How to Tell the Key of a Song
March 11, 2010 by admin
Filed under iPod Music
When a piece of music is written it is certainly written in a particular key, whether that be the key of Bb or maybe even E. By looking at the beginning of the score you can see what flats or sharps will be used and can determine then which scale has been used to write the song.
A key signature is included in each and every musical piece. This information is written right after the clef (shown on the staff) and is explained with symbols stating the number of flats (b) and the number of sharps (#). As you look over the beginning of the lines of music you will recognize a grouping of flats and sharps, which are not ever used simultaneously. They will appear separately on a space or on a line of the music staff and will be placed with the specific notes that will be affected by them. For example, if the music is to played using an F#, the sharp symbol, the #, will be placed on the top line of the staff. This will tell the person that is reading the music that each time an F is played, no matter if it is on top of the staff, in the first space, or below or able the staff (indicated by the ledger lines), this note should be placed as F#.
When the note that has the flat or sharp signified in the key signature needs to be played as a neutral then an accidental will be put in front of the individual note. In other words, if the music requires the playing of an F (neutral) in the G key, there must be an accidental put in front of it so that the person that is playing the music will not play it as an F#.
The key signature is used so that the number of sharps or flats that are used in within the music itself will be limited. With this said, the musician can tell from the start that each time the note F is played it is to be played as a #. There is no need to put the # in front of each and every F note in the sheet of music. If the signatures were not used, the music would be very hard to decipher because there would be flats and sharps scattered throughout the music, causing cluttering on the lines of music.
Below is a list of the most common key signatures and which notes are affected by them:
Key of C: Includes no flats or sharps
Key of G: Includes one sharp (F#)
Key of D: Includes two sharps (C# and F#)
Key of A: Includes three sharps (G#, F# and C#)
Key of E: Includes four sharps (D#, F#, C# and G#)
Key of F: Includes one flat (Bb)
Key of Bb: Includes two flats (Eb and Bb)
Key of Eb: Includes three flats (Ab, Eb, and Bb)
There is also a relative minor assigned to each key. While it is true that in nearly all ways the major and the relative minor that coincides with it are similar (they use the same scale even though they begin in different places), they are not considered the same. The note that can be found a minor third down from the major (key) is called the relative minor. You can think of it in another way by remembering the sixth note in the major scale is the relative minor. As an example, The C major scale has a sixth note of A so an A minor is the relative minor to C. It is very common to use the relative minor of the key and if you gain a good understanding of them you will find that you have a better understanding of the chord progressions in the song.
Below are some specific keys and what their relative minors (keys) are:
The relative minor for C is A minor
The relative minor for D is B minor
The relative minor for A is F# minor
The relative minor for Bb is G minor
An experienced musician playing in a non-formal setting (not using written music) simply needs to know the key to a particular song to be able to play the chords and scales (melodies) for that song.
Last of all, it is very common for a song to change keys before the end of the song. Musicians that are newer to the musical industry may find this very challenging.
Top Five Tips For Learning an Instrument
March 11, 2010 by admin
Filed under iPod Music
These five easy tips have been compiled to help beginners starting out on learning an instrument, and can be read in no time at all to guide a novice through selecting an instrument and to promote good practice habits.
Getting Comfortable: Though some specific instrument teachers might be eager for you to sign up for six months of lessons, any respectable instructor should have the professionalism to recommend trial sessions, especially if buying the instrument in question is likely to be costly. From a session like this you are unlikely to envisage yourself as a virtuoso, but at least it’s a chance to get the overall feel of a particular discipline before you plunge into learning a skill when you wish you’d thought the whole thing over a while!
Regular Practice Times: Whatever your instrument, most teachers will tell you that ten minutes absorbed practice per day for a week (though far from a desirable amount) is better than an hour and ten minutes before your lesson. To do the latter, you’re only ever likely to disappoint yourself and the person tasked with overseeing your musical development. Design a realistic practice timetable and use a laser printer to print it out, and place it where you will undoubtedly see it daily. Getting into good, regular practice habits makes progression in your learning a much swifter process.
Leave Your Mark: An instrument or a folder full of carefully marked scores is not difficult to lose, and this happens most of all when you’re not used to having your instrument with you when travelling between places. Therefore, it’s always good to label your cases and if possible your instrument with your name and a postal address: with hollow-bodied instruments, you can even stick a label inside the body for the best chance of return.
The Sibelius Technique: Often attributed to Sibelius is the study method using twenty pebbles and a cloth bag. Though brutal, as we shall see, it is the optimal way to rehearse a piece to performance level with confidence, so that one can concentrate fully on how you wish to express the piece yourself. It goes thus: set the pebbles on a table (or on your piano) by the bag. Play the piece. If you make it through without a wrong note or a hitch, place a pebble in the bag. Repeat. When you make a mistake, pour all the pebbles out, and start again. And, yes, even the time you reach poor pebble number 19.
Learn Your Acronyms!: Like any discipline, music theory has a very idiosyncratic history of acronyms which, once memorized, will mean you can think through complex theoretical issues without the aid of charts and reference books. There are many, but here is one example: ‘Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle’, which gives you the number of sharps in each key (F: 1b, C:0, D: 1#…) and is reversible for counting the number of flats. Learning your acronyms requires perseverence, but printing them out in gigantic letters for your music room could help you pick them up quicker.
There are no easy routes or ways to cheat your way to learning an instrument, but hopefully these easy tips will send you on your way to establishing a comfortable routine and a confidence in playing.
Tips For Finding Best Guitar Slides
March 10, 2010 by admin
Filed under iPod Music
There are many ways of playing the guitar. And one interesting way is the slide or the bottleneck method. The performer, to slide against the guitar strings, uses an instrument called the slide or the bottleneck. This way, the pitch is adjusted accordingly. You would no longer have to press the string against the fretboard to change its pitch anymore. All you would have to do is use the guitar slide. This is not the only thing that guitar slides can do, you know. By placing a guitar slide against a particular string, the length of its vibration can also be varied.
Guitar slides can be used on any kind of guitar. But steel guitars are the best for using these slides. This is because using slides make the steel strings resonate better. However, guitar slides do come in different materials, which should play a role in your choosing of such an accessory. Guitar slides come in two materials: steel and glass. In choosing between both of them, you have to consider one important thing about these slides first.
What sort of effect do you need to attain from guitar slides? If you would like to have a mellow kind of effect on the string, then you need to go for glass guitar slides. But if you’d like a sharper twang to the string, then you must go for metal guitar slides. What more, glass slides simply break for plain reasons, while metal slides are the opposite. You can drop a metal slide, and it wouldn’t break in the slightest. This may be another factor when choosing between these two kinds of guitar slides. But watch out when working with chromed guitar slides. If somebody implies that you’ve a chromed guitar slide, do not be taken with it. Chromed guitar slides give off sounds that appear a bit cold and thin. Plenty of people like brass guitar slides due to the rich sounds they give off.
Playing the guitar with slides may seem a bit difficult and awkward to look at sometimes. But this is easily done when your fingers are made comfortable with the slide. You can take your pick from placing the guitar slide on your third or fourth finger. These are the fingers on which wearing guitar slides would be most comfortable.
Comfort is top priority when it comes to choosing slides. Make sure to choose a guitar slide that would make playing easier for you. It better to forgot design and style and go for comfort instead.
To know more about Online Acoustic Guitar Lesson, I recommend you to visit Best Guitar Lesson.
Jarvis D. Burris
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