Refining an Idea
Bringing a song from the creation stage, through the editing/arrangement stage, and into the finalizing stage.
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How to Harmonize a Melody
This lesson was all about how to harmonize a melody. If you'd like to learn how to write a melody, check out my Melody Making Course.
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Office Hours Q&A
Here are this week's questions:
Mark was having problems with maintaining tuning between multitrack recorded guitar.
Craig was looking for some picking and finger exercises to help build up dexterity and speed.
Frank needed guidance on getting started with loop pedals.
Barry asked for a brief overview of walking bass lines.
Frank asked about powering pedals on pedal boards and staying on rhythm while looping.
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Fun with Pedals
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ONLY Write a Chord Progression
Make it as simple or interesting as possible. If you're just joining us, pick a few chords you like in a key! No melody, noIf you don't know how to do that yet, choose a few chords from one of the sets below:
G Am Bm C D Em F#°
C Dm Em F D Am B°
D Em F#m G A Bm C#°
If you're more advanced, try playing around with more interesting voicings, secondary dominants, modal progressions, and whatnot.
Your personal skill level, comfort zone, and free time are all important considerations when approaching a Community Challenge - I’m not asking anyone to write a full song! I’m asking for whatever you have the time, mental bandwidth, and skill to accomplish in roughly two weeks.
If you end up writing ANYTHING, I consider that a huge success. Write SOMETHING. It could be just a simple chord progression you put together or a riff you came up with using a pentatonic scale. Use the writing prompt to guide you and watch my video if you need more ideas.
POST WHAT YOU’VE WRITTEN HERE ON THE COMMUNITY FORUM.
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Melody Making Magic
We're going to explore some cool melody making concepts using the attached PDF.
This would be a great lesson to come back to after watching my Melody Making series
If you’re watching later and you still have questions, feel free to comment below or ask on the next Office Hours, every Thursday at 10am Pacific.
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Office Hours Q&A
Weezley asked asked how to avoid sproingly brassy sounds while picking
Ronnie asked how a mode can be a major key
Rich asked if triad voicings always need to have a root note
Jeff had a question about what notes to play when doing double stops
Brian was having issues getting fingers to the right place on a C chord
Boro asked if its a good idea to memorize riffs when learning to solo
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Spooky Music
In this lesson we discuss a symmetrical scale consisting of R w 2 h 3 w 4 h 5 w 6 h 7 w 8 h R - resulting in two nested fully diminished chords. It creates an eerie tonality with no home.
Then we dive into the whole tone scale, frequently used in dream sequences in movies and TV, and on shoes like the Twilight Zone and plenty of others. It gives you augmented chords to play with.
Write Something in 20 Minutes
Your personal skill level, comfort zone, and free time are all important considerations when approaching a Community Challenge - I’m not asking anyone to write a full song! I’m asking for whatever you have the time, mental bandwidth, and skill to accomplish in roughly two weeks.
If you end up writing ANYTHING, I consider that a huge success. Write SOMETHING. It could be just a simple chord progression you put together or a riff you came up with using a pentatonic scale. Use the writing prompt to guide you and watch my video if you need more ideas.
POST WHAT YOU’VE WRITTEN RIGHT HERE ON THE COMMUNITY FORUM.
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Chord Clusters!
I'll be talking about chord clusters, which is just a fun way to think about playing all the chords in a key within the space of just a few frets. I'll give you a sense of the concept, why its important/useful/fun, and a couple ways to practice and use the concept.
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Office Hours Q&A
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Office Hours Q&A
Here are this week's questions:
Ray was looking for clarification on the circle of fifths.
Mark had a couple of questions about chord shapes after completing my Rubik's cube Series.
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Fun with Roman Numerals!
This week we're talking Roman Numerals - specifically how to think about crafting chord progressions, bass lines, and melodies with loose chords in mind instead of very specific chords. It's amazing how much freedom there is within the Roman Numeral system with this mindset.
If you can't make it live, you can always watch later!
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Office Hours Q&A
This week's questions:
Tasha had a question about Patreon interface changes.
Mark asked for help getting out of a songwriting rut.
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Letting Go with Writing and Improvisation
In this live lesson, I tackle the nuanced and tricky topic of how to practice growing your comfort zone to get into that mode where soloing feels effortless. I talked about Thinking Mode vs Feeling Mode and how important it is to deliberately hang out in one place or the other - one for performance, writing, soloing, and the other for detailed problem solving, deliberate and specific practice, and music theory clarification.
In my opinion, if you are deliberate about bouncing between these two modes, they'll gradually start to overlap, which lets to focus more clearly on the parts that aren't overlapping!
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Office Hours Q&A:
Warren had questions about participating in Community Challenges and general song analysis
Mason has warbling strings on an acoustic guitar - whats going on?
Richard asked about the benefits of drop D tuning
Mark asked if Music Theory Monday should be prioritized or CAGED Basics?
Brian was looking for ways to increase dexterity with open chords - trouble reaching certain strings
Brian also asked about an ideal first electric guitar
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