Modes are inversions of a particular series of notes. In music, notes are grouped into patterns called scales that are used commonly in songwriting. Major scales have 7 unique notes in them and thus have 7 modes. The key of C Major contains the following 7 notes: C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. […]
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What is Tonic, Supertonic, Mediant, etc.?
If you start reading a book on music theory you will most likely come across words like Tonic, Supertonic, Mediant, Sub-Dominant, Dominant, Sub-Mediant, and Leading Tone. In the scale of C Major there are 7 notes. They are C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. In this scale, C would be the Tonic, D-Supertonic, […]
What’s your favorite guitar solo?
Knowing lot’s of chords and lot’s of scales is a good thing. Knowing how chords and scales interact functionally with one another is very empowering for the creative musician. The notes in a chord are a subset of a particular parent scale. The most common scale is the Major scale which contains 7 notes and […]
Tertian Chord Harmony
Tertian chords sound like they might be chords that reside on an alien planet somewhere in the universe. While the word is not typically used, tertian chords are the fundamental chords that are used by all popular american music and most music from around the world. Tertian harmony is so common that most musicians assume […]
The Impact and Importance of Christmas Music
Music can be found everywhere in the world. It is, after all, the universal language. Since humans learned that we could bang sticks against objects and create rhythms, we have had music. There is no form of music, though, that has been embraced across the globe quite like Christmas music. Likewise, the impact of Christmas […]
Art and Lutherie Ami Guitar
AMI Never judge a book by its cover! The Ami’s are modeled after the dimensions of a parlor guitar of the early 1900’s. Small in stature but surprisingly large where it counts most… Tone and projection. The Ami’s tone is clear and pronounced, making it a great guitar for acoustic blues, slide, folk, fingerstyle or […]
THE JAZZ THEORY BOOK
by Mark Levine Order Now Anyone studying Jazz should read this book. Mark Levine gives us this brilliant book covering Theory and Scales, Improvisation, Reharmonization, Playing Tunes, and much more. Over 500 pages of text and over 750 musical examples. Written in the language of the working jazz musician, this book is easy […]
Get your child a full size guitar so they can grow into it…
Wait! The title to this post is all wrong. That is the absolute worst thing that you could do to a beginning guitarist! If you subscribe to this philosophy you may as well buy clothes that are too big for them so that they can grow into them. Don’t let an ignorant sales person at […]
Practice, Practice, Practice
If we could acquire cool skills without taking the time to practice them that would certainly allow us to have a multitude of abilities that would otherwise be impossible. Maybe in the future our brains will download information and allow our bodies to know the necessary actions to perform such abilities. As of right now […]