Rock & Roll 101

March 9th, 2020

Harley has been writing, and tried to make a neojazz song - we listened to some neojazz online, and I found a neojazz "background" track in D minor, and showed him some concepts of how to play - using the pentatonic scale. (5 notes).

We talked about the blues scale (adding the flat five to the pentatonic).

We went over a bit while he worked through some ideas for his song.

March 2nd, 2020

Harley is working tonight.

February 24th, 2020

February 10th, 2020

Harley and I reviewed the circle of fifths - while he's getting more acquainted with it, it's still not memorized, which he's going to try to work on.

We talked about song writing, and what sorts of things will help him to write songs. Knowing which chords is part of the circle of fifths. Knowing which flats and sharps is part of knowing the scales.

I recommended too that he listen to music, and try to guess which chords are being switched to - in the beginning start with simple pop music, with four chords in it. Try to guess the chords as if it's in the key of C, and then go to the piano and try to play it in C (after the song is stopped).

February 3rd, 2020

Harley decided to not come this evening.

January 27th, 2020

Harley is learning UP and so we talked through how the Circle of Fifths can benefit this learning, to really understand they key it's in, the notes he has at his disposal etc.

We reviewed the circle of fifths, talked about major 7ths, minor and majors, F scale. (do re me).

January 20th, 2020

Harley said he wouldn't be coming tonight.

January 13th, 2020

January 6th, 2020

Harley came with a bunch of questions, starting with the circle of fifths, and how he could practice that.

I recommended he play through the chords both directions, starting clockwise around the circle, and then counterclockwise. Playing the seventh of each chord leads nicely into moving counter-clockwise around the circle.

We talked about scales, about intervals (I recommended installing an app for interval training, like 1-5, 1-6, minor 3rds, etc.

You can use melodies like "My bonnie lies over the ocean" for the 1-6 interval.

Here's a cheat sheet:
https://flypaper.soundfly.com/tips/interval-ceat-sheet-songs-to-help-you-remember-common-intervals/

December 30th, 2019

December 23rd, 2019

Harley had practiced the inversions, using an arpeggio. I asked him to practice them as solid chords too, up and down for lots of different chords.

I showed him the proper positions for doing a C scale, and asked him to work on those going in opposite directions with both hands.

We talked about different ways to play chords, such as quarters, "rocker," and arpeggio.

We talked about reading sheet music, and the difference between whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, and sixteenth notes, and how they are notated. We talked about ties, which tie two different notes together.

We talked about dominant sevenths, and playing them around the circle of fifths.

We talked about practicing through the circle of fifths, going counter clockwise around it playing each chord with it's "leading tone," into the next chord.

THere were a lot of other things, but I forget! :)

December 16th, 2019

Harley was keen to learn as much as possible. We went through a lot of theory, skipping some of the basics at first. We covered note names, steps and flats, major and minor chords, sevenths, major sevenths, diminished chords, augmented chords, major ninths, the circle of fifths, and more.