretch the boundaries of comprehending and be able to move your playing to another level. Even if you were able to copy certain aspects of learning to play by ear that would severely limit you from moving beyond that point because you easily cannot understand what it is you’re doing.
What is a finer way to learn? Choosing a teacher or online piano lessons that can a helping hand you build a strong foundation. Please pick a course that helps you with the basic understanding of how music works. At this moment you can use your ear to strengthen your understanding because the ear can converse with the mind and come to a consensus of how and why things sound the way they do.
A basic understanding of how chords and scales are made and use that counsel to formulate melody and structure. Your ear can support this process obviously but it’s the scales and chords that produce the building blocks of true musical understanding.
It’s not enough to know how to play a simple F, G, C progression with melody. You need to know why and how this progression works and why it sounds the way it does. Then and only then can you begin to build on that foundation by preparing richer chords, re-harmonization and deeper complicated melodies.
By: Hamza Davis
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
How To Travel From World-To-World In Song
If you’re a musician you might be asking yourself: “What does he mean by traveling from ‘world-to-world?’” Well that’s a good question and I have a simple answer for that. Let me share with you a recent discovery I happened upon while banging on the keys (that’s “playing the piano” in music-speak) and trying to come up with a song.
I’ve gone through 6 years of formalized Western Classical music training and 4 years of Ethnomusicology studies and for whatever reasons, I never picked up a thing about the musical elements of structure, motifs, and dynamics in any piece or composition. If it came to my own songwriting, I hardly ventured out into a different key and mostly stayed in one, differentiating sections by production or instrumental arrangements instead. I mean, in theory I knew about those elements but I hadn’t grown into them until very recently.
So as I dabbled on the keys some ideas here and there to try and transition from section to section (perhaps with an intention to escape my boredom of creating songs in a mono-key structure), I accidentally hit a bass note that was a relative 4th that did not belong to any of the notes in the key but was based on one of the octave notes in that key. For instance if I’m playing in the key of F Major (which only has a B flat in that key), but I move to an E flat (that does not exist in the key of F) from a B flat I had just played, I’ve successfully transitioned from one key, or world, to another without it sounding weird.
Now I’m not the most savvy when it comes to explaining music theory (even if it’s my own music), but play out the bass notes and you’ll hear what I mean. Add some chords to those bass notes and you’ll amplify your scope of understanding by listening to the full spectrum of the music.
This is a very basic example of what I mean by traveling from “world-to-world” but if you try this, you’ll soon gain a whole new experience into music composition as well as simple music appreciation. In essence, you’re moving outside of your original key, or outside of your world, by moving into that E flat, which changes the sound seamlessly into a new E flat Major while giving you the flexibility to come back to your original F Major.
Needless to say, this was an ear-opening experience for me and provided me a renewed appreciation for past musical greats that didn’t have technologies like sampling and sound engineering to alter the timbre of their instruments. They worked with what they had. And in a sense I worked backwards by relying on technologies to structure my sound. Now I’ve got the greats to stand on their shoulders to integrate my future sound fusing my present technological recordings with their past arrangement innovation.
By: Jay Wang
I’ve gone through 6 years of formalized Western Classical music training and 4 years of Ethnomusicology studies and for whatever reasons, I never picked up a thing about the musical elements of structure, motifs, and dynamics in any piece or composition. If it came to my own songwriting, I hardly ventured out into a different key and mostly stayed in one, differentiating sections by production or instrumental arrangements instead. I mean, in theory I knew about those elements but I hadn’t grown into them until very recently.
So as I dabbled on the keys some ideas here and there to try and transition from section to section (perhaps with an intention to escape my boredom of creating songs in a mono-key structure), I accidentally hit a bass note that was a relative 4th that did not belong to any of the notes in the key but was based on one of the octave notes in that key. For instance if I’m playing in the key of F Major (which only has a B flat in that key), but I move to an E flat (that does not exist in the key of F) from a B flat I had just played, I’ve successfully transitioned from one key, or world, to another without it sounding weird.
Now I’m not the most savvy when it comes to explaining music theory (even if it’s my own music), but play out the bass notes and you’ll hear what I mean. Add some chords to those bass notes and you’ll amplify your scope of understanding by listening to the full spectrum of the music.
This is a very basic example of what I mean by traveling from “world-to-world” but if you try this, you’ll soon gain a whole new experience into music composition as well as simple music appreciation. In essence, you’re moving outside of your original key, or outside of your world, by moving into that E flat, which changes the sound seamlessly into a new E flat Major while giving you the flexibility to come back to your original F Major.
Needless to say, this was an ear-opening experience for me and provided me a renewed appreciation for past musical greats that didn’t have technologies like sampling and sound engineering to alter the timbre of their instruments. They worked with what they had. And in a sense I worked backwards by relying on technologies to structure my sound. Now I’ve got the greats to stand on their shoulders to integrate my future sound fusing my present technological recordings with their past arrangement innovation.
By: Jay Wang
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