Key changes. When I was learning guitar, no one really explained how these work to me. There are some basic approaches I figured out, such as modulating between keys with shared chords... or just abruptly changing key. But I always liked knowing why something worked, or having a set of rules I could follow. I didn't have any such rules for writing key changes. Then my guitar … [Read more...] about 4 Easy Rules to Write Killer Key Changes Today
songwriting
Musical inspiration is the weirdest thing
I read a great quote on music inspiration the other day: The famous composer Schubert is said to have told a friends that his own creative process consisted in "remembering a melody" that neither he nor anyone else had ever thought of before and it got me thinking about creativity. A lot of people have the false belief that creativity is something that "the chosen few" are … [Read more...] about Musical inspiration is the weirdest thing
How to Play Two String Arpeggio Riffs on Guitar
This is a very cool technique and will serve two big purposes: Give you a new songwriting tool Help fix up what is (probably) a weak area of your playing. What we are looking at with this lesson is creating riffs using arpeggios based on two strings. Let’s quickly recap the intervals in the arpeggios that we are going to be using today: Major: 1 3 5 Minor: 1 b3 … [Read more...] about How to Play Two String Arpeggio Riffs on Guitar
How to Play Baroque Pedal Points on Guitar
This is a neoclassical tool we can use in lead composition. We are going to look at extracts from Bach’s 1st Cello Suite, Prelude and Courante, see how Bach uses pedal points, then look at how we can apply this in our own playing. This extract is from Bach’s Prelude in his first Cello Suite. You can see that from the second beat of this example, Bach is using the note D … [Read more...] about How to Play Baroque Pedal Points on Guitar
Practical Applications of Harmonised Scales Part 3 – Tapping
Today we are going to look at some ideas we can use within the harmonized major scale to help us compose tapping ideas. We’ll be looking at the e and B strings. If you are new to tapping, I wrote an Introduction to Tapping. We are going to be basing these ideas around three shapes: Major 1 3 5 Minor 1 b3 5 Diminished 1 b3 b5 So, to start off … [Read more...] about Practical Applications of Harmonised Scales Part 3 – Tapping
