Suppose you ask your friend to teach you how to play the chords to a song on the guitar or piano. For example, "Apologize" by One Republic. Your friend says, "Oh that's an easy one. It's just 6-4-1-5 in Eb major."
If you a have a basic knowledge of music theory, then you probably understand what this means. You may also be pleased to know that your friend just gave you the formula for almost every successful pop song in the last 40 years.
However, if this confuses you, then your friend would probably say something like, "Just repeat C minor - Ab major - Eb major - Bb major over and over again."
Maybe now you're not as baffled. Maybe you're more perplexed than ever. If the latter is true, then maybe your friend shows you the exact keys on the piano:
There you go. Crystal clear! Delighting in the new addition to your musical repertoire, you play Apologize non-stop for about a week until you get bored with it. You then find your friend again and ask the following:
"Dude, can you teach me how to play 'Beautiful' by Akon?"
Your friend smacks his hand to his face. Any guesses why?
Probably because you essentially already know how to play that song. You just don't realize it.
And that, dear readers, is what I hope to provide. A basic understanding of how to read and understand music in the context of music that you like. I plan to provide a series of lessons of how to not only play some of your favorite songs, but how to understand what your playing and therefore learn other song much more easily.
In the meantime, here are some of my favorite music-related websites:
MusicTheory.net A huge list of comprehensive general music lessons and exercises
Virtual Keyboard Unless most other online pianos, you can actually use the keys on your computer keyboard to play the notes.
BPM Tracker Want to figure out the tempo of a song? Just tap a key on your keyboard to the beat of the song, and this nifty tool will calculate it for you.
I'll be back soon with another post, either my first lesson or something completely unrelated. In the meantime, here's something to pique your interest:
*raise mah hand* quessstion.
ReplyDeleteso, when i'm arranging music, i usually just look up the chords online, picking whatever comes first. so if i accidentally pick guitar chords to play on the piano... will it sound any better or worse to sing with? or is that just a matter of personal preference? and when you sing a cappella, are there certain chords you prefer? or that sound better in the human voice?