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The Good Musician

Archive for the ‘Music Theory’ Category

June 4th, 2008

Georgetown Festival of the Arts celebrates Mendelssohn June 5-8

Image details: Mendelssohn served by picapp.com
Neighboring Georgetown is building a nationally recognized mega-festival of the arts. The Georgetown Festival of the Arts is an exemplar of community involvement producing a highly educational, thoroughly interactive, fun place to be for all ages. Kids can explore an instrumental petting zoo, learn the history of the dulcimer, and […]

By csnowden -- 0 comments

April 22nd, 2008

Music theory final exams coming up?

Image details: Girl playing piano served by picapp.com
Here are a couple of sites that will help you drill for those end-of-year theory finals. These sites are free.
The Music Theory Minute is a super guide to the fundamentals of music theory, demonstrated in one minute tutorials. Features video/voice-over clips of Dr. Jack modeling the lesson. You’ll […]

By csnowden -- 0 comments

December 13th, 2007

Capture Music Anywhere With Moleskines

It’s happened too often that I had a brilliant tune while sitting in the bus, just to end up at home at my instrument, having forgotten how it went.
You may argue that if it didn’t stick, it wasn’t that brilliant, but the point is that even Mozart was known to have had a quill and […]

By Arjun Muralidharan -- 0 comments

December 4th, 2007

How To Be A Metal Musician

Quick Note:
I had the honor of writing for one of b5media’s most prolific music blogs, Metal Martyr. The post I wrote describes some thoughts on the difficulties and challenges apsiring metal musicians face, and I think the tips are interesting to anyone, even if you hate metal to the death (which is a pity, because […]

By Arjun Muralidharan -- 1 comment

November 5th, 2007

How to Be a Musical Scientist

This is Part 3 in the Competencies Series. See also Part 1 (Personal Comeptence), Part 2 (Social Competence) and Part 4 (Practical Competence).

What sets Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits apart from you? Well, he was lucky.
Most famous musicians were lucky somewhere down the road. But so was Britney, and I will not begin calling […]

By Arjun Muralidharan -- 5 comments

October 24th, 2007

Why Composing Great Music Is So Hard

Photography by spazzbat.
Do you know how to compose great music?
Composing, or creating music has always been something I found hardest. I was recently asked why composing isn’t my forte, and it made me think.
Basically, if you can attach a few sounds to each other in a sequence, you’ve got a composition.
So composing is easy, […]

By Arjun Muralidharan -- 1 comment

August 29th, 2007

Music Theory 101: The Basic Major Triad

What is a chord?
A chord is the simultaneous resounding of multiple notes. Now that we know about Major and Minor scales, we can build chords, picking out the right notes from that scale.
Basically, you could pick any two notes out of the scale and you’d already have a chord if you play them at the […]

By Arjun Muralidharan -- 0 comments

August 29th, 2007

7 Tips for Jam Beginners

After yestrday’s post about starting to jam, here’s 7 quick tips to keep you less frustrated:

Sit in a circle with your friends and ask questions about how other people’s instrument works. It’s important to know your instrument yourself first, but knowing why a bigger drum sounds deeper can be as useful to a drummer as […]

By Arjun Muralidharan -- 0 comments

August 12th, 2007

Music Theory 101: Intervals

You know about seconds. But of course, those aren’t the only gaps between notes. While seconds describe the change between two adjacent notes, you can also go further by describing the jump of two notes, three , and so on.
Let’s look at our scale again:
Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do
It’s the major scale, […]

By Arjun Muralidharan -- 0 comments

July 27th, 2007

Music Theory 101: Major and Minor

Previously, we spoke about the scale system (Do Re Mi). Let’s apply this system to normal notes as you would learn on your instrument:

Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do
C D E F G A B C
Great. Now we also […]

By Arjun Muralidharan -- 0 comments

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