geekery.of.all.sorts

Reflecting on the current state of the world, and particularly of the struggle that my friend Jerad's family is facing , it seems like a good time to write down some thoughts about the Bible and prayer. Jerad mentioned in a recent blog post that he was collecting scriptures for encouragement, and I thought not only about the scriptures I hold on to, but also to how I use them. It seemed to me that unpacking the process of internalizing and living within the truths of scripture might be worthwhile. Hopefully it's either interesting or encouraging to Jerad, and anyone else that ends up reading this. So my Big Question to ponder is how do we thrive despite the circumstances we each face, and how can we take a proactive stance in prayer to resist the sense of impending doom that surrounds us, at a moment when so many other things are outside our control.  Thinking on that, one of the key scriptures that comes to mind is what Paul wrote in Philippians 4:4-8. Philippians 4...

On 2/15 we talked about musical intervals, and tips and tricks for spelling your major scales faster. We also did a little building of chords, looking at the differences between major and minor, etc. We culminated with looking at how we can build chords from the major scale. Important things to remember: Chords are built from thirds. Stacking up thirds based on the major scale gives us a very specific pattern of major and minor triads. In C, the triads are C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am and Bo. (o means diminished, but you won't need it anytime soon) The pattern is this: I, IIm, IIIm, IV, V, VIm and VIIo Knowing that the major scale builds those chords for us, no matter what key, we can memorize those chord qualities by number, and use them to communicate, transpose tunes, and call out stuff on the bandstand if needed. Here's a link to last week's slides... Intervals Diatonic triads Our homework was: Keep working on learning something from a recording ...

This week we're talking about how to get faster at spelling your major scales. Counting whole and half steps is useful when you're starting out, but is the REALLY long way to figure out what the notes are in a scale. Ultimately, you want to know the notes in each scale so well you don't even have to think about it. But on the way to that goal, you need some guides to keep you on track. By looking at the spelling of all the major scales, grouped into sharp keys and flat keys, you start to notice patterns.  The slides for this week point out some of those patterns, like the circle of 5ths, the order of sharp and flat keys, and the order of the sharps and flats in those various keys. It turns out that the order of the sharps and flats is consistent through every key - and we can use that to cheat and help us know which notes are natural and which ones are accidentals in any given key. Homework this week:  Learn the order of the sharp keys and flat keys, around th...

This week we looked in depth at how to think and communicate about rhythm. We discussed meter and rhythmic feel - how many beats per measure (aka, how do you count the music you're playing) and what feel does the song have: straight, swing, triplet, etc. We also delved into subdivision - how to break the beat into smaller pieces, to make your time more accurate and help communicate about the placement of notes. Check out the slides Homework includes: Listening and analysis Speak your subdivisions while listening to the radio Listen to music you find interesting and figure out where the melody falls in the subdivisions. Find challenging music to explore new rhythms, and study the history/culture. Practice Practice scales and other technique exercises at 60bpm, with a metronome.  Listen to where your notes fall, early, late or on time. Then fix it. Subdivide like crazy, to improve your time accuracy and feel.

Greetings to all - here's a synopsis of the second week of our music class! We talked a lot about hearing the individual notes of the major scale. We sing these notes all the time, but it can be really useful to learn to pick them out and recognize their distinct personality when used in a melody. We talked about how some of them are very stable sounds, and others have a lot of energy or tension, and want to move to a more resolved place. That interplay between stability and instability (or dissonance) is what adds motion and interest and direction to our melodies. We talked about listening to the radio while driving or working and attempting to do the following: sing 'do' for anything you hear on the radio sing the main melody, using numbers or syllables sing bass lines, using numbers or syllables sing hooks and instrumental parts using numbers or syllables You can find the slides on Google Drive Here's my Spotify playlists for songs that prominently fea...

Hi all - Here's a recap of my first music class for Practicing Musicians. We talked about our individual backgrounds in music, and set some goals for ourselves.  Listening and Practice goals for week one One big one was that we discussed picking a particular musician and learning their music by ear. For example, I'm learning a jazz solo by John Coltrane on tenor saxophone right now, listening to the recording and playing along with it. Some folks mentioned they knew the style or even the tune they wanted to learn, but they didn't know who the player was. No problem! That's what the internet is for! You can definitely start listening and playing along to your favorite tune, and then go research who played it and what else they did.  It's great to study a particular player (or singer!), and get a sense of their approach and individual style from several different recordings and examples of their playing. If you can copy them note for note and sound just lik...