I'm not much sure what this will look like . . . I love starting anything new with those words. Each Saturday I'll posting a little musical idea or principle here. I've been running a little group called "The Fearless Songwriter," on Facebook for a long while. This is a little bonus for them. If … Continue reading Saturday’s are for Songwriters
Here are two sheets I put together a dog’s age ago, with the clever titles “Dang Good Chords” and “Good Chords Fool.”* They talk about chord relationships and what chords tend to like to do, in the keys of G and C. This is all based on “The Chord Ladder” which is an alternate perspective … Continue reading Dang Good Chords
The Wheel of Chord Story, (the circle of fifths), maps out what chords "like" to do, but it doesn't really explain why. The jump of a fifth between two notes is actually pretty stable. The only jump between notes which feels more stable is the interval between two notes with the same name, G to … Continue reading Mozart’s Alarm Clock
Here's experiment you can try for yourself. Draw a circle with 12 points on it. It'll look like a clock without numbers: Now what is the most interesting pattern you could create to get around the circle, moving the same number of spaces each time. You could move one space at a time, which gets you all … Continue reading Music Shapes
Pat Pattison has a brilliant reduction for the elements of story: Stable. Unstable . . . Pivoting between these two states is the engine of story, (excepting exceptionally dull stories). You could frame this idea as tension and release as well. A pithy saying which expresses a similar idea is; "If it can't happen (stability), … Continue reading Chord Stories (or B.E.A.D. Guides Chord Flow)
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