It’s often a difficult task convincing students to put the time in to learn theory. Their apprehension towards the idea is often the result of a teacher who doesn’t know how to properly teach it, presenting the ideas as “rules” rather than a way of understanding. I’ve also noticed that classically trained musicians and educators typically avoid learning/teaching theory until fairly late in their education, which I think is utterly retarded. A proper education in music theory can help a student advance MUCH faster than they would by simply “following instructions” and will also instill in them a much greater appreciation for what they are playing.
That said, it’s important for me to teach all of my students theory. But as I said before, they are often apprehensive towards this idea. I’ve come up with the following analogy to help illustrate how actually understanding music theory can help you to be a better musician: Imagine you are telling a story in a language that you do not speak. Sure, you may be able to sound everything out, and those listening will probably be able to get the basic idea of the story (assuming they speak the language). However, you probably won’t be a very effective or entertaining raconteur. But if you speak the language, and understand the story as you are telling it, you can actually perform! You can be an effective storyteller… and that’s most important. Go find video of an Adolph Hitler speech. Yes, the man was an absolute monster, but that doesn’t change the fact that he was one of the greatest orators in history. Even if you don’t speak German, the man is mesmerizing. He was a performer.
Playing music is no different. When you understand what you are “saying”, it is much easier to play something evocative and emotional. So why learn music theory? Because the other option is to just be an ignorant dolt who follows instructions. You may get lucky and do a good job, but it’s better to just know what you’re doing in the first place.
Since my computer has gone in-op, I’ve been unable to do any real updates. Real Book A-Z got put on hold, I don’t have any video editing software or a camera… it sucks, and I’m really mad about it. I was hoping to build up some momentum.
So just to keep things going, here’s a simple little example I use to illustrate the idea of a tonic pitch.
I typically show this example to people asking about modes. Mainly, the question “If C major and D Dorian have all the same notes, what’s the difference?” or any similar question.
Play the song “Drunken Sailor” in D (it will start on A). That is a legitimate Dorian melody. You will only use the notes D E F G A B and C. The song will end on a D note, and you’re fine with that. It’s ending on the tonic, everything is nice and resolved, it sounded great.
Now play the song “Happy Birthday” in C (it will start on G). That’s a major/Ionian melody. Stop on the second to last note (which will be D). Are you okay with that? Does it sound good ending there? Of course not! It sounds terrible! The melody practically demands to resolve to the tonic (C).
Unfortunately, it appears that my hard drive has decided to fail on me. My computer still works, but it’s slow and prone to frequent hangups and crashes… which makes it nearly impossible to record any videos.
I have access to another computer, but no other camera. I will try to keep doing new lessons, but they will all be without a video component for the time being.
I’m still having some problems with my computer, which is why I didn’t do another Real Book A-Z last night. It seems to be a problem with my hard drive, like I’d get if it had bad sectors or something, but it’s not making any of the characteristic noises. The problems are getting more frequent and annoying, so I’m just going to put things on hold until I’ve actually resolved the problems rather than trying to work around them.
This song wasn’t a traditional lead sheet, but I wanted to do it anyway. After trying this, I listened to a solo performance of the song by Ellington, and was surprised to find that it had more of a Debussy vibe to it than a swing sound.
The Real Book says of the tempo/feel “med. latin”, which I didn’t get at all. The form was also quite different. Then I noticed that the chart was based off a version Duke did with Charles Mingus from an album called “Money Jungle”, which I have not heard. That puts a different spin on things (apparently Duke wrote the tune just for that album too).
UPDATE: While this was uploading, I was able to listen to the “Money Jungle” version. I’ve got to track that album down now. That version was magical.
Intervals are a VERY basic part of music, and anyone who calls themselves a musician should be able to recognize them. Whether or not they know the proper names for those intervals isn’t terribly important… recognizing them by sound is what matters. However, knowing their names IS a very handy thing, especially when you’re trying to communicate with other musicians via spoken or written word.
The name of an interval has two parts: the quality and the size. The size is the easy part. You can find it by simply counting the number of letters between two notes. C to D is a 2nd, A to E is a 5th, B to F is a 4th… it’s pretty simple. You can also count the number of lines/spaces between the two notes on a music staff, as shown in the following example:
The quality is the trickier part. The 5 main qualities for intervals are major, minor, perfect, diminished, and augmented. You can theoretically have things like double diminished or triple augmented, but the only place you’re ever going to see those is on your music theory tests. So which is which? The best way to figure all that out is to just learn all the intervals in the major scale, then compare everything to that.
We’re going to use the C major scale, which consists of the notes C D E F G A and B (all the naturals). C is the root, or 1 of the scale. D is the 2nd note. It is a major 2nd above C. E is the 3rd note. It’s a major 3rd above C (see the pattern?) Next is F, which is a perfect 4th abov– wait, perfect?! Yeah, so much for that pattern huh? Well, it’s still not complicated. The 4th, 5th, and octave are the only perfect intervals, everything else is a major interval.
So all together we’ve got the root, then a major 2nd, major 3rd, perfect 4th, perfect 5th, major 6th, major 7th, and a perfect octave.
Alright, but what about minor, diminished, and augmented? That’s simple too, but people often get confused here, so pay attention:
If a major or perfect interval is expanded by a half step, it becomes augmented
If a major interval is reduced by a half step, it becomes minor
If a minor or perfect interval is reduced by a half step, it becomes diminished
Keep in mind that by expand/reduce I mean adding sharps, flats, or natural signs to the EXISTING LETTERS. If you change the letter name of a note, you are changing the size (number) of the interval.
That’s practically everything you need to know! Let’s just do a couple of examples to make sure you’ve got it.
F to E♭… F G A B C D E… so it’s some type of 7th. The F major scale has a an E in it, so F to E is a major 7th. We’re going to E♭, so that’s one half step lower, which means it’s a minor 7th.
C♯ to A♭… C D E F G A… so it’s a 6th. C♯ major has an A♯ in it, so it’s not a major 6th. We’re going to A♭, which is 2 half-steps lower, so we’ve got a diminished 6th.
Is all this making sense?
Intervals can also be inverted! Let’s say you’ve got a major 6th interval going from A up to F♯. If you take that A note and move it up an octave, you’ve now got a minor 3rd interval! It’s easy to figure out the inversions. All you need to do is subtract the number of the interval from 9… that’s your new size. To figure out the quality, just remember these simple rules:
Major intervals become minor intervals and vice versa
Augmented intervals become diminished intervals and vice versa
Perfect intervals remain perfect
You may have realized by now that there are lots of intervals that sound the same… like a diminished 5th and augmented 4th, or a minor 7th and an augmented 6th. We call these “enharmonic intervals”. What’s the difference? Well.. it’s just technical. They sound the same. It’s really all about keeping the music organized and easy to understand.
Now it’s time to put all this stuff to the test. Below is a link to a little pdf test that you can print out and complete. The answers are linked below as well. I know this stuff may seem tedious right now, and it will most likely take you a little while to figure everything out, but it does get easier with time. Eventually you will simply know that E to G♯ is a major 3rd and A to D♭ is a diminished 4th.
But shouldn’t we be able to recognize these intervals by ear? YES! Absolutely! If you go to the “Downloads” section of the site, you can get a copy of a great ear training program called The Music Box. It’s shareware, so you don’t have to feel guilty about getting such a great program for free. Unfortunately, it’s only available for Windows. If you only have Mac, then feel free to try out the stuff on this site.
No updates on the Real Book A-Z stuff. I didn’t have my computer with me yesterday, and now that I have it back, it’s not working right. Hopefully I can figure out what’s wrong with it soon.
“A Night In Tunisia” is definitely a classic tune, and I’ve heard it before. However I couldn’t sing the melody from memory. This was the most challenging song so far, primarily because the chart was very cluttered and difficult to read. I eventually got the tune down, just not within these first 10 minutes.
Two songs from Astaire movies in a row! This time it’s from “A Damsel In Distress”, which I haven’t seen. It’s got George Burns in it too… Fred Astaire and George Burns in a film with songs by George and Ira Gershwin? Sign me up!
