Q. I'm into the mellow jazz songs and I'm relatively new to playing the piano. Should I start elsewhere because I had heard that jazz requires a solid foundation of musical knowledge.
A. a lot of jazz piano is improvisation. for that you want to learn music theory. study up on jazz scales. a lot of the time you will be given a lead sheet like this http://wikifonia.org/node/5046. a lot of the time you will be vamping behind the other artists. so you need to know how to play all the different jazz chords. you will also need to know how to do fills. so practice playing all your jazz scales and chords over different chord changes. it's also a good idea to learn the different chord progressions. feel free to use this website to find lead sheets http://wikifonia.org/ . a good thing to do is to listen to jazz.... all the time. believe it or not listening to jazz is actually pretty good use of practice time. and as always practice practice practice.
What's a good way to go about writing a song (guitar)?
Q. I don't know where to start, I'm thinking it would be easier to make the music first. Should I just experiment with different chords and see what works?
A. Well an introduction into Music Theory will always help you get started.
There are a lot of ways to write music. None of them are right or wrong, it's whatever works for the musician. Although it is true, that most experienced musicians eventually start composing music by writing out the melody first, then filling in words, then accompany with chords / notes and other instruments.
But you can write a good chord progression first. That usually helps the creative juices to start flowing.
So the foundation of music theory is pretty simple. Write out a Major Key to start out with. Pick any of the 12 notes of the Chromatic Scale. The Chromatic Scale is a scale that shows all the notes in Music, there are only 12 of them. The Chromatic Scale is: A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#
So if you were on a piano, and you hit the A Key, then hit the Key to next to it, it'd be an A#. The key next to that is a B. This is the chromatic scale, every note in music. You'll eventually get back to A and it starts over.
Every song is written in a Key. What a Key does, is gives you a 7 note combination that sounds good together. So a Major Key has the following formula: whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. A whole step = 2 spots right on the Chromatic Scale, 2 frets on the guitar, or 2 piano Keys. A half step = 1 spot right on the Chromatic Scale, 1 fret on the guitar, or 1 piano key.
So create a Major Key, such as the Key of G Major: G whole step A whole step B half step C whole step D whole step E whole step F# half step G. So the Key of G Major is: G, A, B, C, D, E, and F#.
Now that you've established what Key you want to play in. Now break all the notes in the Key into possible chords. The 1st, 4th, and 5th note of a Major Key are Major Chords. The 2nd, 3rd, and 6th note of a Major Key are Minor Chords. The 7th note is a Diminished Chord. So the main triad chords for the Key of G Major are:
G Major - 1st note of Key
A Minor - 2nd note of Key
B Minor - 3rd note of Key
C Major - 4th note of Key
D Major - 5th note of Key
E Minor - 6th note of Key
F# Diminished = 7th note of Key
Now just pick any combination of chords to create a progression. Here are some common ones:
I - IV -V = G Major - C Major - D Major
I - V - vi - IV = G Major - D Major - E minor - C Major
vi - IV - I - V = E Minor - C Major - G Major - D Major
I -vi - IV - V = G Major - E Minor - C Major - D Major
All those will sound good, as they are common progressions. Just add some rhythm that you like for a strum pattern.
Now that you've established a Key, picked a progression, and put a strum pattern to it. You can some vocals / words to it. Just remeber that any note you sing, must fit in the Key, so it must be one of these 7 notes: G, A, B, C, D, E, and F#. So even though you only have 7 notes, there are a lot of options, because each note can be sung at a different ocatve. So realistically, you have around 21 notes that you could sing / play.
Now realize that you can change the Key of the song to fit your range of voice. That is, the Key of G might be too low for you to sing, what you are trying to sing. So you can change the Key of the song you created to fit your singing range. So say we want to change all this to the Key of E Major. It's easy, just apply the Major Formula to the E note and you get Key of E Major: E, F#, G#, A, B, C# ,and D#
So our progressions are the same, but they are now:
I - IV -V = E Major, A Major, B Major
I - V - vi - IV = E Major, B Major, C# Minor, A Major
vi - IV - I - V = C# Minor - A Major - E Major - B Major
I -vi - IV - V = E Major - C# Minor - A Major - B Major
So those progressions will sound the same as the ones for the Key of G Major, but a little different since we changed Keys.
That's a lot of information I just presented. So don't expect it to all make sense now. Just come back to this from time to time and eventually you'll begin to understand. Good luck.
Will knowing piano help me with learning harp?
Q. I'm pretty good at piano, I've been playing for 7 years and it's kind of like my thing.
I taught myself a little guitar, im not great but I can do simple chord progressions.
I really want to learn harp.
So my question is will knowing these things help me learn harp?
(I'm talking technique, not reading music; because I obviously know that I can read music).
Okay thanks!(:
A. Yes! Harp and piano are similar in that they require you to use both hands at the same time. Also, if you decide to play a pedal harp, then you will be moving your feet while playing. Kinda like piano.
Plus, harp is very difficult. Thus, it is highly recommended that you play piano first so that you start out already knowing the basics of music. If you were an idiot like me who just went straight to harp, then you would of had to start out with learning music on top of learning harp. Trust me, that's way more difficult than it sounds.
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