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The improve your musicianship thread 2014


Chris

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Really bored at work this afternoon so I had a quick look at theory sites and came across this http://www.musictheory.net there are a few free exercises on recognizing notes, chords, intervals etc. Only just started playing around with it  but thought I'd share it. It will fill 5 minutes if nothing else. 

 

It really is a great site (which is why I linked it in my original post on this thread).  The exercises can be customised to suit your own needs, it's easy to use and completely free.  Great for lunchtime learning :)

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It really is a great site (which is why I linked it in my original post on this thread).  The exercises can be customised to suit your own needs, it's easy to use and completely free.  Great for lunchtime learning :)

 

 

Oops. Never been the most observant!! But yeah great site. Think I'll go and read the original post again!!!  

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Went along to the first night of Scottish Culture and Traditions' session class last night (teaching melody players common session tunes).  Oof. I knew it wasn't going to be a beginners class but there was no hanging about, just a welcome then straight into learning a bunch of tunes by ear.  I've never spent much time learning anything by ear.  Felt a bit out of my depth to be honest.

 

However, I found that it wasn't too difficult. I was slower at picking the tunes up than the rest of the class (all fiddlers, along with the tutor) and it required a lot of concentration but I was getting better at it by the end of the 2 hours.  Thankfully as the mandolin and fiddle are the same tuning I can keep an eye on the tutor's fingers to give me a pointer if I'm totally lost.  

 

Got a lot of homework to do to get the tunes learnt properly by next class but I reckon it's going to really improve my playing and my ear over the next 10 weeks. 

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My banjo playing is going pretty well. My promise to practice an hour every day predictably went south pretty quickly but I've been practicing fairly regularly and racing through the tuition DVD. Of course all the left hand stuff is identical to guitar so I can skip over most of those lessons and concentrate on the three finger picking patterns, which I have memorised but need to work on my speed, and also learning all the new chord shapes.

You want a banjo player who can pick through a bluegrass song comprised of G/C/D7, I'm your man.

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My promise to practice an hour every day predictably went south pretty quickly

 

A tip I was given and find useful is to diary 3 practice times a week and stick to them like I would any other appointment I have in my calendar. I use these as my main learning time and split them across the week. If I can get in more time then great, if not I know I have my 4 hours a week where I'm doing it.

 

It's quite easy for me to do this as I work regular hours and I don't have much of a social life anymore, and more importantly my wife loves the peace and quiet when I'm at the other side of the house form her!!   

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I see people are starting to write progress reports already!  I suppose I'll update my status also.  The first song I ever wrote is about finished now.  When I say "I wrote it" I mean I had the initial idea (chords, bass line, words) - it's nothing without the input of the rest of the band.  Speaking of which, here it is as performed The Inevitable Teaspoons (just a rehearsal recording with the Zoom handy recorder, so it's not a polished article, but more than tolerable)

 

 

I've got another two songs in development, one's nearly done, one still needs another little something.  I'm learning not to fight with it - keep every fragment (be it music or words) because it might come in handy some day.  I used to be terrible for screwing up and throwing away anything that didn't work first time (which was everything to my ultra-critical mind) but I'm building up a bank of quarter/half ideas that have gone off the boil, just in case some inspiration hits (or I can swipe a part of one for something else).

 

In other related news (the improve my theory bit), I think I figured out the key of the keyboard player's latest song idea.  It is F major.  1 flat (Bb).  The accidentals went away.  Go theory! :)

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I see people are starting to write progress reports already!  I suppose I'll update my status also.  The first song I ever wrote is about finished now.  When I say "I wrote it" I mean I had the initial idea (chords, bass line, words) - it's nothing without the input of the rest of the band.  Speaking of which, here it is as performed The Inevitable Teaspoons (just a rehearsal recording with the Zoom handy recorder, so it's not a polished article, but more than tolerable)

 

 

I've got another two songs in development, one's nearly done, one still needs another little something.  I'm learning not to fight with it - keep every fragment (be it music or words) because it might come in handy some day.  I used to be terrible for screwing up and throwing away anything that didn't work first time (which was everything to my ultra-critical mind) but I'm building up a bank of quarter/half ideas that have gone off the boil, just in case some inspiration hits (or I can swipe a part of one for something else).

 

In other related news (the improve my theory bit), I think I figured out the key of the keyboard player's latest song idea.  It is F major.  1 flat (Bb).  The accidentals went away.  Go theory! :)

Sounds like The Style Council.

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A tip I was given and find useful is to diary 3 practice times a week and stick to them like I would any other appointment I have in my calendar. I use these as my main learning time and split them across the week. If I can get in more time then great, if not I know I have my 4 hours a week where I'm doing it.

It's quite easy for me to do this as I work regular hours and I don't have much of a social life anymore, and more importantly my wife loves the peace and quiet when I'm at the other side of the house form her!!

That's actually cracking advice. Definitely going to try this.

Unfortunately my house isn't really big enough to have an other side, I better get started soundproofing that shed :laughing:

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I want to learn a much wider variant of chord progressions and scales. I feel when wriitng that I'm kind of running out of ideas, or have hit a wall if you will. I've been relying on a few things that I can do well for a long time but now I have more or less exhausted this rather small repertoire of musical knowledge. So I need to broaden my horizons a bit for sure; I'm pretty happy with my technical level of playing but it's my knowledge of more complex chords, scales and how they work together that I want to improve.

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I want to learn a much wider variant of chord progressions and scales. I feel when wriitng that I'm kind of running out of ideas, or have hit a wall if you will. I've been relying on a few things that I can do well for a long time but now I have more or less exhausted this rather small repertoire of musical knowledge. So I need to broaden my horizons a bit for sure; I'm pretty happy with my technical level of playing but it's my knowledge of more complex chords, scales and how they work together that I want to improve.

 

Have you ever played any piano/keyboard?  I found learning a bit of piano basics did wonders for my understanding of scales and how chords are built from them.  The layout of the keys just makes it that bit easier to visualise.  Might be worth picking up a cheap casio or something if you don't already have one.

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I would suggest to anyone ever that if they want a good grounding in music theory to learn the piano first. I feel pretty lucky that I took piano lessons from a very young age, and it set me up extremely well to pick up other instruments and learn by ear etc.

 

Any children I have will be encouraged to take up piano lessons for this reason. Or Derek Soutar's soccer school, I've not decided yet.

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I would suggest to anyone ever that if they want a good grounding in music theory to learn the piano first. I feel pretty lucky that I took piano lessons from a very young age, and it set me up extremely well to pick up other instruments and learn by ear etc.

 

Any children I have will be encouraged to take up piano lessons for this reason. Or Derek Soutar's soccer school, I've not decided yet.

 

Does piano get you the ladies? I'm just trying to weigh up what went wrong in my youth.

 

EDIT: All good advice though, I may just look into tickling those ivories.

Edited by givemeasmile
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Piano makes it easy to visualise stuff as the keys are all one note/interval apart. However so is guitar, each string is much like a stretch of piano keys, but there's six of them and you eventually see stuff in a matrix.

 

For givemeasmile I'd recommend the same stuff mentioned earlier: learn the notes and intervals on the fretboard; basic modal theory and then use maybe the CAGED system (basically, move your open chord shapes up and down the neck, but knowing intervals you can now tweak them as needed) to construct new chords. Or, as mentioned earlier, just tweak your familiar chords at random and see what happens; knowing intervals and maybe modes, you should then be able to figure out what you're playing and what to do with it.

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First off, thanks for listening.  Now, how did that happen?  I know nothing about The Style Council other than Paul Weller was in it after The Jam.  Couldn't even name you a track without having a sneaky search.

 

I didn't mean sounds like a particular song - although it did remind me a bit of Walls Come Tumbling Down.

 

Similar style is all. Good effort for your first time doing the whole thing!

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Jings! Try to promote and get smirks.  Thanks guys :)  

 

This New Year I will be trying to improve my musical life by sustaining my family more from my teaching income.  Can anyone suggest any good ideas for being a Musician in Aberdeen, because Aberdeen Music Forum doesn't seem to like it when Musicians try to promote their work?

 

If I posted to the same person twice, I apologise.  I am trying to get to grips with how this Forum works.

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Jings! Try to promote and get smirks.  Thanks guys :)

 

This New Year I will be trying to improve my musical life by sustaining my family more from my teaching income.  Can anyone suggest any good ideas for being a Musician in Aberdeen, because Aberdeen Music Forum doesn't seem to like it when Musicians try to promote their work?

 

If I posted to the same person twice, I apologise.  I am trying to get to grips with how this Forum works.

 

Avoid Aberdeen Music ;)

 

Seriously tho, i wouldnt let it bother you, if your gonna be a part of the boards, you'll have to accept the banter, its part of life on here.

 

Have you maybe tried somewhere like Capt Toms for offering lessons? 

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Jings! Try to promote and get smirks.  Thanks guys :)

 

This New Year I will be trying to improve my musical life by sustaining my family more from my teaching income.  Can anyone suggest any good ideas for being a Musician in Aberdeen, because Aberdeen Music Forum doesn't seem to like it when Musicians try to promote their work?

 

If I posted to the same person twice, I apologise.  I am trying to get to grips with how this Forum works.

 

As I said in my PM to you, posting an advert is fine.  Spamming the forum (you posted 5 identical replies in this thread at the same time!) is not cool.

 

You're free to use the forums and participate in discussions (personally I think a music teacher with a varied skillset like yourself would be an interesting addition to threads like this), but if your participation is simply going to be replies promoting your music school then I'd suggest you talk to Neil about buying an ad banner instead.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well 4 weeks into the SCaT session class and I feel like I've improved considerably compared to the first week. I've been practicing more than any time since I moved out of the parental home. I'm now pretty comfortable learning tunes from sheet music (in the first position) and am much quicker learning the parts by ear in the class. Going to try and pick up a couple of books of fiddle tunes at the weekend to give me some more sheet music to learn from.

 

One thing I've really noticed though is that sitting in a class with 7 fiddlers, some of whom come from a classical background, really shows up the deficiencies in bits of my technique. Lots to work on! 

 

Did a rough mobile recording of one of the tunes we've been working on in the class. A waltz by Hamish Napier - Minerva Street:

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