Musicality World

Listen to the episode:

Links and Resources

• Interview with Lisa McCormick
• Meditation for Beginners, by Jack Kornfield
• The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle
• The Untethered Soul, by Michael A. Singer
• Calm.com – to aid your meditation and relaxation
• The Headspace app, with guided meditations to get you started

Transcript

Today I want to talk about mindfulness for musicians. This idea came up in our recent episode with Lisa McCormick, whose “Note2Self” methodology for music learning involves becoming more conscious of your inner self-talk and learning to guide it in a more positive way.

This may seem a bit tangential and off-topic compared to some of the nitty-gritty things we talk about on the show, like scales and chords and improvising. But arguably your mindset and ability to direct your focused attention is the most fundamental and important thing to get right in your musical training. And that’s what mindfulness is all about.

I’m going to start off by defining what I mean by mindfulness, and why it’s useful and interesting in general. Then we’ll talk about its relevance for musicians in particular and how it can positively affect the way you practice, perform and create music. Then we’ll wrap up with a simple exercise you can do to start developing more mindfulness today.

What is mindfulness?

Simply put, mindfulness is the ability to be present in the current moment. To be conscious and aware of what is happening – right now.

Not thinking about the future – imagining, wishing or worrying about what might happen.

Not thinking about the past – remembering, analysing, regretting what has happened before.

But being 100% present and aware of what is happening – in your mind and in the world – right now.

I’d like to give you a challenge to try out.

In a moment I’m going to stop talking for about thirty seconds. Try to stay fully present. Not thinking about the future and when I’ll start talking again, not remembering something that happened earlier today or planning how you’re going to do something later on. Not imagining something else entirely and letting your thoughts wander off in a random direction.

I’ll stop talking now – see how you get on.

[ PAUSE ]

How did it go? If you’re like 99% of people on the planet then at least once, and probably several times you found a thought popping into your head and you couldn’t help but follow it. You might have spent several seconds thinking it through, or following the line of thought before you realised “Oh wait, I’m meant to be staying present”.

It’s not easy! It takes practice. We’ll talk in a minute about how you can develop this ability to be mindful and stay present.

But first let’s talk about why this would even be useful.

Why is mindfulness useful?

As you just experienced, our brain’s default activity is to generate thoughts – and our natural inclination is to get lost in them.

Even when we’re doing something, often our minds are somewhere else. Now if you’re washing the dishes, maybe that’s fine. But how often do you have a conversation and realise afterwards you were only half listening to the person – because you were distracted by something that had happened earlier or worrying about something later on?

Or how often have you found yourself getting frustrated or angry as your mind spins in circles on a particular topic. It might be something real in your past like a comment from a friend or family member that rubbed you the wrong way. Or it might be something totally made up, like imagining how you wish that past situation had gone, or planning out how you’ll act in future if a particular situation comes up.

Now don’t get me wrong. Thinking itself isn’t a problem! Our minds are incredibly powerful and we can accomplish amazing things with our thoughts guiding our actions.

But that’s exactly the point: that we want to be using our brain and our thoughts for the purposes we have in mind.

And more often than not, when we’re lost in a whirlwind of thought, or our mind is totally distracted, the reality is that it is totally unproductive. In fact in a lot of cases it’s positively harmful to us and our state of wellbeing!

So mindfulness isn’t about never thinking about the past or future again. It’s about developing the ability to choose which thoughts we want to pursue, and which we want to let go. And that begins by staying present when a thought arises. Not judging it or judging ourselves for having the thought, and not allowing our mind to chase that thought on to the next one and the next that it’s so good at coming up with. But letting the thought come and letting it go again, while we stay present and keep our powerful focus under our own conscious control.

Alright, so maybe that sounds interesting to you: to get better control of your unintended thought processes and have the ability to stay relaxed and present even if something in the past or future is nagging at you.

But this isn’t the “Spirituality Podcast”. It’s the Musicality Podcast.

So what does all this have to do with musicians?

Why mindfulness matters for musicians

I think Lisa did a great job in our interview of painting the picture that so many of us have experienced: when you’re practicing music and you get stuck on something. Our mind’s automatic behaviour is to start getting frustrated. And probably start judging you for not getting it right quicker. And that will probably become a memory that you think of again in future.

So our practice sessions are often bogged down and made negative by these automatic thought patterns.

We actually had a terrific masterclass recently at Musical U, from leading music educator Jennifer Foxx, on the topic of mindful practicing, and she really helped pick apart those negative thought patterns and practice habits that can hold us back.

The danger of our automatic thought patterns goes double for performance situations. We have a training module inside Musical U called “Get Confident” and a big part of that module which really resonates with our members is all about how to handle mistakes. We even touched on that in a recent podcast episode. Because to be a good musician you need confidence that you are a good musician. And when you make a mistake, in practice or during performance, it is so, so easy for your mind to run away with that.

• “I can’t believe I did that!”
• “I screwed it up again.”
• “I’ve been training so hard for this and now all that effort was just wasted.”
• and so on

Imagine if instead of those negative thoughts and getting stuck in the mistake you made you could instead stay relaxed and give your full attention to making the next moment as good as it can be?

If, like Lisa recommended, you had enough self-awareness and mindfulness to see the start of those thoughts – and instead insert your own intended thought – for example her mindset of “problem solving” and the great mantra of “I love this.”

Imagine if every time something didn’t go right for you in music, it caused absolutely zero slowdown. You were able to continue on at full power and full speed, reaching your full potential to be the best musician you can be.

I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like a superpower. And something that almost none of us are capable of when we start learning music.

The key to it is mindfulness. Developing this ability to choose whether to pursue a thought or let it go immediately. To even have the self-awareness and relaxed-enough mind in the first place that you notice the thought arise immediately – not five minutes later when you realise how much you’ve been stewing on it.

Mindfulness can be the key to maximising the efficiency of your practice sessions.

It can be the key to performing at the best of your ability, whether you make a mistake along the way or not.

It can be instrumental in collaborating with other musicians and locking in with a band when playing live.

And it’s vital to the creative process, whether that’s song-writing or improvising, to be able to let your mind wander only exactly as much as you want it to.

Are you convinced? I hope you can imagine the value of mindfulness to your own musical life.

So how do you develop this superpower?

How to learn mindfulness

This concept of mindfulness is simple enough, and it’s been a long-standing part of meditation and prayer traditions in various religions around the world. It’s perhaps most associated with the Buddhist meditation style called “Vipassana”. If that interests you, you can definitely usefully study mindfulness through the Buddhist tradition.

But I know that a lot of you out there may shy away from adopting a new religion just to accelerate your musicality training!

So I want to talk a bit about developing mindfulness in a non-religious, pragmatic way.

You’ll notice that nothing I’ve said so far about our mind or how we handle our thoughts really has any religious expectations to it. We all have a mind, we all have thoughts, and that means that mindfulness is available to us all, without necessarily pursuing it with a mindset of spirituality or religion.

That said, the most powerful way to develop mindfulness is through meditation.

That may sound funny when I just said this isn’t religious. But more and more, the modern world is coming to realise the power and benefit of meditation, whether it’s inside a religion or not.

I learned about mindfulness though studying meditation as a way to better manage my mood and emotions while running a business. I learned from a book called “Meditation for Beginners” by Jack Kornfield, which I’d highly recommend and will link to in the shownotes. I loved this book because it was 100% practical and gets you started with meditation from the very beginning in a step-by-step way, without requiring any particular religious devotion.

This style of meditation is something I can explain to you right now and would encourage you to try, whether or not you want to get a book and study it further. Because it’s really not much more complicated than what we tried at the beginning of this episode. There’s plenty you can study and it is absolutely like a muscle that you need to train and build up over time. But fundamentally what we’re talking about is just this:

• Step 1: Sit in a comfortable position and close your eyes.
• Step 2: Focus on your breathing, in and out. Not particularly fast or slow, just try to pay attention to the air coming in and going out again.
• Step 3: When a thought arises, as it inevitably will, your task is just to notice as soon as possible and bring your awareness back to your breath.

That’s it. It really is!

What you’ll find is that it’s harder than it sounds. You might start by setting a timer for just 3 minutes. You’ll be amazed how many thoughts pop up as you sit there breathing, and how hard it can be to bring your attention back to your breath before your mind gets lost in those thoughts.

Over time you will get better and better at this, and there are two abilities you’re going to be developing, both of which will help you in music.

The first is to be self-aware enough to notice a thought arising and observe it without necessarily believing it or taking ownership of it.

The second is the ability to release that thought and return to whatever you want to focus your attention on.

These two things together can transform how you practice, perform and create music. And it’s not something that requires careful planning or conscious careful application of the technique. What you’re going to find is that if you start doing these little meditation sessions regularly your mind automatically evolves and you’ll be able to bring these two powerful abilities to all your musical activities naturally.

If you find yourself enjoying this and finding it useful then I definitely have some more resources to recommend – I’ll put a few suggestions of books, websites and apps in the shownotes for this episode.

But I want to keep it simple – because it is.

Mindfulness can transform your effectiveness and enjoyment as a musician because it’s so often our automatic thoughts which slow us down, hold us back and trip us up.

By becoming more mindful we get to choose which thoughts are useful and which we let go. That frees us up to focus on what we want to, what is most useful, and to be our best selves in music.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. And if you’ve studied mindfulness – or you plan to now – or if you just want to let me know how you got on with the exercises in this episode, I’d love to hear from you. Shoot me an email at hello@musicalitypodcast.com

I know this has been a slightly different episode – but I hope you’ve enjoyed it and found it interesting for your musical life. And if you try it out, I hope you will find mindfulness as valuable and transformative as I have.

The post About Mindfulness & Self-Talk appeared first on Musical U.

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/ultimate-guide-to-interval-ear-training/
Why learn intervals? In this packed guide, learn why intervals are an important part of ear training and how to master your practice! 🎉
https://www.musical-u.com/learn/ultimate-guide-to-interval-ear-training/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/how-to-tune-your-guitar-by-ear/
Should you tune your guitar by ear? Learn the benefits of doing so and how to get started with this article. 🎸♬
https://www.musical-u.com/learn/how-to-tune-your-guitar-by-ear/

There is no one approach to songwriting. Everyone’s creative process is unique, and different songwriters come up with tunes at different speeds. However, if you’re looking for a starting place, look no further!

There are four main elements to every song: lyrics, melody, harmony and rhythm. There is not a general rule of thumb for which of the elements comes first in the songwriting process. You can choose whether you want to approach your new song by writing the lyrics, melody, chords, or beat first. In this video, we will give you our tips and practical exercises, along with some examples from famous songs, of how to bring these elements together to form a song:

Getting Started

It is helpful to approach songwriting in two consecutive modes: the brainstorming mode and the editing mode. These are essentially two different mindsets. It is very important that these two are separate, because the “editor” in you has a tendency to disrupt the brainstorming process and suppress creativity.

We have all experienced that “editor” voice in our heads, critiquing every thought before we even had a chance to express it. While brainstorming, you allow all of your ideas to exist without judgment. Think of it as a “creative flow zone” where there are no “bad” ideas.

You enter the “editing” mode only after fully exploring and putting down your creative ideas. Once you enter the editing mode, it is time to roll up your sleeves and look at your outputs as objectively as possible. You then pick the best parts that will eventually become your song. It is important to allow as much time as needed in each mode and not to get frustrated if things do not come together right away.

Some songs come together with ease in a matter of minutes and some can take years of struggle, but each song has its own unique journey!

Let’s look at the three parts of writing a song, and how each one can be approached.

1. Lyrics

It can be hard to know where to start with lyric-writing. If you’re feeling completely stuck, try free writing: it’s a great way to start with a “blank canvas”, especially if you do not already have any ideas. Put a timer on for up to three minutes at a time and commit to writing for the whole duration without pausing to lift your pen from the paper. Do not think about what you are writing – just write. It can be anything from what you are feeling right now, to describing what you had for breakfast.

This is a great way to get the “editor” out of your system and allow some creativity in. Once you’ve finished writing, take a break and come back to review it later. When reviewing, you will see that certain themes, phrases or lyrics pop out. Those can serve as the basis to your new song. You can also use this process if you already have a theme or title in mind. Simply allow yourself to write freely for a few minutes, keeping that theme or title in mind as you write.

If you already have a melody and/or harmony, with little to no lyrics, you can try singing whatever words come into your head. This can be just vowels or gibberish; it doesn’t have to make any sense because, initially, you are only trying to find the sounds that best suit the melody or the word that evokes the most emotion on a certain note! By repeating this, you will eventually find the perfect lyrics.

Don’t be discouraged if brilliant lyrics don’t immediately pop into your head! Paul McCartney had the entire melody for “Yesterday” before he had any lyrics, so to fit the phrasing of the melody he sang “Scrambled eggs, oh my baby how I love your legs” instead of, what would be, “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away“. It would have made for a very different song!

2. Melody and Harmony

Maybe you have an idea for a melody, even if it is only a hook or a few notes that came to you in the shower. We could make a whole separate video about what makes a good melody, including the different types of intervals and melodic movement, but as a good rule of thumb try and make your melody memorable. If you can’t remember it, no one else will be able to!

How a melody sounds is also greatly affected by the harmony you put under it. One technique for harmonizing the melody is to figure out what notes you are singing on a piano, guitar, or other instrument, and build the chords around those notes.

For example, if I sing the note “C”, I can try harmonizing it with any chord I know that contains the note “C”: C major, C minor, A minor, F major, F minor, Ab major, and so on. The different chords you try will change the context of the note you are singing, and you can use your ear to find the chords that sound the best to you.

As with any creative process, there is no right or wrong; it’s a matter of choice.

You’ll probably notice that one chord will fit your melody for a bar or two before you have to change to the next chord. You wouldn’t usually change chord every note (unless you’re writing a jazz song!).

If you don’t have a melody, try starting out with a chord progression. To keep it simple, choose a key and only use chords from that key. If you’re feeling stuck, start with one of these tried and tested chord progressions:

• I-IV-V (blues)
• I-vi-IV-V (Stand By Me, by Ben E. King)
• I-V-vi-IV (Let It Be, by the Beatles)

Loop the progression and improvise a melody. Try recording yourself and see what you come up with, then when you listen back, you can select the best parts and form the melody!

To demonstrate the power of the looped-chord approach, here’s a little anecdote: Phil Collins had this chord progression on a loop with a drum machine: Dm, C, Bb, C. He sang improvised melodies and lyrics until he wrote the international hit “In The Air Tonight”:

3. Rhythm

If you don’t already have a rhythm in mind, you can use GarageBand or Logic’s built in drum loops as a starting point to get inspired. This sure worked for the writers of Rihanna’s hit “Umbrella” – the beat of the song was actually inspired by a hi-hat sound from a GarageBand loop!

If you don’t have access to music software, even singing or playing along to a metronome will do if you don’t have access to any music software.

Writing songs at different tempos and in different time signatures (4/4, 6/8, or 3/4) will inspire you to write in different ways. Most likely, a drum loop at 144 BPM will inspire a different style of melody and lyric than a ballad at 60 BPM. Think about the overall feel and function you want for the song, the rhythm will help you achieve this.

The Beauty of Collaborative Songwriting

If you are feeling overwhelmed, do not worry! You do not have to master all these elements to write a song.

If you are primarily a lyric writer, find a musician who will complement your abilities by putting your lyrics to music. The same goes if you have a melody in your head, but no idea how to put chords or lyrics to it.

There have been many famous writing partnerships: Lennon/McCartney, Goffin/King, Rogers/Hammerstein, Elton John/Bernie Taupin, and Benny Andersson/Bjorn Ulvaeus from ABBA. You can even find a group of musicians to collaborate with. These days, numerous hit songs credit as many as nine songwriters on one single record!

Whether you’re most comfortable starting with some words, a melody you hummed to yourself, or a beat you tapped out with your feet while waiting for the bus, remember that it will take some time for the song to come together. So enjoy the creative process, and don’t hesitate to bring some other musicians along for the ride!

 

The post How to Write A Song, with O&O appeared first on Musical U.

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/majoring-in-music-choosing-a-school-thats-right-for-you/
Looking to go to a music school? Learn what factors you should consider before making your decision. With MajoringInMusic.com
https://www.musical-u.com/learn/majoring-in-music-choosing-a-school-thats-right-for-you/

Today we have the pleasure of interviewing Lisa McCormick, a successful singer-songwriter and the creator of the “Note2Self” methodology of music learning, which can help with exactly those kinds of mindset barriers, especially among adult musicians.

After several years as a successful artist, Lisa turned her attention to teaching and now specialises in helping adult beginners get going with guitar and ukulele. We first met Lisa several years ago after discovering an excellent course she created to help guitarists start playing chords by ear. As well as in person classes 1-on-1 and in groups around Brattleboro, Vermont, she provides courses through her website LisaMcCormick.com and is a senior faculty member at GuitarTricks.com.

What we love about Lisa’s approach is that she really focuses on the joy of making music from day one and strips away the complexity that can often make learning music frustrating for adults.

In this conversation we talk about:

• The emotional baggage that can make it difficult for adults to begin learning a new instrument and how to get around that
• How she helps complete beginners play a song on ukulele in less than ten minutes – and play several songs by the end of the day
• How the Note2Self methodology can equip musicians – particularly those who are self-taught or trying to make use of internet resources to learn – to get away from the negative self-talk and confusion that can hold them back, and instead learn faster by having effective and healthy mental habits

Lisa also shares the simple 3-word mantra from Note2Self that you can start using immediately – and honestly this alone could be transformative for how much you enjoy your musical journey…

Listen to the episode:

Links and Resources

• LisaMcCormick.com
• The Sexy Secret of “One, Four, Five”
• Getting Started with Guitar
• Lisa’s Guitar Lessons, on GuitarTricks.com

Transcript

Christopher: Welcome, Lisa, and thank you for joining us on the show today. Let’s start at the beginning. Can you tell us a bit about how you began making music and what that learning experience was like for you?

Lisa: Sure. Yeah. I began as a, as an avid Beatles fan at the age of ten and I started with a guitar. My Dad had a guitar in the house and, he was a huge Beatles fan, so it was always that music playing in the house, which I loved. And I just, tried to begin to figure things out as a lot of people do. You know, I took — as I got a little bit older, into my teens — I took a few lessons in folk music and I took about a year of classical studies, which was really, not that much fun at the time, but it was really useful in my understanding of, of, you know, more the formal aspects of music.

Christopher: Terrific. And it sounds like you were very much self-taught in the early, in the early years, then.

Lisa: Very much so, yeah. So I, you know, I took those lessons as a teenager and then ever since then, I took it on my own, and I basically just used the skills that I had learned, sort of the technical skills, on the instrument, but a lot of ear. Just really, really, really listening and really trying to, discern, how is that artist making that instrument sound that way, you know, what- or what is so magical about that particular chord change, right there? Why does it just, why does it just hit me in the heart, you know, and, so it was very much through listening, and emulating, and experimenting.

Christopher: Fantastic. And I believe you started performing quite early on, is that right?

Lisa: Well, for- informally, yes. As a, as a teenager, I did some church coffehouse stuff with, with a, with a friend.

Christopher: Great.

Lisa: But didn’t really get serious about having a professional music career until I was in my later twenties.

Christopher: Mm-hm.

Lisa: And then really- really bore down and have been a professional musician ever since.

Christopher: Terrific. A lot of people have that kind of passionate music hobby early on when they’re young, but few actually follow through beyond their teenage years.

Lisa: Mm-hm.

Christopher: What was it for you that made it clear your life was going to be about music? Was it always obvious to you?

Lisa: It wasn’t obvious to me. I, I loved it, but I never considered it an option as far as, you know, a sensible way to make a living. You know, it — you play the guitar on the weekends with your friends and you go out and you get a real job. So, that was- that was the paradigm, you know, that I grew up with. So, I did.

I went out and I got a degree in education, I got a lot of training in teaching, interestingly, teaching adults who have full intellectual capacity but who were severely dyslexic and, couldn’t read. And it was through that and through the amount of work that one of my students in particular put into learning how to read as a young adult that I said, “What if I put — took my passion that seriously and stopped doing the safe job for a minute? I’m still young enough to try it. And what if I poured myself into music like he poured himself into learning to read? What would happen? It’s either, it’s going to work, or it’s not going to work, but at least I’ll find out.”

Christopher: Fantastic. And…

Lisa: Yeah.

Christopher: …and where did you take it from there? When you said, “Okay, maybe I can pursue music as a career,” what was the next step?

Lisa: Get a job waiting tables. (Laughs)

Christopher: Uh-huh.

Lisa: Uh-huh. And just do a lot of practicing. Again, back into my own studio, back — you know, I bought a, back then it was the Fostex 4-Track, you know, and I started- I started experimenting with writing songs and with arranging things and playing different instruments on top of different instruments and one thing led to another and people would say, “Well, you’re really good. You should play,” you know, and “Play a gig in town” and, and it just began, began me on the path.

Christopher: And you, you took it far. Like, you had a successful alb you were recording, you were performing…

Lisa: Mm-hm.

Christopher: …and now, looking back, clearly you took a, a turn, and you went more into the teaching side of things. How did that come to be?

Lisa: Mm-hm. That came to be after, actually, five albums, and several years of full-time touring. That was all I did, was on the road all the time. It was over, you know, about 250 shows a year, became a songwriter and, and so I was doing the singer-songwriter solo show, very successfully, but after several years of it, I just felt like I wanted a change up in my lifestyle. You know, that’s kind of a, it’s a grind…

Christopher: Hm.

Lisa: …after, after many years. And you’re in the car a lot, and you’re never home on the weekends with your friends, and, and so I started to, to loosen up on that schedule and, make up the time and the income by starting to teach lessons, and it took off like a rocket ship.

Christopher: And did you have a particular expertise in your teaching?

Lisa: Well, I didn’t know it at the time, but I think that’s what I’m articulating now with Note2Self, is that I’ve brought a lot of expertise based on my own internal learning process. I taught myself to be a professional-level musician.

Christopher: Mm.

Lisa: So part of that is there’s a lot of inquiry. There’s a lot of inquiry into yourself, into your thoughts, into your finger movements, you don’t have a teacher standing there, saying, “No, do it this way. Do it that way.” It’s all internal. And so, I, I could use that internal experience with a student and I could say, “I wonder if you’re thinking that this is a really hard chord change,” or, “I wonder if this finger really needs to go way out in left field before it heads back over to the C.” You know? So, I had a, sort of a natural ability to work with a student both on a really interior level and, and on a very, you know, practical, “Here is your instrument. What does it sound like when you play it?” you know, exterior level.

Christopher: That’s fascinating, and it’s such a powerful and valuable perspective to bring, I think, and particularly to adults. You know, at Musical U, we find that that psychology and mindset and emotion around learning music can be such a huge part of what needs to be worked through, you know, way beyond the instrument technique and the specifics of listening skills. It’s so much about, kind of, managing your own mindset and being self-aware in terms of how you’re approaching things and following through.

Lisa: Absolutely. And, and especially with adults, you know, they bring, they bring a lot of baggage to the table. You know, they’ve had a lot of experiences with music and just with life in general. It could be that someone told them when they were a kid that they had no talent, you know, that they — someone — their piano teacher, hit them on the knuckles, you know, when they got it wrong.

Or it could be that they feel they missed the boat and it’s way too late, and — you know. So there is a lot of emotional baggage that comes with the territory, and a lot of courage to say, you know, “I’m a grownup, and I’m used to being good at what I do, and I’m gonna pick up something and I know I’m not gonna be good at it right away, ’cause I’m a beginner.” And that’s — that takes a lot of courage, and I love to meet the person there and honor that courage, and say, “Well, let’s, let’s work with this. Let’s go with it.”

Christopher: That’s wonderful. I think you describe it so well, and, I know that a lot of our listeners are in that position, you know, they might have just picked up music. They might have come back to music after a long period, or they might even have been learning actively for the last few years, but they still kind of have that mental baggage of, “What if I don’t have what it takes?” Like…

Lisa: Mm-hm.

Christopher: …”Am I really musical? Do I really have the, the gift?”

Lisa: Right.

Christopher: And I love that you are passionate about working through that with them and showing them, kind of, practical ways forward.

Lisa: Absolutely. I love that, too, and so do they. I mean, they learn so quickly that it shocks them, and it, and it blows some of their, negative beliefs out of the water to the point where they’re, they will leap out of their chair in my studio and say, “Oh, my God! I’m doing something I’ve never been able to do!”

Christopher: Fantastic.

Lisa: “This is awesome.” Yeah.

Christopher: So, I’d love to talk a little bit about your approach to teaching, because I think you and I first connected because you published this terrific “Guitar Intuition” course online that could help people to, kind of, understand how chord progressions work, and learn to start figuring out songs by ear…

Lisa: Mm-hm.

Christopher: …and, in fact, I think you, you wrote a great guest post for us called, “The Sexy Secret of 1-4-5,” kind of, digging into that, and, and the power that comes with really understanding chords.

Lisa: Right.

Christopher: So, can you tell me a bit about that, I mean, is that coming from your self-taught beginnings where you were figuring things out by ear? Is that why you took that angle on things?

Lisa: Well, partially that, and partially, just, actually learning that myself, learning about 1-4-5. Learning about how chords work. But then, turning to the resources that other people who want to learn about it have available to them, and they’re, and they’re — really a lot of them are confounding. I mean, someone will say, “I want to learn about 1-4-5,” and somebody hands them the circle of fifths, you know, and it’s like, “Aghhhh. That’s way to complicated.” 1-4-5 is actually an extremely simple concept if you explain it simply. And it can be used immediately and really powerfully right out of the box. You don’t have to understand the, astrophysics behind it, you know?

So, yeah. So, part of my mission as a teacher is just to, like, let’s, let’s cut through all this formal stuff that people think should come first, before you’re actually making music and loving it.

Christopher: That’s great. I am wholeheartedly in support of that.

Lisa: Uh-huh.

Christopher: Let’s make things simple and practical and show people how they can, yeah, have that creative freedom in music…

Lisa: Yeah.

Christopher: …and really understand what they’re doing.

Lisa: Right.

Christopher: That’s wonderful.

Lisa: Right.

Christopher: So, more recently, you’ve moved from guitar or maybe added to guitar with a speciality in ukulele and I’d like to talk a little bit about that, because you’ve had enormous success in Brattleboro with your new ukulele orchestra. I’m personally a huge fan of the ukulele, both as an amateur player myself but also as an instrument to recommend to beginners, because…

Lisa: Definitely.

Christopher: …to me, it’s so much more approachable than guitar and gives you a lot of the same enjoyment and versatility that guitar can. I’d love to hear your perspective. Why do you think that’s been such an enormous success, and how do you approach things with those adult beginners on ukulele?

Lisa: Well, I think, you know, you hit it on the head in terms of the comparison of the ukulele to the guitar. I think prior to this, sort of, recent wave of popularity of the ukulele, people thought of the guitar as, kind of, the entry level, you know, “Oh, maybe I’ll pick up guitar.” But, guitar is not that easy, and, you know, it’s six strings. It’s a lot to manage, and, the ukulele, the pallette is so much simpler. There’s four strings and you can make your very first chord with one finger and you can play songs with one chord or you can play songs with two chords, which you could on any instrument.

But with the ukulele, you can do that in the first six minutes of your, of your very first lesson. So, it’s a, a very quick, and gentle and easy route into the thrill of making music, which, like, blows the fear out of the water really quickly. Like, “Oh. I can, I can make a C chord. Wow! I- Wow! I can make, I can make an F chord. Oh, my gosh! And I can, I can play this song. You got to be kidding me!” You know, it just — it comes together so quickly. So, it builds their confidence really quickly.

Christopher: Mm-hm. And that’s a really great description, and can you tell us a little bit about what one of your sessions looks like with that group?

Lisa: Sure. Yeah. I teach this thing that’s coming up soon, actually, called, “Ukelele in a Day”…

Christopher: Wow. I think that should be required study for every person on the planet.

Lisa: Yes. I think so, too. That’d be great. It starts at ten in the morning. We go to three in the afternoon, and we assume that nobody knows anything about music or instruments, and I even have ukuleles there for people to borrow if they don’t own one or can’t borrow one. And we just start right at the beginning, with making music, so, in other words, I have myself and I have assistants get everybody in tune. We don’t start with what’s the name of the strings. We don’t start with how to tune. We start with, how do you make a C chord?

And, so, really, six minutes into class, I’ve got a room full of people playing a C chord, and then how do you make a C chord in a very simple 4/4 rhythm? And, seven minutes into class, everybody’s playing C in 4/4. And then I start to sing the song, “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree,” which you can sing with just the C chord, and they all start singing along and they all jump out of their chairs and scream.

So, my, my theory is: Build. Create success immediately. Invite them into making music immediately, and then explain, you know, and then, when the questions arrive, then explain what needs to be known to make more use of this. So, what it looks like: We start with one chord. Then we add a second chord. We play, “Eleanor Rigby” with two chords. We play, you know, “Down by the Riverside” with three chords, and, you know, by the end of the day, they’ve got several three-chord songs and, and a basic 4/4 strumming pattern that’ll last them for years.

Christopher: That’s incredible. I think that’s such a beautiful approach and I, I was only half-joking before. I think if everyone started on their first day of school and had that kind of experience, we’d have a very different generation of musicians and far fewer people who said, “Oh, I’m not musical,” or, “I can’t sing,” or…

Lisa: Right.

Christopher: … “I don’t understand music.” That would be wonderful.

Lisa: Right. Yeah.

Christopher: So, after all your years of experience teaching music, and, particularly with adult beginners, you’ve now formulated a new music learning methodology called, “Note2Self.”

Lisa: Right.

Christopher: Could you tell us a little bit about that, where it came from and what makes it different?

Lisa: Yeah. It’s, it’s kind of where it, it helps you when you have, you know, you’ve looked at the Youtube video, you’ve read the instructional book, you’ve tried to follow those patterns. Now it’s time to turn that stuff off and it’s just you and the instrument. Well, what on earth do you do? You are not a trained teacher. You’re not a trained instrumentalist.

So, what Note2Self does is, it helps you to understand all the different factors that are going on in the process of making music, and that includes, you know, the size and the shape of your instrument, that includes your thoughts, that includes your own physical body, and, you know, any quirks – your arthritis or the broken finger, or, you know, any — it includes your physical body, your mental body. And the other aspect of the word, “Note,” besides music is that it includes dialog with yourself. It includes saying, “You know, every time I land that finger too far to the left, the note sounds bad. Note to self: Don’t land the finger too far to the left.”

Christopher: Mm-hm.

Lisa: You know, very simple, like, just, a conversation with yourself that is non-judgmental. It’s just based on noticing and inquiry. Every time I do it that way, it sounds bad. Every time I fix it and do it this way, it sounds better. Let’s take that in. Let’s make that part of the process.

But a lot of people don’t have that. They, they don’t have that self-coaching understanding. It’s like, I — every time I do this, it sounds bad, therefore, I’m bad.

Christopher: That’s —

Lisa: That’s the end of, that’s the end of the conversation.

Christopher: Yeah. That’s so interesting, and it’s really clear how that stems from your own experience and the fact that you were self-taught and took on that role of teacher as well as student, early on.

Lisa: Right. Right.

Christopher: So, I had the chance to look at some of the Note2Self material before we spoke, and what I love about the approach is, two things. One is that you focus on the, kind of, creative autonomy and helping the student. I actually feel like they can create their own music, not just play each note they’re told to.

Lisa: Mm-hm.

Christopher: And also that you focus so much on the mind-set and emotion that’s associated with playing music, as we’ve touched on, especially when improvising or when playing in front of others, that kind of self-talk that can go on, and, and potentially, really limit what you are able to do. Can you tell us more about the note and the self in the Note2Self, because I thought that was a really elegant framework.

Lisa: Well, in terms of what you were just asking, in terms of how it plays out, if you’re doing an improvisation or a performance of some sort, I would say that the thought is, you know, “Here comes the hard part of the song where I always screw up,” or, “I’m about to do a performance and I’m really, really, really nervous, and so, I’ll probably screw up,” right?

They’ve got thoughts that are, that are predicting bad results and what happens with that is that those thoughts are actually play out in your body. Your body actually takes on more tension, more physical tension when it thinks you’re about to mess up, it, it’s not comfortable with that. So your fingers become more tense. Your wrists become more tense. Your voice, your chest, your throat, everything becomes more tense when you have a fear or an anticipation this isn’t going to go well.

And if you rethink that and say, “Well, either that doesn’t matter if it doesn’t go well or because I’ll use that as an opportunity to figure out how to make it better next time,” or just to, to note to self: Don’t entertain those thoughts. Don’t allow myself to sit here and think, “I’m terrible at this.” It’s useless. It’s a useless waste of time to think that way.

I might feel that way, but you can — almost can — have to pretend that you don’t, sometimes, and say, you know, “Just don’t engage.”

Christopher: Mm-hm.

Lisa: Don’t engage with that negative voice.

Christopher: I, I think so much of what you’re teaching with this message resonated with me from the, the mindfulness meditation studies I’ve done…

Lisa: Mm-hm.

Christopher: …and I don’t want to take us on too much of a tangent, but, you know, that idea of noticing your thoughts and not necessarily identifying with them and having the…

Lisa: Right.

Christopher: …self-awareness to be able to detach, see the thought come, and decide it’s not useful and let it go, again.

Lisa: Right.

Christopher: I think bringing that to the musician and showing people how to apply that in their music practicing as well as performance is such a valuable thing to be doing.

Lisa: Absolutely. And, and I’ve studied mindfulness meditation, myself, so, I agree. It’s very much along the same lines.

Christopher: So, I, I think one thing that really jumped out at me in reading about this methodology was that you have a mantra and this touches on the meditation theme, I guess, as well…

Lisa: Yes.

Christopher: …for Note2Self students, which incapsulates the whole spirit of it, I think. Can you…

Lisa: Right.

Christopher: …tell us about that?

Lisa: Yes. The mantra is, “I love this,” and it comes down to the, I mean, the fact that you are, that you are pursuing music at whatever time in your life it is and whatever, uh, instrument it is, and whatever background you have, you’re probably doing it because you love it, because you love music and because you love the idea of being able to play, you love the idea of being able to get better at it and learn to play new things that are really cool, and to acknowledge and recognize that in that process, it’s not always 100% fun, and it’s not always 100% success, but that’s all part of the process and that’s how you do get better, so if one makes a mistake, you know, a repeated mistake, say, they — going from G to B7 and they always mess it up, and they think, “God, I just — I’m, I’m just terrible at this,” well, there comes the tension again. There comes the negative thinking and, and the body restriction, and, and the prediction. Yeah, if you think you’re gonna be terrible at it, chances are, you are.

But if you screw up the G to B7 again and you say, “You know, I love this. I just love this. Okay, let’s figure out what’s going on. Why does this keep going on? I love it. I think of it as a puzzle. I have a puzzle to solve. I keep making this wrong move, but that’s because my fingers are misunderstanding something about the move. They’re shoot- they’re going too far. They’re not going far enough, or they’re hitting at the wrong angle, and that’s a simple misunderstanding. I love this. I love figuring this out.”

And so, to encourage people to use, “I love this” as a, as a mantra to say when things are going, uh, frustratingly poorly, and when they are going well, also to give credit and to give notice to the fact. “Wow. I just got that. I love this. I just got a new thing. I just learned to play something new. I love this.” So, to, just, really surround the entire process of music learning and playing music as a, as a pursuit of something you love.

Christopher: I think that’s so smart, and, you know, I think if the listeners took away just one thing from this episode, that idea of taking the attitude of, “I love this,” to every aspect of their music making…

Lisa: Mm-hm.

Christopher: It would be transformational, I think, for a…

Lisa: Mm-hm.

Christopher: …lot of people, and, you know…

Lisa: Yeah.

Christopher: …obviously, it’s something that takes practice and you need to remind yourself to say, “I love this,” and really feel it, but I’m sure it’s…

Lisa: Yeah.

Christopher: …something that the more you do it, the more of it becomes a natural part of how you approach music making.

Lisa: It does. It does, and it, and it helps, really helps break the habit of thinking negatively. And that’s why I think people’s learning gets really accelerated, because they use “I love this” to shoot down the negative thought that just keeps them stuck in the same rut.

So they learn something more quickly, which they actually do love even more. So, the loving of it just — it, it becomes, a self-fulfilling prophecy, in a sense.

Christopher: That’s really nice. So, can you paint a picture for us? If we imagine, say, a 45-year-old guy who’s been learning guitar, maybe with a teacher, or maybe just with Youtube tutorials for a few years, but he doesn’t feel like it’s really giving him any creativity or he’s not getting the joy from it that he kind of initially thought he might.

Lisa: Mm-hm.

Christopher: He’s struggling, a bit disappointed, a bit frustrated. What would the before and after look like if someone like that was to adopt the Note2Self methodology?

Lisa: Hm. The — well you’ve got the before, you know, pretty much nailed.

Christopher: It’s a — yeah — a little too common situation, I think.

Lisa: Yeah. Right. The, the before, there’s a lot of people in that situation and it’s both, frustrating and they are doing something that they love, but they’re not getting the love out of it, the enjoyment that they want to. To me, the prescription would be what I call, a “mastery piece,” and that is, you choose one song, that you feel you could really, really focus on, really, really study.

Make it your study. Make it your goal to work out every little bug in that song, even if it’s a simple-level song. It doesn’t have to be a difficult song. In fact, it shouldn’t be a difficult song. But make a commitment to master it. This is my mastery piece. And in doing that, you’re engaging automatically. You’re engaging in the Note2Self process, because you’re engaging in that sense of inquiry: “Why is this not going well? What can I do to fix it?” And in so doing, you’re fixing it, and in so doing, it’s getting better, and in so doing, you’re enjoying it more and your confidence goes up. And so, I always say, “Let’s,” you know, “let’s clear the clutter. Let’s,” you know, “stop working on 10,000 songs at once, let’s pick one thing. And so, you’re gonna learn to play this from top to bottom. It’s got to be in your skill zone. I don’t want you to pick something over your head, ’cause that’s gonna be too frustrating, and — but you’re gonna just learn to play it at your very best. And that’s gonna really shift your experience of music making.”

Christopher: I like that. And you, you touched on such an important point there, which is often that frustration and overwhelm comes from scattering yourself across too many things…

Lisa: Mm-hm.

Christopher: …which I think for the self-taught musician is so easy to fall into the trap of. I love that idea to just focus in and say, “I will study this thing and I will enjoy the process of perfecting it.”

Christopher: So, what, what stage are we at with Note2Self at this point? What form does it take, and if someone’s listening and feeling super-inspired to adopt this kind of, you know, self-aware mindset inspiring, super-rewarding approach to music learning, how can they learn more and get involved themselves?

Lisa: Well, they can come to my website, LisaMcCormick.com, and, as I said, I’m in the process of writing the book, so I’ve got, you know, that will be coming and all the news about that will be on there. You can also — they will also be able to see how I am using it with my students, currently. So maybe get some ideas for themselves of how to begin to touch in and use some of these methods themselves before the book is published. So that’s, that’s what I would do, or fly on over and take one of my workshops. (Laughs)

Christopher: Terrific. So, LisaMcCormick.com is the place to go.

Lisa: Yeah.

Christopher: We’ll have a link to that and everything else we’ve talked about in the show notes for this episode. Lisa, do you have any parting advice or tips for the listener?

Lisa: Yes. Just, just be aware of, be your own cheerleader a little bit more. You know, there’s no use, there’s no use in holding negative judgmental thoughts, like, “Oh, I don’t have a musical bone in my body,” or “I’ll never be very good at this.”
Those thoughts don’t help. Just don’t give them any headspace. Don’t give them space. And go in there and love it, you know? Go in there and listen and hear how beautiful what you can do is, and feel how beautiful it feels to refine what you can do and make it even more delicious. But get away from the negativity, if you can.

Christopher: That’s wonderful. And I, I think I would just challenge our listeners, you know. Take this week and every time you practice music, remember Lisa’s mantra of, “I love this,” and see if you can start to internalize that, because I think that, along with the rest of the Note2Self methodology, could make such a transformative impact on your music learning.
Thank you so much, Lisa, for joining us today.

Lisa: Thank you, Christopher. It’s been great talking to you.

The post Note2Self: “I Love This!”, with Lisa McCormick appeared first on Musical U.

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/think-cant-sing-ask-10-questions/
Many times we want to sing better, but don’t quite know what’s wrong to begin with. It just sounds bad. Find out more about how to improve your singing voice. 😉https://www.musical-u.com/learn/think-cant-sing-ask-10-questions/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/improve-musical-ability/
Learning music is not just about time in the practice room. Improve your musicality with these great activities. 🧘‍♀️
https://www.musical-u.com/learn/improve-musical-ability/

Its name notwithstanding, blues music can invoke a range of emotions: joy, anguish, triumph, or plain old sadness. As Nina Simone demonstrated, the blues can feel really, really good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5Y11hwjMNs

Blues music instrumentation is as varied as its lyrical content, its influence is more widespread than you would believe, and best of all, the genre lives on in contemporary music styles that top the charts today!

So, let’s dive in. By the end of this article, you’ll know what blues music is, how and when blues music developed, why the blues are still important in modern music, and how to play and write blues tunes of your own.

Table of Contents:

1. History of the Blues

2. Influence of the Blues

3. Singing the Blues

4. Playing the Blues

5. The Blues & Your Instrument

6. Blues Culture

7. Wrap-up

History of Blues Music

A genre that’s over 100 years old, the journey of blues can be traced from West Africa to the deep South, to urban centers in the northern U.S., where it fed directly into rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm & blues.

African-American Beginnings

Fittingly, the beginnings of blues music were anything but happy. The genre originated during the pre-Civil War era in the southern United States, with the field hollers, work songs, and spirituals of African-American slaves (and later sharecroppers) struggling to express their human thoughts and emotions in the midst of subhuman oppression.

These slaves had brought with them the rhythms and musical sensibilities of West Africa. Their music echoed these key features of the music of their ancestors:

• Pentatonic scales with characteristic tunings
• Conversational elements (such as call-and-response)
• Improvisation
• Complex polyrhythms

As Africans met with the European musical traditions in the United States, they attempted twisting the European scales and instruments to African scales, resulting in the bending and sliding of pitches and leading to the blues scales. These were often heard in “field hollers”, the working songs of the African-American slaves:

West African musicians often engage in improvised or semi-improvised musical dialogues, which continues in many African diaspora traditions. These feature prominently in blues music performance – whether the solo singer in intimate dialogue with his acoustic guitar, or the group dynamics of an electric blues band.

Complex, fluid improvisational rhythms also informed early blues expressions and blues music to this day.

The Mississippi Delta

Though birthed in the deep South, one can say that the blues “grew up” in the Mississippi Delta, just upriver from New Orleans. The Delta blues were first recorded near the end of the 1920’s, and continued to be recorded as record companies saw the potential market for the genre. Notable Delta blues musicians included Robert Johnson, Son House, and Charley Patton.

A little further up-river, Memphis became a stopping point for the Delta bluesmen as they reached further northward.

The Delta blues were most often a one-man show, with vocals and slide guitar. With lyrics on similar themes as the songs sung by their ancestors in the cotton fields, Delta blues musicians sang of salvation, damnation, travel, economic ruin, and romance.

Take a listen to the first Delta blues song ever recorded, Freddie Spruell’s “Milk Cow Blues”:

The Blues Head North

Following the Great Depression, millions of African-Americans left the South to settle in large urban centers in the northern United States. The blues went with them, evolving to fit their new urban milieus, most notably Chicago.

Perhaps the most notable of such migrations was the movement of blues musicians from Mississippi to Chicago, which became the blues center of the north and the birthplace of the appropriately-named Chicago blues music. In fact, the famous Chicago blues musicians Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Howlin’ Wolf, and Jimmy Reed all migrated from Mississippi to Chicago, where they each played a big role in establishing this new northern iteration of the blues.

Not a genre to forget its roots, Chicago blues music took the basic idea of the Delta blues and put an electric, energetic spin on them, making them larger-than-life by the addition of electric guitar, bass guitar, drums, piano and harmonica. These musical changes were made to fit a new, larger audience, and new surroundings.

Influence of the Blues

Arguably, the blues can be seen as the root of all popular Western music styles today. Jazz branched off early on, while R&B (i.e. Rhythm and Blues – and all the subsequent styles derived from it), and Rock and Roll came later. Even Bluegrass (hello!) and Country owe a huge debt to the blues and blues-tinged styles soaking the United States in the 20th century.
Subsequently, American popular music has a had a huge influence on popular music throughout the world, carrying its West African heritage along with it.

Let’s have a deeper look at the blues influence on jazz and rock.

Blues & Jazz

The most accurate way to describe the relationship between the two would be brothers.

They grew up together in the Mississippi Delta, with blues having a degree of influence over jazz. The two share the common parentage of the music of African-American communities in the deep South during the Antebellum era.

While the blues remained harmonically more simple, the harmonic implications of the blues scale cracked open new potentials in Western harmony, leading to the fabulous new chord progressions which jazz is famous for.

In particular, the 12-bar blues are an essential part of the foundation of jazz. Throughout jazz history, masters have returned again and again to explore blues roots, informed by jazz’ restless harmonic experimentation.

Here, Oscar Peterson and band expand the original Duke Ellington 12-bar tune to 16 bars in the improvised sections:

From there, there’s a divergence; while jazz focusses on improvisation and ensemble dynamics, and showcasing virtuosity, blues places more emphasis on lyrical content and creative expression through more traditional chord progressions and blues scales.

Rock ‘n’ Roll

Simply put, rock ‘n’ roll could not and would not exist without the 12-bar blues and walking bass lines of blues music.

The instrumentation, rhythms, and raw emotion of blues music can all be heard loud and clear in rock ‘n’ roll.

As blues was gaining popularity in the 1950’s, instruments were getting louder, guitars were starting to wail, and the beats were picking up speed. With artists like Chuck Berry, blues started to meld into rock ‘n’ roll, with early rock ‘n’ roll songs often following the 12-bar blues and rhythmic patterns of the blues.

Thus the most famous early rock ‘n’ roll bands are deeply indebted to Mississippi Delta and Chicago bluesmen.

In the US, Elvis Presley was taking cues from blues music to create his own rock ‘n’ roll/rockabilly style. Having grown up in Memphis, Elvis had been exposed to the Delta blues from an early age and incorporated elements from the genre.

Meanwhile, blues music was reaching across the pond, with Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, and the Rolling Stones all drawing massive inspiration from artists such as Muddy Waters, Skip James, and Chuck Berry.

Most of the early British rockers were avid collectors of traditional blues records. They practiced and recorded blues covers before stretching out and writing their own blues tunes.

In fact, John Lennon famously said, “If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it “Chuck Berry”.” Long before the success of tunes such as “Here Comes the Sun” and “Come Together”, the Beatles were recording and performing covers of Berry’s songs!

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards famously bonded over Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters records, and the bluesmen’s influence all but jumps out at you in the Rolling Stones’ early work.

Singing the Blues

Soulful, passionate, raw, and vulnerable, the best voices in blues can really make you feel their pain. Let’s look at the lyrical content and structure of classic blues songs!

The Hard Knock Life

Though the blues certainly aren’t limited to songs about getting left by a woman or shooting a man in Memphis, you’d be hard-pressed to find a blues tune in which the vocalist is boasting about their good fortune and simple life.

The original blues sung in the cotton fields of plantations by African-American slaves were sung to ease the burden of work, for spiritual reasons, or as a lamentation of hardship. Though the Mississippi Delta blues were born after slavery was abolished, the lives of African-Americans remained difficult, as they faced racism and financial instability. Delta blues musicians, therefore, retained elements of their ancestors’ songs, singing of poverty, homesickness, and loss.

The blues’ migration to Chicago brought with it new lyrical content; musicians could no longer sing about working on the levee, or the quirks of rural life. Instead, lyrical content shifted to the trials and tribulations of city life, whether in the context of love, work, or (!) being a blues musician.

Here’s Jimmy Reed having a thing or two to say about a difficult boss:

Write Your Own Blues!

The point of the blues is simple: to sing about what makes you blue. You may not be a struggling street musician or a penniless farmer with three mouths to feed, but there’s nothing stopping you from singing about your dead-end job, your loneliness, or how you felt the morning after maybe having a little too much fun last night.

The beauty of blues is that you can sing about your problems, and it will fit right into the instrumentation and groove of the song. Now, let’s look at the structure that you’ll want your vocals to take…

Call-and-Response

From the early days of blues, the lyrics of blues music singers often followed a problem-and-resolution, or call-and-response pattern that worked beautifully with the down-on-their-luck lyrics. This was combined with an “AAB” lyrical structure, where the first line of each verse repeats itself.

The “A” part often presents a problem or a woe, while the “B” part responds to “A”. For example:

Been sittin’ by my lonesome, no shoes on my feet
Been sittin’ by my lonesome, no shoes on my feet
I ain’t got a single penny, before I know it, I’ll be out on the street

There we are! We’ve combined the AAB structure with the “Hard Knock Life” lyrical theme that the blues are famous for. To give the song forward drive, expand and advance this narrative to form an emotional story.

Try it out on your own!

Playing the Blues

By now, you’re likely seeing connections between blues songs you already know, old and new. Before you get composing and playing, let’s look at some common musical elements found across the genre.

Instrumentation

This evolved with the blues. The earliest blues was, of course, acapella. As time went on and the blues steadily travelled north, instrumentation became more complex.

While the Mississippi Delta blues, for example, often showcased single vocalists accompanying themselves on the guitar, by the time the blues had reached Chicago, the genre had gone bigger and gone electric, replacing the acoustic guitar with an electric one, and adding bass, drums, piano, and harmonica. Electric organs and keyboards were incorporated into the blues some time later, filling out the sound even more. Saxophones were frequently used as a supporting instrument.

The variety of instrumentation that blues has seen over the years means that your iteration of the blues can be as simple or complex as you want it to be!

If you’d like to play solo, take a cue from the Mississippi Delta blues and take the stage armed only with your voice and a slide guitar. Your voice and (pained) lyrics will be given room to shine! The Blues Guitar Institute offers a quick-start guide to playing the Delta blues.

Feel like adopting a more rounded-out sound? Perhaps the style of the Chicago blues is more your speed, and you should consider forming a blues band!

12-Bar Blues

This is perhaps the heart and soul, or the “bread and butter” of the blues. Built around the famous and well-loved I-IV-V progression, the 12-bar blues have been an indispensable staple of the genre since its inception.

You have 12 measures that observe a particular scheme, which looks like this:

Where I, IV, and V represent the chords built on the first, fourth, and fifth scale degrees of the key you’re playing in. Note that this use of Roman numerals rather than specific chord names means that you can transpose the 12-bar blues into any key. This pattern is normally played in 4/4 time, being repeated over and over with some soloing and variation thrown in there.

For example, for interest, you can add the “quick IV”, where the chord is played in the second bar, replacing the usual I chord:

In countless blues songs, this 12-bar pattern lines up seamlessly with the “AAB” lyric format, with the first four bars corresponding to the first line (“A”), the next four bars corresponding to the second line (the second “A”), and the final four bars corresponding to “B” for both a conclusion to the verse that’s both lyrical and musical!

The Blues Scale: An African-European Hybrid

In the slavery-era US, blacks were forbidden to construct or play their traditional African instruments. As Africans encountered the European scales and instruments, they had to contend with the problem of fitting their traditional tunings to the 12-tone equal tempered tuning system.

For example, African pentatonic scales often skipped the second. The third in an African scales starting on C would tuned between E♭ and E on the piano. The solution? Include both notes!  On other instruments, sliding and bending techniques developed to approximate the original African tunings.

The result is a flexible blues scale with some dynamic emotional and harmonic implications that did not exist previously in either system.

The blues scale is the perfect complement to the 12-bar blues, and is often used to solo over the progression. It consists of six notes per octave: 1,♭3, 4,♭5, 5, and♭7. In the key of C, it would look like this:

With the notes C, Eb, F, Gb, G, and Bb.

Minor Pentatonic

For another option for soloing over blues, you can use the blues scale’s slightly easier-to-play cousin. The minor pentatonic scale is something you’re likely already acquainted with if you’re guitar player, and is a five-note version of the blues scale, with 1,♭3, 4, 5, and♭7. In the key of C, it would look like this:

Flattened Third and Seventh Degrees

If you look at both of these scales (both of which work beautifully over the 12-bar blues progression), what do you notice they have in common, that separates them other scales?

It’s the presence of flattened third and seventh degrees! Not only do these differentiate the scale from the ever-optimistic major and add some needed melancholia to the scale, but the minor third adds some tension and interest to the sorrowful scale. Meanwhile, the flattened seventh acts as the slightly dissonant “blue” note. These two flattened degrees are much of what give both the blues scale and the minor pentatonic scale their characteristic woefulness.

The Blues and Your Instrument

As you may have guessed, the 12-bar blues and the two scales discussed above will be your best friends for playing blues music. Now, let’s go beyond that and see how you can get creative with whatever you have under your fingertips…

Guitar

Or, as we like to call it, the workhorse of the blues. If you’re playing rhythm guitar 12-bar blues, you have the choice of playing bar chords or power chords. If you’re playing blues music on lead guitar, learn your scales and work on those pull-offs and hammer-ons to build on and embellish the basic melody or chord progression.

If you’re an advanced guitar player, try doing double-duty as both rhythm and lead guitar by incorporating lead blues licks into your 12-bar blues pattern!

Looking to sharpen your blues guitar chops? Guitar Compass offers video lessons for beginners and seasoned soloists alike. They even feature lessons that will help you play blues music in the style of greats such as B.B. King, Eric Clapton, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Piano

If you’re a pianist playing blues music, you have the distinct pleasure of having a both a melodic and rhythmic role! You can hold down the musical fort by playing chords in a steady beat, play around the beat while soloing, or a combination of the two.

The Boogie Woogie style is an energetic, uptempo way of playing blues piano. It sounds fantastic over the 12-bar blues, and lends a vigor to blues music that makes it difficult to resist dancing to:

Saxophone

As a saxophonist, you can have a lot of fun with the blues, as you’ll rarely take on the role of holding down the 12-bar chord progression, and have more creative freedom with your soloing. The distinctive honks, squeaks, and screams of the saxophone provide unexpected and fun touches to blues music – experiment with this dissonance to spice up your tunes.

With instruments such as the piano and guitar holding down the basic chord progression, as a blues music saxophonist, you are free to improvise solos and licks to hold the chord progression together and give it a little extra something to emphasize certain parts of the song. This serves as an excellent way to prevent the repeating motif of the song from becoming tedious or boring!

Harmonica

The harmonica has been a blues staple from the beginning, notably because of its built-in ability to wail and moan melodically, not unlike the expressive voices of blues singers!

Similarly to the saxophone, an excellent way to incorporate the harmonica into your blues compositions is to use it for licks and riffs, which go a long way towards lending a unique flavour to an otherwise standard blues song.

For example, James Cotton’s “Slow Blues” really wouldn’t be the same without that distinctive harmonica part:

Blues Culture

As you can surmise from its century of rich history and melting pot of influences, the blues culture was built largely around the shared African-American experience and, of course, the universal human experience of sadness and sorrow. However, in an America already rife with racial tensions and poverty, there was a dark side…

The Devil’s Music

The genre suffered the reputation of being “The Devil’s Music” in its earlier years. Because many early blues music artists were poverty-stricken and illiterate, blues music was often considered to lack respectability and class – both inside and outside the African-American community.

African-American gospel music shares many musical characteristics and common origins with the blues. Yet the reputation of the blues as “the devil’s music” was further cemented by themes of love, lust, drinking, loss, violence, and longing in blues music – often at odds with the moral values of many African- and European-Americans. Furthermore, churchgoing folks were unhappy with blues musicians’ habit of borrowing Christian hymns to turn them into secular blues songs.

Unfortunately, this reputation stuck around for much of the early days of the blues, gaining the genre infamy and sometimes-negative connotations.

Songsters

Another thing the blues became famous for was the wandering musicians associated with the early days of the style.

The era of the “songster” began soon after slavery ended, when African-Americans became able to travel and play music to make a living. Songsters both played the blues music and had a large influence on blues music; there would likely never have been any bluesmen if it hadn’t been for songsters!

If you’re wondering what country blues music is, this is where it started. An acoustic and folky variant of the blues, it was often played by songsters in solo or duo forms, with a non-singing musician sometimes accompanying the vocalist on fiddle or banjo.

The repertoire of songsters, however, wasn’t limited to this style; because they often provided the entertainment for all types of social events, these musicians also played everything from rags and ballads to spirituals.

Not only were songsters the predecessors to bluesmen, but many blues musicians who achieved mainstream success got their start as songsters, including Charlie Patton and Frank Stokes.

The Blues Today

An absolutely striking aspect of the blues is just how ubiquitous it is today – its spirit is alive and well in modern blues music such as The Black Keys, Fatback Deluxe, and The White Stripes.

The blues has never disappeared or sunk into obscurity. It has had new life breathed into it countless times, by new instrumentation, structures, and lyrical themes. From its beginnings in the deep Antebellum South to its steady journey north, the blues are so closely tied to history and so revered by Americans that they will never die.

The post Introduction to Blues Music appeared first on Musical U.