I live in the Atlanta area, but I have a significant problem in that I am a bit far from downtown. That makes it hard for me to get piano tuners on call, or at least the piano tuners I want. I can get them to come out to do regular tunings but if a […]
Category Archives: Free Lessons
One of the decisions I made in my recent arrangement of “Crown Him With Many Crowns” was to intentionally break some of my own rules (or at least rules I have stolen from others). For example, consider this: Look at the roots of the chords and you will note that I am moving in thirds. […]
Several years ago, I recorded a song on Portraits of Hope called “Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.” I don’t know what I was thinking when I arranged it. Basically if I am being honest, it is a virtually unplayable, complicated mess. I could not even play it in the studio that day with […]
Read Part 1 here Remember this line from that last post? You can substitute a half diminished chord for a minor chord of the same spelling if it is functioning as a ii chord for a target that is also minor. That is one confusing bit of writing so let me do my best to […]
Someone recently mentioned to me that I have never really discussed the half diminished chord and how to use it –and I realized they are right. I want to remedy that over a short series of two posts. As a quick reminder, a half diminished chord is a stack of 4 notes that are separated […]
I am a bit backed up on things that I want to discuss here. I am going to discuss last month’s “All Hail the Power” arrangement and I want to discuss Finale. I also want to talk about “Soul Rest” and I suppose I will do that first since it is fresh on my mind. […]
Read Part 1 and Part 2 if you need to. Last time, I introduced the hook that I am using to tie this arrangement together. You might ask how I describe this hook and I am not sure that I know how to answer that question. I would probably say that it is a gentle […]
Last week, I discussed a simple idea behind arranging and today, we are going to start taking a look at it in action. Our example is last month’s arrangement, “Just As I Am,” for the arrangement club. To start, let’s talk about the song itself. When I was young, this song was what we called an “invitation” […]
Here is a dirty secret about arranging: it usually happens fast. One of the biggest surprises I found as I got into the world of professional music is just how fast arranging happens. In the world of jazz, believe it or not, it often happens on the fly as if by magic. In the studio, […]
Thanks for all the kind comments on my MasterBuilder video. I transcribed what I played over the weekend and you can now purchase the sheet music with the performance track on my sheet music page. Assuming you learn the sheet music, your performance should sound pretty much the same as the one on the video. […]
Read previous installments: Part 1 Part 2 Reading String Reductions (A related detour) Sorry for the delay in getting back to this topic. Let me give you a quick few bits of news before we dive in. I am announcing the 2017 Arrangement Contest winner on Wednesday 11/22. Look for it by the end of […]