Every year, I like to give you guys a project to work on throughout the year and today, I want to introduce this year’s project: transitions between songs when doing congregational accompaniment (or similar situations). The video below gives you a three step process for learning how to modulate as well as how to adjust your […]
Author Archives: Greg Howlett
Last week, I turned in my final projects for my Berklee class on reharmonization. Just for fun, I want to share one with you today. It is a reharmonization of one of my favorite songs “But Beautiful.” Before I talk about the song, I will give you a bit of news. I am not taking […]
I cannot tell you how many musicians I hear from that feel overwhelmed. Many of them know how to play by rote (from books) but they feel as though they have a huge mountain to climb to be a real world musician. Let me explain what I mean by “real world musician.” Colleges churn out musicians by […]
Yesterday, I posted a new free arrangement . If you have not downloaded it yet, just click on that link and you will get it instantly. There are a few things going on in this arrangement that I want to talk about really quickly. One is a harmonic idea and one is a rhythmic thing. […]
A lot of you have asked me for information about the class I am taking at Berklee. It is called Reharmonization Techniques and that is what it is about: tons of different reharmonization strategies. Every week, there is a big project that is due on Sunday that involves working on a song or a few […]
I am well into my first semester at Berklee and it has been a great experience so far. I have learned more in five weeks than I may have learned in the last three years. I have also gotten a wakeup call as to what I don’t know. The class I am taking is focused […]
I have always been interested in the topic of beauty. From a musician’s standpoint, beauty is obviously an important issue but it is not just about music. Beauty is all around us in many forms beside the arts. The term that is often associated with the study of beauty is aesthetics and there is (predictably) a lot […]
I think one of the hardest things for musicians to do is to intentionally play at a level of sophistication that is lower than they are capable of. We are wired to want to demonstrate our skill; in some cases, we just flat out want to show off. In my early years, I remember picking out […]
As of next week, I am going to be a college student again. I signed up for one class (an advanced harmony class) at Berklee College of Music. I don’t know where it will lead but I chose to take it for credit so if I decide to pursue a degree, it will be a start down […]
I have had a number of questions about last week’s so today I want to talk more about the harmony. Let’s start with a definition. Diatonic chords are chords that are naturally derived from the key. In other words, all the notes in the chord are part of the scale of the key. If you […]
In case you missed it, here is part 1 of my interview with Faye Lopez: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzQ4CK1CYtE Today, I posted part 2 which covers her arranging process and some tips about texture. If you don’t see a video below, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reCQzH-XrSQ