I have written here and there about the Kickstarter phenomenon before but never in length. I have to admit that the underlying philosophy bothers me a bit and I actually think it may do musicians far more harm than good. So I want to take a post and explain why. Here is a quick background […]
Category Archives: Free Lessons
I have to be honest about something. What I am sharing today is not that difficult but nevertheless took me a long time to learn. It is a tip for learning to write more efficiently. In the six CDs I have previously recorded, I have written or arranged all the music. My process has always […]
I am playing a lot these days and one of the things I am working on is voicing. I spend a lot of time playing charts of voicings, drilling them until they become instinctive. It is not fun work; in fact, it is one of the most mundane things I know to do on the piano. But it is also very necessary.
I was talking to someone the other day and she mentioned that the modulation formula she always used was simply to play ii – V – I into the new key. In other words, if moving from F to G, she would finish the song in F and then play Am – D7 – G to get into the new key.
There are certain musical elements that are so versatile and useful that basically every real life pianist needs to know them. I say “real life pianists” because I am referring to those of us who don’t sit in ivory (pun intended) towers playing Bach all day but rather play in the every day situations of […]
I want to tread carefully in this post because not everyone agrees with what I am about to discuss. I have good friends who will disagree with it in fact. That is all good. It is not a personal thing; it is just about music and I have no one in mind as I am writing.
I am really enjoying working with students around the world in my music school. For those wondering why I have taken down that part of the web site, it is because I am retooling for next semester. We are making a number of changes and are about ready to announce them. I will have everything up by Thanksgiving for sure.
Last week, I wrote about the use of the stride style in church. On Facebook, it turned out to be a very controversial subject because some people chose to focus on a few historical elements I mentioned rather than my main points. I could get pulled off on that rabbit trail defending my assertions but […]
I teach a class called Advanced Functional Harmony. The purpose of the class is to teach students not how to do chord substitutions but rather how to ignore the basic harmony almost completely and replace it with something better.
I think practically every musician should learn to play by ear. I know that there may be a few people here and there that just can’t learn that way but most can. It is completely natural to learn music by ear; in fact, it would be easy to make a case that it is more […]
Last week, I posted three tips for accompanying and it has been the most popular blog post ever here. Almost 900 people have “Liked” it and that really helps me by the way. Please take a second to “Like” this post too by clicking on the Facebook “Like” button just under the title above. Now […]