Musicians and Music

If you’ve been on the blog the last few days, you’ve probably watched my 33-minute video teaching you how to play Robin Thicke’s “Lost Without You.” I chose this song because of its simplicity in structure and to show you how easy it is to play a popular song… if you have the right process. Plus, I love the progressions! Yesterday, I posted a quick lesson summarizing the chords. But I couldn’t stay long because I was headed to the hospital to support my grandma as she underwent surgery. Thanks for your prayers, by the way! She’s doing great! :-). So today, I want ... Read Full Story

Lately, I’ve been having a good time talking about minor keys, scales, and chords! (If you’re just now catching the blog, I’d recommend eventually going back to the last 7 or so posts to catch yourself up). Today, I’m going to show you how to actually use one of the minor scales we’ve been talking about in real-life situations. Theory is great! It helps you to understand the “what” and “why” behind things. But I’m going to show you how it also allows you to systemically pick what scales to improvise with over certain progressions. It’s not guesswork. There’s actually systems behind a lot ... Read Full Story

(If you haven’t read Wednesday’s and Thursday’s post, it’d be a good idea to start there as this lesson continues with what we’ve already learned…) Today, we’re going to keep exploring the number system and circle of fifths and see what else we can do to spice up the primary chords we already know. Yesterday , we took it a step further and added the 2-chord. C major 1-chord (C major) 2-chord (D minor) (D major, when needed) 4-chord (F major) 5-chord (G major) Now, let’s see what else we can add to spice up our progressions. Let’s bring up my little friend… You’re ... Read Full Story

Today, we’re going to keep building on what we learned Wednesday , Thursday , and Friday . If you haven’t caught up, it might be a good idea to do so now. If not, just keep reading this lesson and if it makes sense, awesome! If not, visit the links above as this lessons builds on prior concepts. As you know, we’ve been talking about using the number system and how to go from playing “Amazing Grace” with only three chords (aka - the “primary chords”) to adding more interesting chords from other tones of the scale. On Wednesday , it was pretty simple. ... Read Full Story

Chord progressions are derived from musical scales like this one: C D E F G A B C. This is the C major scale which is used very often in music. It is just a sequence of notes with no sharps or flats which makes it easy to use to teach music students the principles of music. When we study chord progressions we think of these letters as chords instead of single notes. If we number the chords from one to seven we can work in a practical way with the chords in any key because the basic principles are the same. If we ... Read Full Story