Gurus Of Music

You Can Learn Music Perhaps you’ve gone to a concert and fantasized about being able to ‘shred’ on a guitar, like the lead guitarist you were listening to. Or maybe you were listening to some artist on the piano and you wished that you could play the piano like that. What usually holds the average person back is what I call the ‘myths’ that abound in and around music. They mostly exist around learning music, since anyone who has succeeded in mastering an instrument has learned the falsehood of these myths. One of the most prevalent myths is that you need to have ‘talent’ to play an instrument and, if you don’t, well, just forget about it. The other very prevalent myth is that you need great sacrifice and must spend years and many hours a day to learn an instrument. The third thing that really messes people up is tying into some really bad teaching ideas. What do I mean by this? Well, learning an instrument is really no different than learning any other sort of skill. I like to compare ...

  The Book of Music Basics gives you just enough basics to succeed with whatever style of music you are learning. Use as a supplement to your lessons to ensure success in learning the instrument. The first part explains why music education has become something of a 'hit and miss' proposition in this country; the basics have generally fallen out or they are taught in a confusing order. There is a specific order to learn the basics otherwise they are apt to become confusing. This book gives full definitions with illustrations and examples. It tells you how to apply them for what you want to do. Available on Amazon as; Kindle  or Paperback

Consonance And Dissonance In Music This article is useful in the practice of improvisation. It will explain why certain scales can be used to good effect in improvising and also why a certain amount of chord theory is handy. If you don’t understand what the term interval means, you should first go and read over the following post; Intervals And Their Qualities .  Major and perfect intervals in a C major scale So, having established what an ‘interval’ is, we can move on to the concept of consonance and dissonance. It’s a rather simple concept that states that certain intervals harmonize or are pleasing to the ear and certain intervals clash or are unpleasant to the ear. Naturally this is a bit subjective and changes somewhat from era to era, but we can establish a basic overall accepted norm and work from there. The intervals, which harmonize and are known as consonant, are specifically the thirds and sixths, regardless of their quality (major or minor.) Fourths and ...

Key Signatures And The Circle Of Fifths A 'key signature' shows up at the very beginning of a piece of music, directly after the clef;

The key signature tells you two things; the name of the key and what flats or sharps, if any, are to be applied in the music.  Flats or sharps that appear in a key signature apply to the entire piece, which is different than when they are used as accidentals.
 You can learn more about sharps, flats and accidentals by watching this short video; Accidentals, Whole Steps and Half Steps . There is a scale that goes with each key that starts on the same note as the name of that key. For example; for they key of G Major, the scale would start on G. Any sharps or flats that are in the key signature would apply to that scale. For example; the key of G Major has one sharp which is F, so the scale of G would have an F sharp in it.
 There is a system to the key signatures and understanding it makes using key signatures much clearer and eas...