I just published a new video demonstrating simple ornamentation (grace notes) as an arranging strategy. If you don’t see the video below, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zopr9ZBm6JY
Category Archives: Free Lessons
Here is a new video I recorded this afternoon discussing my favorite tag. For those that don’t know, tag is a music slang term that refers to repeating part of the song (such as the last phrase) to create a more stylized ending. If you don’t see the video below, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpDluxCCSuo
I have been lax on doing videos but plan to get back to them over the coming months starting with this one today. By the way, thank you to the 20,000 YouTube subscribers I have (I just noticed I went over that threshold). If you are not a subscriber and want easy access to maybe a […]
While we may like to pretend otherwise, there are pragmatic aspects to writing music. One of those un-artsy but important things that musicians have to consider is time. For example, a typical piano arrangement written for church these days is in the range of of two minutes. That has changed a lot over the past few […]
If you are like me and came from a traditional church background that included lots of hymns, you were probably taught at some point or another a style of congregational accompanying that roughly followed these rules. 1) In the right hand, add the tenor note to create a full chord and double the melody to create […]
I work with a pianist every few weeks by Skype and am currently working with her on an exercise that I want to share with you. it will give you some insight into at least one way to look at arranging. It is not the only way but is a common way I look at […]
Counterpoint is very simply the idea of designing music with multiple voices that all work together but regarding each voice in somewhat of a independent way. Counterpoint precedes Bach though Bach is considered the pinnacle of that era in music. In fact, the simple 2-part inventions that you played in your early days of piano […]
Earlier in the week, I gave you a challenge to arrange “A Shelter in the Time of Storm” with me. Several of you have let me know you are on board with that. Make sure you have printed off the rough sketch of the harmony I provided in that last blog post. Then, here is […]
Today I am kicking off a new little series that will be of interest to many of you. I am going to walk through the building of an arrangement from start to finish. Ideally I would like many of you to work on this along with me and we will see what comes from it. The […]
Read Part 1 here. I recently finished the edits on a book of arrangements and my editor was asking me about a title. He was trying to figure out something that described my style and one of the ways he described my style was extended intros and improvisation on the melodies. I have never really […]
I posted a challenge to you guys to name a particular chord in my free arrangement from the other day. This is a big music nerd alert but I am going to talk about that chord today. Here it is (last beat in bar 17) Several people posted their thoughts on this page and by […]