Harmonic Minor II

Since I've switched to offering Community Challenges every other week, I decided it would be worth it to include a quick review or lesson about the topic. This way, you can get involved without digging through lessons.

I got a little fancier in this quick lesson since I got a few questions about harmonic minor in the previous challenge. If you have more questions about harmonic minor, or you feel that you need more clarification on these concepts, lets have a deep dive discussion about harmonic minor on the next Office Hours!

One thing I mentioned, but would have liked to emphasize a little better is this: the bizarre and awesome fully diminished chord that results from the sharp 7 can function like the V chord. Meaning you can use it in place of the V chord, or even do a fun transition like i - V7 - #vii° - i or i - #vii° - V7 - i

Have fun with these weird, cool concepts and post what you write on the Community Forum.

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Write A Chord Melody

A chord melody is honestly kind of a silly name for it, because all you're doing is playing a melody and chords simultaneously.

I give a few ideas in the video but the ideas break down like this:

You could either:
1. Write a simple melody, then find chords in the key to play over each note of the scale
2. Start as above, but add chords only to some of the notes of the melody
3. Write a melody to be played between chords

Keep it simple! The simpler your melody is, the more room you have to add chords!

You might need the note name scratch paper attached below and linked here.

Post your creations on the community forum!

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Write something in the Key of G Minor

This is a pretty straightforward challenge. All you have to do is write something using the chords and/or scale of G Minor.

The easiest way to participate might be to write a simple riff or melody using a G Minor scale or even a G minor pentatonic scale. With this method, you could make things a little fancier by using a melodic or harmonic minor scale. Dorian or Phrygian modal melodies would count as a “G Minor” melody as well. We don’t need to stay in natural minor for this exercise. Just explain what scale(s) you’re using when you post your creation.

If you want to get a little more involved, you could write a chord progression with a melody over the top. In this case, you’d want to make sure you’re targeting chord tones with your melodies, especially if you’re mixing natural minor and harmonic or melodic minor, because some of the chords in melodic minor will clash with some of the scale notes in natural minor.

While I’d STRONGLY recommend figuring out the G Minor scale and chords using WHWWHWW, and reviewing Music Theory Monday if you don’t know how to do that, I’ll break everything down below:

G Minor Scale:

G - w - A - h - Bb - w - C - w - D - h - Eb - w - F - w - G

G Minor chords (natural minor):

i = G-Bb-D = G minor

ii° = A-C-Eb = A diminished

III = Bb-D-F = Bb Major

iv = C-Eb-G = C minor

v = D-F-A = D minor

VI = Eb-G-Bb = Eb Major

VII = F-A-C = F Major

If you want to explore harmonic minor, think about how you have the option of sharping the 7th note of the scale (F to F#) and think about playing that sharp note while playing a D Major chord instead of D minor. There is more to it, but that’s the essence of harmonic minor.

If you want to explore melodic minor, think about using F# and E natural, which would be a sharp 6th and 7th note, and the chords that go with those notes would be C Major chord for E natural and D Major for F#. Keep in mind, “E Natural” means “E NOT-flat.” In the key of G minor, E is flat to fit WHWWHWW, so when you talk about wanting to sharp an Eb, you say “E Natural.” Think of it as “E that is typically flat in this situation, but not right now.”

Post your creations on the community forum.

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Write Something With An Odd Number Of Measures

This is going to be fun. I had a writing session recently where I realized that I not only enjoy writing in even measures, but that I get thrown off by odd measures and have to REALLY concentrate playing along with a progression that is 3, 5 or 7 measures long.

As a review, a measure is just a count of 4 (like 1 2 3 4) or a count of 3 (1 2 3) if you’re in 3/4 time signature. A measure and a bar are the same thing. In other words a "four bar progression" is a "progression consisting of four counts of four, as in 1234 1234 1234 1234."

Read more on the Patreon post…

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Write Something “House” Inspired

Your goal is to write something vaguely inspired by "house music." What is house music? The wikipedia article says its "a music genre characterized by a repetitive four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120 beats per minute. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground club culturein the late 1970s, as DJs began altering disco songs to give them a more mechanical beat."

Part of what inspired me for this challenge is the thought of having students try to write a riff or chord progression to a constant foot stomp to simulate that four on the floor beat, which is a fancy way to say the kick drum just hits 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 over and over.

So thats the simplest cell-phone recording version of this challenge: try writing a riff or chord progression to your own foot tapping 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4.

If you want to get fancier with it, you could use recording software. Make a beat that starts with that constant kick on 1 2 3 4, then build snare on 2 and 4 and get fancier from there.

Post your creations to the Community Forum! Have fun! Don't aim to write a masterpiece! Just aim for fun.

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Write Something Using Dorian Mode

There are a few ways to build a mode: starting from scratch with whole steps and half steps, adapting a familiar scale, or using the "which note of a major scale is it based on" method.

I'll quickly run through all three methods.

Dorian mode, in whole steps and half steps, is WHWWWHW

With scale-degree numbers, it looks like this:

1-w-2-h-3-w-4-w-5-w-6-h-7-w-8

Using "A" as the 1st note, we get a scale like this:

A-w-B-h-C-w-D-w-E-w-F#-h-G-w-A

Using "E" as the 1st note, we get a scale like this:

E-w-F#-h-G-w-A-w-B-w-C#-h-D-w-E

If we start with the second method - adapting a familiar scale - a Dorian scale is simply a natural minor scale with a sharp sixth note.

For example:

A Minor Scale: A B C D E F G A
A Dorian Scale: A B C D E F# G A

C Minor Scale: C D Eb F G Ab Bb C
C Dorian Scale: C D Eb F G A Bb C

D Minor Scale: D E F G A Bb C D
D Dorian Scale: D E F G A B C D

The "which note of the scale" method gets confusing for a lot of people, but it's also the method that makes it easiest to figure out which chord goes with each note of the scale.

Dorian mode is like creating a new scale based on the SECOND note of a major scale. The way you can think about it is like this:

"If I want X note to be the start of my Dorian scale, I can to go BACK a whole step from X and build a major scale and keep X as my root note."

Let's try is. If I want to build a Dorian scale based on "A" I can go back a whole step to G and build a major scale. Then use the second note "A" as the root note for Dorian.

G Major: G - w - A - w - B - h - C - w - D - w - E - w - F# - h - G
A Dorian: A - w - B - h - C - w - D - w - E - w - F# - h - G - A

The reason this method is SUPER useful is that it makes it a lot easier to figure which chords go with which notes of the scale:

Chords in the Key of G:

I = Gmaj
ii = Am
iii = Bm
IV = Cmaj
V = Dmaj
vi = Em
vii° = F#°

Chords in the Key of A Dorian:

i = Am
ii = Bm
III = Cmaj
IV = Dmaj
v = Em
vi° = F#°
VII = G
I have some lessons about this stuff in Music Theory Monday. A great starting point with Dorian chord progressions is to start with a simple i IV progression and slowly add other chords into the mix to see if "i" continues to feel like home.

Have a blast and remember, this is writing PRACTICE, so nothing needs to be perfect or even "good" for you to post it. It's all about experimenting and learning how YOU write to further your musical development.

Post what you come up with on the Community Forum.

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Write Something With A Fast Tempo!

As usual, there is no need to spend a ton of time on these projects. The idea is to think of the community challenge as your weekly sketchbook. If you're planning to write something that might take 5 to 10 hours, that likely means you'll NEVER participate. Think about writing a little something that takes you 5 to 10 minutes to come up with. It doesn't have to be a complete thought, it doesn't have to have a melody. It just has to be music.

The idea is to get into the habit of writing SOMETHING without putting too much pressure on yourself. Just try to have fun with it! When you've written something you like, you're welcome to record it as simply as possible - with a cell phone for example - or with recording software using drums, bass, guitar, etc. Whatever you have time for. If you feel that you never have time for the community challenges, you're putting too much pressure on yourself to be the most amazing musician.

When you've written something you like, feel free to post it on the community forum thread for this post!

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Write Something Lethargic

Often, the key to getting something to sound lethargic is to get your arms and fingers to mimic how it feelsto be lethargic. Lazily sliding from one note to the next, arriving to your notes late, playing behind the beat as if the drums have to pull you along - these are all ideas.

Explore, have fun, and try your hardest to write something with some lethargic elements to it. When you feel like you've got something - wether it's a VERY simple chord progression, a melody, or a full blown song, post it to the community forum.

Remember, not everything you write needs to be a complete song, not everything you write needs to be finished, and not everything you write needs to show people who you are. This is just practice. Have fun with it!

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Write Something With Guitar

I gave this one an EXTREMELY low bar because I want to invite new people to try participating in community challenges.

The only rules are:

1. Write something with one guitar - no DAW, no multi-layered recording - just use a single guitar without drums, bass, keys.
2. Record what you've written with your phone or recording software and upload it to the community forum.

You don't need to write a song, you don't need to write a rough draft of a song. It could be a little pentatonic riff that takes 5 seconds to play. It could be a set of chords you like together. It doesn't have to be amazing, it just has to be something you came up with.

IF YOU ARE A NEW PATRON and this is your first community challenge, feel free to say hello and introduce yourself in the comments below! Welcome!

Have fun, and if you've written something you like, you can share an mp3 OR a link to a video or mp3 on the community forum.

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Write Something With Improvisation.

We'll keep it loose for this challenge. You could START by improvising a melody or chord progression and then refining from there, or you could include a section to improvise. You could try a multitrack recording where you improvise each layer. It's all about exploring. Use improvisation at the beginning or at the end of your process. The only rules are:

1. You must write something AFTER reading this post - you can't post something you've already written.
2. You must give a brief explanation of how improvisation played a part in your composition.

To be clear, improvisation means you're making something up as you go. HOWEVER, you can pick a key (ie. the Key of D Major) and you can pick a specific scale (ie. D Major Scale or D Major Pentatonic Scale.) You could pick a set of chords (ie. D Em F#m G A Bm C#dim) and improvise a chord progression by playing random chords from the set. Or you could write a chord progression like "D Bm Em F#m" and try coming up with a melody on the fly. There are lots of options!

Have fun, and if you've written something you like, you can share an mp3 OR a link to a video or mp3 on the community forum.

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Write Something With Arpeggios

You don't have to write a whole song. You don't even have to write a whole section. A chord progression would be fine! Record it to your phone and upload it to the community forum! If you want to get a little fancier, you could use recording software to write a whole song with bass, drums, guitar, a vocal melody, lyrics, etc - if you WANT to do that, you absolutely can. But you don't have to.

The goal of the Community Challenge is to remind of the joy of MAKING music. Yes, learning songs is important. Yes, practicing technique is important. Yes, learning music theory is important. But to me, making music is the most fulfilling and satisfying musical action one can take.

In this case, just write a little something - even just a chord progression or a guitar melody - and make sure that you're using arpeggios somewhere in there.

An arpeggio is simply playing the notes of a chord, in order. It could be root, third, fifth or third, fifth, root or fifth, root, third. Or if you want to get fancy, you could include 7ths and 9ths or something.

If you need to brush up on (or learn) your roots, thirds, and fifths, I recommend checking out Music Theory for Guitar.

Post your creations to the community forum

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Make Your Own Limitations and Stick To Them

This challenge is a bit of a tightrope. The goal is to FIRST sit down and decide on some limitations for yourself. This could be something technique focused like:
• Only ever play two notes at a time
• Play as many open notes as possible at all times
• Only use bar chords
• Write a melody that emphasizes hammer-ons

Or you could go music-theory focused:
• Only use minor chords
• Only use major chords
• Write in a specific mode
• Implement fifths and major sixths into your melody

Or you could go emotion-based:
• Write something sad
• Write something happy, with a sad section
• Write something hopeful

The idea is that you come up with parameters/limitations for yourself FIRST, and THEN you start writing. Again, you don't have to write something difficult - it could be simply a chord progression or a single-note melody. But you must try as hard as you can to fulfill the limitations you've put on yourself.

Have fun! And remember, you're not setting out to create the masterpiece of your life, you're just practicing creating your own music.

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Write something with fingerpicking.

This is pretty straightforward - You could write a folky chord progression on acoustic guitar. You could write an electric guitar part using fingerpicking. You could play a melody without a pick. It could be something elaborate or something simple. A five second blip recorded to a cell phone or a full blown multitrack song recorded in your home studio. Whatever it is, here are the only rules:

1. You must write something new, something that didn't exist before you read this post.
2. You must use your fingers to perform at least the initial/main guitar part.

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Write Something “Sign Painter Style”

What the heck do I mean by "sign painter style?"

To be honest, I'm not sure yet. But I watched this video of a guy doing some brush lettering this week and I was feeling inspired.

Sometimes when you're writing music, it can be useful (and fun!) to draw inspiration from something or someone outside of music. In this case, we've got a guy showing how a steady hand and a lot of practice can result in some beautiful lettering. He's not doing anything very complex. He's not stopping to think. Not second guessing or analyzing his progress so far. There isn't room for that. He's just doing something he's done a million times.

For musicians, it's easy to write a little bit, and then stop to wonder if it could be different. I've also had this thought more than a few times: "If it's hard for me to play, it must be good music." This is not always the case. In fact, I try to ignore that reasoning because it usually leads me down the wrong path.

On the flip side, there are things most of us do that are not very difficult at all for us. Maybe it's a pentatonic scale. Maybe it's a few chords you're very comfortable with. Maybe there is a certain scale in a certain position that you always warm up with. Use these things as your starting point.

For this challenge, try writing something thats easy FOR YOU, being sure to emphasize the "FOR YOU" part.

Whatever comes naturally, whatever feels comfortable, whatever that stuff is that you usually noodle around with, try starting there.

You don't have to record in one take, but if you're doing take after take and still not getting it, that might mean you're not in your comfort zone!

Wether you write a whole song, a chord progression, multiple tracks, or a very simple single-guitar pentatonic noodle, start writing from a place where you're very comfortable. The results might feel simple, because they will be easy for YOU.

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Write something weird!

"Weird" is a completely subjective term. The idea here is to not take yourself too seriously - an important aspect of being a good musician! "Weird" here could mean a chord progression that doesn't quite make sense or has a wonky chord in there. It could mean a melody that meanders too much or jumps around a wide range. It could be a meter that switches from 3/4 to 4/4 or from 5/4 to 3/4. It could be a weird guitar tone that makes you laugh because it doesn't feel like a guitar. It could be a composition where you just leave too much space, then jam too much stuff into another area.

One of the advantages of exploring deliberately weird things, is that you quite often stumble upon things that end up being kind of cool! If you accidentally stumble upon something cool, you are absolutely welcome to share that too!

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Focus on Dynamics

We've already covered this concept in Community Challenge 08, when I asked you to write something with extreme dynamics. I don't need extreme dynamics this time, I just need you to write with dynamics in mind.

The word "dynamics" basically refers to the sheer volume you're putting out. In classical music, you'll see dynamic markings like "p" for "piano" which translates to "quiet" or you'll see "forte" for "loud." There is a lot of variety in sheet music for this kind of thing. Sometimes you'll see "pppp" which would mean "play really really soft" or "ffff" which means "play really really loud" or even "mp" which stands for "mezzo-piano" or "moderately quiet."

What I need from you for this challenge:
1. Think about wether you want to focus on one louder section and one soft section, or if you want to play louder than usual for the whole song, or quieter than usual. The emphasis here is for you to observe
A) what is your personal middle-of-the-road volume/intensity/effort and how would you go about deliberately playing significantly quieter or louder than that?
B) how can you write some music that makes you think about playing quieter and/or louder than you usually do.

2. When you submit your creation to the community forum, give an explanation of the dynamic flow of your creation. It could be "In this 8 second voice memo, I was trying to play softly on X, Y, and Z chords, then I tried to gradually increase the intensity and volume until I reached this H, I, J section where I dug in deeper to make it feel much more intense."

Here are a few things to consider: volume and intensity are relative. Something might be "louder" but not played very intensely. For example, you could turn the volume up on your amp and be WAY louder, but physically strum the strings at the same intensity. In my opinion, the goal of dynamics is to increase or decrease emotional intensity. Ideally, your body language should match the intensity you want your audience to feel. So strumming or picking softly will feel relaxing and gentle and strumming really hard or picking really hard will FEEL intense. Basically, "volume" is a nice quick way to think of dynamics, but if you think of dynamics as "physical effort," it is easier to imagine how dynamics actually translate to guitar.

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Team up with another Patron!

I'm so excited to see what happens with this one! There are a couple of tricky things about something like this, so I'll have to throw down some suggestions:

1. THOSE OF YOU WITH DAW CAPABILITIES: If you'd like to participate in this challenge, I'd love for you to type something like "I'm a DAW person" in the comments here or on the community forum.

2. THOSE OF YOU WITHOUT DAW CAPABILITIES: If you'd like to participate, please comment below or in the community forum saying something like "I am NOT a DAW person."

3. For ease of use, each track you share with another patron will require an accurate count-in or either one or two measures. This can be spoken (eg. "1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4" then music) OR you and your partner can establish a count in that you both agree to (eg. two measures of drum beat or two measures of muted strums) THIS IS CRUCIAL

You're more than welcome to work with more than one person AND you're more than welcome to work DAW-DAW or non-DAW to non-DAW, but let me lay out a few scenarios:

IN GENERAL, STICK WITH WRITING SIMPLE THINGS SO YOU CAN FOCUS ON WRITING "TOGETHER"

IN GENERAL, IT IS EASIEST TO USE A DAW FOR THIS PROCESS, ESPECIALLY IF YOU'D LIKE TO PASS TRACKS BACK AND FORTH TOGETHER A FEW TIMES, BUT OTHER METHODS ARE POSSIBLE.

I'll try to lay out options for every situation here:

1. Two non-DAW patrons writing together: If you and your writing partner do NOT have a DAW, you gotta at least have a phone to record with PLUS a separate device for playing your partner's tracks through speakers. The idea here is important: Pick one person to start the writing process with something like a chord progression. Record your progression (making sure to count yourself in in some obvious way) and send it to your partner. Your partner can then open the file, listen to it on speakers, and then (with their phone) record themselves playing along with the track on speakers. This is important so you can capture both YOUR idea AND your partners recording on one track. This is less than ideal, and you likely won't be able to add many layers due to lack of mixing abilities and whatnot, but if you don't have a DAW it's worth a try.

2. One non-DAW Patron and one DAW Patron: This situation is a little better, but also more one-sided. Probably the best idea in this situation is to have the NON-DAW Patron record something first, making sure to count in AND play something simple enough that it's EASY to keep good time. Then send that to the DAW person, who can import it into their computer and record over the top of it. The downside here is that it can still be hard to play in time so the initial person needs to really play something simple enough that they can really play nicely in time.

3. Two DAW people: You've got the easiest time. STEP 1: pick a tempo and make sure your project's BPM is always set to that tempo when you're adding layers. STEP 2, pick someone to write first. Maybe one person starts with a drum beat and the other person adds the first guitar, then sends it back. The coolest thing about this setup is that you can send the track back and forth to each other without ANY degradation of tone or mix. One person could be the "Master mixer" - meaning the person who has the main project file (like the Logic Pro or GarageBand project file.) This person has the job of compiling each separate audio track and mixing as you go.

4. Oldschool aka "In person:" Remember that thing we all used to do so often before March of 2020? That thing where you knock on someone's door and hang out inside? If you feel safe from Covid AND you know someone you could collaborate with in person, this is such a fun option.

To be clear: I don't necessarily condone meeting strangers you meet on the internet! You could collaborate with a friend and ask your friend if you can post audio to our community. Or you can try it out and just report back on the community forum about how it went.

If you've got a rapport with someone in the community forum AND you somehow happen to live close to each other, that might be a fun conversation to have with that person.

POST YOUR CREATIONS, THOUGHTS ABOUT THE PROCESS, AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS ON THE COMMUNITY FORUM.

Reach out to me via private message here or on the community forum if you can't find someone to work with and I'll try to link you up with someone. Or just post in the comments. We'll get it figured out.

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Write something in 3/4 or 6/8

Time signatures are not SAID as a fraction even though they are a fraction.

We say "three-four time" or "six-eight time" but it's actually easier to think of them as fractions when trying to apply them in real life. But hold that thought while I explain a few things.

…Continue this post on Patreon.

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