Practice Techniques – Crescendo Music Loft

How to Use the PA Player App to Help You Begin Playing Piano

Sandy Ervin — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 19:22:06 +0000

Now that it’s mid-September, I have a lot of new beginning piano students. Yay! So I thought it would be a good time to write this post on how to use a really great app called PA Player. If you learn how to use it, you almost don’t even need to come in for your lessons. HA HA! Just kidding, but it does take care of a lot of business!

Here is a step-by-step guide to using it.

Buy the Primer Level Piano Adventure Lesson Book by Faber & Faber

There is a lot of beginning piano curriculum out there, and a lot of it is good, but the fact that this curriculum has this accompanying app puts it at the top for me.

If you want to start learning piano with this app, I would recommend getting the accompanying books. If you’re taking lessons at Crescendo Music Loft, you only need the lesson book. The cover looks like this:

Download the PA Player App to an iPad or iPhone

This app works best on an iPad, but an iPhone will also work. It’ll just be really small. If you’re all PC and Android, sadly, you’re out of luck. (I’m a PC and Android chick, and the cost of an iPad prevented me from having one for a decade after I wanted one. So if you just don’t want to go Apple, you will get no judgement from me. We’ll just have to figure out a different way for you to hear these songs.)

The icon looks like this:

Proceed Through the Following Series of Screens

Since I already bought it, I can’t show you the screen where you need to spend $4.99 to buy the books, but it’ll go something like this:

Pick Your Level

In this case, it’ll be Primer Level.

Pick Your Book

At Crescendo, we just use the Lesson Book.

Choose the Desired Song

In this case, I’m showing you the very first song that has accompaniment: “The Old Clock Song” from page 15.

How To Use the Player

Now you should have a screen that looks like this:

It’s got some extra bars in it that I don’t understand. (They should not have put those in there! They start right where the two blank spaces are at the bottom.)

Not to worry! Let’s press on with the fun.

Press the Big Play Button

Play With the Navigation Slider

Use this slider to navigate back and forth through the song or back to the beginning.

Play With the Toggle Buttons

The Most Important Feature: Tempo Slider

The default tempo for most of these songs is WAY TOO FAST for beginning players. Make sure you make use of the tempo slider to get a comfortable tempo!

Notice “Count In Dots”

These are VERY IMPORTANT! You’ll need them to be working so you can start with the band, and they won’t work unless you have either the accompaniment or metronome buttons toggled on.

Piano Toggle

I love this! If you have this toggled on, you can watch which keys on the piano should get played for this song.

Mixer Toggle

This is also very cool: you can mix the sound to get the levels you like. Toggle this on to set volumes for left and right hands, accompaniment, and metronome.

Really Important #1: GET GOOD SPEAKERS

I can’t stress this enough. An iPad just isn’t going to give you the kind of volume you’ll need to work with it. GET SOME DECENT SPEAKERS! Until you are sitting at the piano trying to play along with a recording, you can’t imagine HOW LOUD the recording has to be in order for you to hear it OVER WHAT YOU’RE PLAYING. The reverse is also true: until you are sitting at the piano trying to play along with a recording, you can’t imagine how quietly you have to play so you can hear the recording louder than what you’re playing.

Remember that the reason you have the recording playing is so that you can LISTEN & PLAY at the same time. This is a somewhat advanced skill, so see these next really important guidelines for more information.

Really Important: Establish a Good Work Flow!

I can’t stress this enough. This tool can either be really helpful or really frustrating. In the beginning, it’s probably going to be really frustrating until you establish a good workflow.

Remember that the reason you are doing this is so that you can learn how to listen and play at the same time. This is not a beginning skill, but, with patience and focus, you can learn how to do it within a couple of weeks.

A Suggested Workflow for Best Results

Turn off the accompaniment, and just listen to the left and right hand part until you feel like you could sing it from memory.
Listen to the song many, many times! As in maybe ten or 20 times.
Try humming or singing the melody with the left and right hand parts only.
Play the piece REALLY SLOWLY WITHOUT listening to it until you have a good grasp on which hands to use, which fingers to use, and which notes to play. This could take two or three days of practice.
Then, and only then, call up the song on the iPad, and turn the tempo down to something between 50-60 bpm.
Listen to it again at this tempo.
Toggle the accompaniment OFF and the metronome ON.
See if you can just start on the right note with the right finger at the right time. You might have to start over a bunch of times.
Start over a bunch of times. As in 10-20 times, and I’m serious! Don’t just play through with brute force.
Once you feel comfortable, then try playing along with the accompaniment, but make sure you’re staying with that moving bar!
Do this over another two days or so.
Take it to your lesson, and you will be victorious!

Happy piano learning!

Rituals of Preparation

Sandy Ervin — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 13:20:20 +0000

Everyone Gets Into a Slump

Having worked weekly with 15 – 30 musicians 45 weeks out of the year for over 20 years, I observe that almost everyone (including me) gets themselves into a slump. They just can’t get themselves to the piano or to the practice room. The honeymoon has worn off, and now they’re faced with deciding whether or not to continue the work. They still enjoy playing with other musicians, but working alone to “keep up the chops” has lost its luster. Now it’s just work.

I read in a book long ago about how every artist has a “ritual of preparation” that involves performing a few preparatory tasks that may or may not have anything to do with the work at hand.

It was helpful to determine what my rituals were so that when I found myself in a slump, I could return to the ritual and adjust a few things about the practice time to get me back in the woodshed. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to sing or play guitar anymore. It was just that I was having difficulty keeping it a priority on a regular basis.

Understanding my own ritual of preparation is an extremely helpful step.

The Most Difficult Season

I had rituals for myself as a child, as a teenager, and as a college student majoring in music, but the hardest season to develop a ritual and enforce a practice time to date was when I had three small children. But I did it!

This ritual involved the following steps:

scheduling a few moments for myself every day (this tended to be in the mid-afternoons)
reading the riot act to all three children
completely clearing off the dining room table that was next to the piano
completely tidying up my practice station (see the section called “Set Up a Dedicated Practice Area” in my post “Seven Ways to Motivate Your Children to Practice”.
getting out my guitar along with its accompanying accessories
- tuner
- picks
- capo
- strap
turning on my computer and firing up iTunes
turning on the drum machine
sharpening pencils
sharpening at least two pencils if they were even the slightest bit dull
setting out:
- my binder full of charts
- sharp pencils
- metronome
- lots of blank paper and staff paper
grabbing a cold Dr. Pepper in the can from the fridge

It’s kind of a lot of stuff!

Over the Years I Made It Harder

Because the ritual was more fun and satisfying on a short term level than the actual practice session, I started adding things to the list. Well, certainly all my e-mail needed to be answered, my desk needed to be completely cleaned off, and the sheets on my bed needed to be laundered and put back on.

That’s when I knew I needed to find some new reasons to get back to the woodshed.

Streamline the Ritual

Now that I have my own fully-equipped 1800 square foot studio, you’d think it would be way easier. NOT! There are just many, many more things I put in front of the daily grind of practicing. I practically live inside my practice station now!

So now I combine my ritual of preparation for daily practice with my ritual of preparation for teaching because they are very similar.

Sharpen all the pencils in the room (I mean, who could actually sing without having a sharp pencil handy, really?)
Make sure my station and the student station has:
- a metronome
- two sharp pencils
- an iPad
- three kinds of paper: staff, blank, and lined
- a music stand
- microphone rig for singers (new plastic wrap on mic)
Make sure my station has two main binders with my charts, student charts, and core curriculum
Turn on the PA
Do a complete vocal warm up
Pour myself some kind of happy beverage depending on the time of day:
- Morning – gotta be coffee even though it’s not the greatest habit for a singer
- Afternoon – tea
- Evening – wine or a gin and tonic

The ritual can be much shorter because I’m working in it every day, but it can also be way longer for the same reason. If I don’t stay tidy along the way, tidying can take forever. And if I get stuck in tidying, then I know I need to deal with the work at hand and make it more motivating for me to get back to it.

Other Ways to Keep Motivation High

Other things that help me want to get to the practice session outside of the ritual of preparation:

having at least one fresh feeling song to be working on at any given time
having a new chart handy
setting up rehearsals and recording sessions with other musicians
finding ways to perform on a regular basis, no matter how small

Just Do the First Thing on Your List

Who knows why, but, for some reason, if I can just tear myself away from whatever I’m doing at the appointed time and make myself go sharpen the pencils, I can do the rest of it.

Figure Out What Your Bare Minimum Ritual Is

If you’ve never thought of your preparations as a ritual, it might be helpful to do so. It honors the whole process. If I do nothing else, I gotta sharpen pencils and get that happy beverage, and then I can sit down even if everything is a mess.

What Are Your Rituals?

Leave comments below to let us know what sort of habits are keeping you in a creative head space.

Breathe to Prepare

Kirsten Livingston — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 17:05:05 +0000

Help for Introverts and Others

Everything is opening up and it’s really exciting (right?)!!! We’ve all been isolated… in-person interactions and performance opportunities have been limited. So, let’s get out there!

Oh gee whilikers, I think I’m having re-entry anxiety… gulp.

So, let’s say you have a performance coming up and you want to settle yourself.

Find a comfortable place to sit or stand. This could be your car, a bus, a train, a crowded room, an empty room, a yoga mat, your office chair… you get the picture — you don’t need a special place or time!!!! You can do this with your eyes open or closed and it’s not disruptive to those around you.

Lengthen Your Exhale to Relax & Focus

I use this simple breathing exercise.

Try breathing through your nose if you’re able to do so easily. If you have allergies or are stuffy for any reason, feel free to breathe through your mouth. Make every breath slow and easy
Inhale for a count of two into your belly
Exhale from your belly for a count of three
Inhale into your belly for a count of two
See if you can exhale from your belly for a count of four
Repeat steps 4 and 5 for two minutes. Stop if you experience any discomfort.

You’ve made your exhale longer than your inhale and drawn your breath low in your belly rather than keeping it high in your chest. If your exhale isn’t precisely twice as long as your inhale, that’s not super important. You can change the way you count your breaths to suit your own rhythm. With practice, your counts might get longer as your breaths get longer.

Make sure that your breaths are soft, gentle and easy. You don’t want to make these your biggest most triumphant breaths. Remember, this is to relax and release your stress. If you feel out of breath or anxious, return to normal breathing.

I like to practice this for 5-10 minutes at a time as a tune-up now that I’ve been doing it for a while. See what works for you.

If you’re interested in learning more about “breathing,” Max Strom has a great Ted Talk that I’ve included below:

Play Guitar Like a Horn Player

Steve Shelton — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 15:22:33 +0000

Learn a Harmonized Blues Scale – Easy and Fun!

My inspiration for this column is from Rich Severson, guitarist, and host of GuitarCollege.com. Rich is one of the smoothest jazz players I’ve seen on the internet – his left-hand chord playing is like butter! Check out his site for a vast number of materials for very reasonable prices.

I had never seen this simple – (I mean simple!) – “trick” to get some great sounds for playing on the blues. Technically, it is called a “harmonized blues scale.”

Here is a typical 12 bar blues in G.

G7 G7 G7 G7

C7 C7 G7 G7

D7 C7 G7 G7

Look at the G minor pentatonic blues scale from the 3rd fret – sometimes called the “box 1” position.

Now you are going to make a D minor chord shape, with the top note placed on each pentatonic note of the high E string like this:

See Video 1 below for a demonstration.

You can play this shape up and down the neck over the progression and sound hip. Think like a horn player and make some “punches” with these chords. Try soloing a bit and adding the punches in between for variation – like a horn section would.

See Video 2 below for playing demonstration.

Try Some Variations

This great trick works for blues in any key by using the corresponding minor pentatonic scale.

Ex: Bb blues progression? – no problem, use the above chord shapes based on Bb minor blues scale.

Your goal is get loose moving the shapes up and down the neck over a G blues track. Play what sounds good to you.

A quick fun way to add more variety to your playing!

I hope you enjoyed this and let me know what you think in the comments. Theory questions welcome!

A little extra: You can also transpose that D minor chord shape to the next string set (3-4-5 / D-G-B) to extend the lower range. (See my column on chord transposition). Let me know if you give that a try.

Video 1: G Blues Scale Example

Video 2: G Chord Example

Practice Tips From a Non-Professional

Melissa Greenberg — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 15:36:34 +0000

As we slowly emerge from the fog that was the last 12 months, we’re starting to find our schedules busier again and more time spent on the go. As the parent of a nine-year-old singing student, my daughter Maci and I have gotten creative to keep up with her voice practice. Do keep in mind, I am not a music teacher and these tips are not the recommended practice schedule. But if it’s the difference between practicing or not practicing, we sneak in a few minutes anywhere we can.

Be Prepared With Apps and Bookmarks

Once I got it together to organize my phone and her iPad, we were set for success. Using apps like Spotify to play tracks, the Amazing Slow Downer for adjusting those tracks, and ProMetronome to keep the beat, we can work on her repertoire, diction songs and even sight singing assignments from anywhere. I keep all the apps saved in one folder for easy access along with the Google Drive app, where Sandy sends any additional materials we need. Other useful tools are select bookmarks kept in our mobile Safari browser. We have a bookmark to the Vocal Workouts page found on the Crescendo Music System website as well as a bookmark to Virtual Piano when Maci needs to play the centering tune.

Take Advantage of Travel Time

In the peak of our busiest extra-curricular season, I can spend up to 10 hours shuttling amongst activities. Plus that means lots of waiting time in between. On the occasion that Maci is accompanying me, we have an opportunity to get some practice in. Especially valuable travel time is the eight-minute drive to travel from home to The Loft for her weekly lesson. That’s just enough time for a couple of daily workouts and a quick review of the most recent music theory or rudiments topic. We mostly access these apps by syncing my phone through the car as we drive, but playing straight off our devices works as well.

Use Nature as Your Amphitheater

Lately, with the change in weather, we’ve been enjoying walks through the neighborhood, providing another opportunity to get some practice in. Sometimes on these walks we don’t even bother with the track, just singing a cappella to the great outdoors. The relaxed environment lets Maci sing freely, without constraints. The result is a playful and expressive chance to stretch her voice.

Establishing a consistent practice schedule is crucial for any musician. But finding additional opportunities for practice in a busy schedule may offer a boost to your weekly practice technique.

“I Will Follow You Into The Dark”: Learn a Strum Pattern

Steve Shelton — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 15:21:10 +0000

There’s a lot to learn from this tune by Death Cab for Cutie. A link to the video is below for reference. I’m not going to teach the song – because there are lots of free online lessons available, but I want to highlight some features to learn and practice.

“I Will Follow You Into The Dark” is played with a very steady bass pulse and rhythm.

The video has a brief shot from the guitar soundhole at 0:29, and you can see the pattern used in the right hand. You want to listen carefully and try to replicate that pattern as close as possible.

More on this later, but let’s start with the basics:

Chords

You will use basic open position chord forms of C, Am, F, Fm, G, and E. You can search Google images for these chord forms if you need to learn them.

Capo

This song is played with a capo at the fifth fret. The chord shapes remain the same, but they are renamed by moving up five semitones when played with the capo on the fifth fret. The new chord names are F, Dm, Bb, Bbm, C, and A.

Guitarists and songwriters love playing with a capo because the song can be played in a more comfortable key for singing. However, guitarists often do not know the name of chords they are playing when using a capo, so I urge you to learn the actual chord names.

For example, you should learn that a “C major chord at capo 5” is an F major chord, and so on with each chord.

Chords from the scale

Most pop songs use chords from the “home” key of the song. This song uses mainly chords from the key of F Major: F(I) – Dm(vi) – Bb (IV) and C (V). There are two pretty hip exceptions in this tune.

Songwriting tricks

1) The A chord is a substitute for Am (iii), which adds a wonderful “surprise” harmony to the tune, in my opinion. Chord substitutions like this are common and help give songs their unique feeling.

2) The IV – IV minor cadence. Hopefully, when you play the Bb to Bbm progression, you recognize this sound from lots of pop music. The Beatles quickly come to mind. This sound of this cadence gives me a sense of “falling” back into the home (I) chord. Once you play it enough times, you’ll start hearing it on lots of songs.

Practice alternating bass notes with a percussive strum

We will use the verse chords for the exercise. Set the metronome to a slow tempo in 4/4 time and only play a bass note on click 1 and 3. Click 1 root – Click 3 fifth.

At this slow tempo, add a percussive strum to the whole chord on click 2 and click 4. I can see on the video that he uses the back of his right-hand fingernails to get the sound.

Using the first 8 bars of the verse as an example: F/ F/ Dm /Dm /Bb/ Bb/ F/ C. (Note: These are the chord names with capo in fifth fret – not the chord shape names)

Practice this pattern slowly as you change chords, which is a great challenge!

(Note: I don’t hear the alternating bass on every chord, but for practice purposes, I would suggest you find the roots and fifths of every chord to develop your right thumb dexterity).

I hope you did follow me on this tune breakdown. You can develop right-hand thumb independence, chord/key recognition, identify a chord substitution, and the IV – IVm cadence. If you’re a singer, you can move the capo around to find the best key for you. It will help you and your fellow musicians to learn those chord names too.

I hope you enjoy learning the tune, and please let me know in the comments if you found these ideas helpful.

Strum Pattern at Slow Tempo

Strum Pattern at Regular Tempo

Just Tell Me the Truth About How Much You Practiced

Sandy Ervin — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 14:32:40 +0000

People come to me for voice and piano lessons from all walks of life. I have:

five-year-olds whose parents bring them and help them learn
many 9-13 year olds who mostly just want to spend their lesson time singing through my nice sound system (some who are also playing piano)
some high school students who enjoy learning and keeping up their chops
a couple of professional singers who want to learn proper singing technique
several students aged 50+ who have always wanted to learn to sing or play piano and are now taking the time to do so

As you can imagine, music has varying levels of importance to each of these students, and their practice schedules reflect that. You might think you could guess which students would spend more time practicing, but you really can’t.

Enter “The Sign In Sheet”

In an effort to encourage people to practice more (because it’s just more satisfying for teacher and student if there is steady progress), I instituted a system whereby, as soon as they walk into the studio, everyone signs in with how many minutes they practiced during the week. Somehow, reporting 90 minutes feels more satisfying than reporting 1-1/2 hours. Not only that, some students just can’t hit the hour mark, so having the opportunity to report 20, 30, or 40 minutes feels more palatable.

If you practice more than 60 minutes, you get a silly little prize like some Zotz, a piece of chocolate, or a cool rock ‘n roll sticker. It never ceases to entertain me how motivating that little piece of candy can be for some students.

Check Out This Week’s Sign-In Sheet

Some of the heavy hitters didn’t sign in yet like Brian Jones and Ryan Pellat. Sometimes they (and Matt Debrino) come in at over 300 minutes.

I remember Abigail Connolly being completely put off by my “Pro” category when I first instituted it. She said, “Some of my friends practice over 20 hours a week!” I didn’t believe her until I put in a phone call to Wiley Bartels (a fabulous drummer who is currently a senior at GHS) and confirmed with him that, indeed, outside of classes and ensemble work, he was putting in a minimum of 18 hours. Whoa.

Why You Should Just Tell Me the Truth

Someone commented on the ten minute entry this week. I can’t remember exactly what they said, but they weren’t impressed. Ha ha! I, on the other hand, was extremely grateful for that number because I knew exactly where to start the lesson: right where we left off last week. This student is giving his music enough priority to come in to his lesson every week, and I’ll take that! There are things we can still do and progress we can still make.

Sometimes students will try to cover up the fact that they didn’t work on something by just trying to play through a piece or exercise anyway. I’ll say, “Did you work on such and such?” They’ll say, “Oh yes!” And then I can totally tell that they didn’t because they can’t even find it in their binder or book. So we spend some awkward moments getting to the point where I can actually be helpful.

Students that have been with me for a long time (and all the adults, by the way) will just come out and say, “No! I didn’t work on that at all. Not one little bit.” I love that. Because we can now immediately start a deeper conversation about why they didn’t. Either the assignment was too hard, they didn’t see it written on their practice plan, or they just plain old don’t enjoy the exercise or song that was assigned. It’s so much more efficient! Now I can make appropriate adjustments in order to move forward as well as help the student enjoy their music more.

An Aside: How to Find Some More Minutes

As I was putting together this post, Melissa Greenberg’s post “Practice Tips from a Non-Professional” just came across my desk, and it is a perfect sequitur for this topic. She talks about it from a parent’s perspective of trying to help your singing child get in some of those minutes.

In Summary

Unless you’ve made an agreement with your parents who are paying for your lessons that you are going to practice a certain amount of time every week, there’s no moral obligation to practice any amount of time at all. It’s not right or wrong. And I don’t even like the phrase “I should practice more.” It takes the fun out of it! Let’s just all agree about the level of importance music has in your life and have fun during the amount of time you want to give it. Instead, say to yourself “I want to practice two hours this week!” or “I would like to take my entire Saturday afternoon to work on that difficult passage in such and such a song.”

Personally, I am planning to spend some time this week learning how to record both vocals and piano at the same time in GarageBand. All my students are inspiring me to do some of my own recordings, and I want to get after it!

Alligators & Lizards Part 2

Steve Shelton — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 15:08:19 +0000

Let’s go to the videotape!

For this column, I made two short videos demonstrating “free playing” over a loop of GMaj7 – Dmaj7, the main Ventura Highway chord progression.

In my previous post, I suggested that you practice only in the D major scale from the 10th position and then only in the B minor pentatonic from the seventh position.

I filmed myself playing from these two positions and used some of the soloing ideas below.

Call & Response

Think of this as asking a musical question in your first line and answering it in your second line. Make up a melody of your own over the G major 7 and try to “answer” that melody with another musical statement over the D major 7 chord. Call and response lines are very common in all kinds of improvising.

Repetition

I will repeat an improvised melody or rhythm from one chord to the next. Think about music you like, and you’ll notice lots of repetition – musicians know we love repetition. Repetition also helps you ingrain solid fingerings and strong melodic patterns to your hands and ears.

Start slow and take a breath here and there – Ah, the guitar players curse. Try to start your free play session with simple, slow musical statements. Play half notes or even whole notes to begin. Playing slowly at first not only can sound beautiful, but it will “set up” your more expressive playing later during your solos.

Up & Down

I’m not the first to say that playing ascending lines creates tension and drama, and descending lines give a sense of resolution. Like the call and response idea, you can make ascending and descending lines with any scale. Try creating an ascending line on the G Major 7 and a descending line on the D Major 7.

String Skips, Triplets, Straight & Jazz Eighths

Try these variations with the lines you create. Stringing skipping in small or wide intervals often surprises listeners with an unexpected gift because you’ve created new tensions and resolutions in your improvisations.

Bends, Slides, Hammer-Ons, Vibrato, & Trills

These are “ornamentation” skills that so many great guitarists use to add that proper sense of emotion and expression. You’ve probably heard that these are like spices, and you shouldn’t “overdo” playing ornaments, but this is your practice session, not a performance. Go ahead and overdo these ideas for several loops of the chords. Your goal is to execute these ideas accurately and to listen for the expressive qualities that you like.

Dyads & Triads

Playing two-note or even three-note groupings across strings that you can visualize in the scale and pentatonic patterns can add some modern, sophisticated sounds. Explore and create note groups and play them over the changes. You’re making mini-chords that can sound awesome after single note soloing.

I hope you’ll give these ideas a try and that they help you develop more creative soloing skills. Please let me know how it works out in the comments.

Drill In & Work Out

Sandy Ervin — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 14:49:30 +0000

Most songs have some sort of challenge section to them. In the case of some songs, it can just be one hairball measure. Here is a practice technique that can help you nail it.

Enter Chopin’s Waltz in A Minor

A couple of weeks ago, I brought out Chopin’s “Waltz in A Minor” to Nafisi Tian. When she went to play through it during her lesson, she realized she had played it before and was having a semi-easy and fun time of it… until she got to the hairball measure with the triplet followed by a quintuplet. From the way she played it, I could tell she had never really worked out the rhythm or the fingering for that measure. I broke it down into a few steps and then challenged her to play the one measure at least 50 times between lessons. She accepted the challenge. Here is the measure with the hairball:

Introducing “Drill In & Work Out”

I call this my “Drill In & Work Out” technique of practice. The rest of that piece is easy peasy lemon squeezy compared to that measure, so it requires special attention. It needs to sound as easy peasy as the rest of the piece.

I’ll break it down into the following disciplines:

Rhythm
Notes
Fingering

Rhythm: Pineapple Macadamia Purple

What’s hard about it is the rhythm and the speed with which it must be executed. While the rest of the piece has maybe three to six notes in the right hand per bar, this bar has ten (if you don’t count the grace notes going into the next bar).

What I learned from Ric Haddad is that if you can say it (or sing it), you can play it. So let’s say the rhythm using Blue Jello words. In this case, it would be “Pineapple Macadamia Purple.” Practice just saying the words and memorizing them. Then get out the metronome and say the words in time to the slowest click possible, which is really about 50 bpm.

Here it is written out along with a recording of how you might say the words in time.

https://www.crescendomusicloft.com/wp-content/uploads/Pineapple-Macademia-Purple.mp3

Let’s Study the Notes

Now it’s time to see if we can find a pattern in the notes. As it turns out, there is an easy pattern! The first nine notes are all arpeggios on an E major triad in successively higher octaves. So just play through those a few times without worrying about rhythm to get your bearings on the keyboard and add the final two notes in the “purple” pattern.

Work Out the Fingering

This part is really important. You need to commit to the same fingering every time, and, at this speed, it better be efficient! If you don’t commit to the same fingering every time, you will be flailing around and wasting precious nanoseconds while your body tries to deal with the indecision. For this particular passage, I would recommend the following fingering:

Practice Saying Blue Jello Rhythm While Playing Slowly With Perfect Fingering

If you can say it slowly with perfect notes and fingering, you’ll be able to speed it up no problem. Take your time with this part.

Play & Say Blue Jello Rhythm With Slow Metronome

Now is the fun part! Set your metronome to 50 and see if you can get everything going in time. If you did all your previous work properly, you might be able to nail it in just a few tries.

Here’s what it could sound like:

https://www.crescendomusicloft.com/wp-content/uploads/Pineapple-Macadamia-Purple.mp3

Add Adjacent Bars

Now it’s time to add a few notes at the end. Here’s what that would sound like:

https://www.crescendomusicloft.com/wp-content/uploads/Pineapple-Macadamia-Purple-Jello.mp3

Then add the bar before it:

https://www.crescendomusicloft.com/wp-content/uploads/Chopin-Waltz-A-Minor-Hairball.mp3

It might feel like you’re having to learn that hairball bar all over again, but keep going. Play it another ten times or so until it starts to feel good again.

Play The Entire Section

Now start at the beginning of that section and play all the way through. You may notice that you’ll have to go back and practice the one bar again and work it out again. It can be like the game of Whack a Mole: just when you get one bar tamed, another one will start to give you trouble. Just keep whacking the moles. And then get up the next day and whack some more. And then get up the next day and whack some more. Then play it in front of someone, and whack some more.

Eventually, the day will come when you will be able to play the entire song smoothly without error.

Happy practicing!

Alligator Lizards in the Air–Flying Over “Ventura Highway”

Steve Shelton — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 17:03:23 +0000

“Ventura Highway” is a classic tune from the ’70s and was just one of several big hits by the group America that I want to highlight for several reasons. The goal of this lesson is to stop thinking and play. I’ll put up a warning sign when theory crosses the road, but I want you to make music in this lesson.

The verses’ main progression is just two chords–2 bars of G Maj 7 and 2 bars of D Maj 7.

Goal 1: Relaxed strumming

Strum these chords along with verses until you are feeling the rhythm. Your aim is for a very relaxed feeling but a quick tempo–we’re cruising the Ventura Highway! Play these chords into your looper or software.

Goal 2: Bust out a D major scale

Here is the scale. The first note is D located on the low E string at fret 10.

Please turn off your head and play whatever you want from this scale over the chords. That’s right–free, loose, and musical. No thinking about “right notes” for each chord–stay in the position, shut your eyes, and play.

(If you’re not familiar or haven’t practiced this scale form, go ahead, and do that a few minutes each day). You’re working the scale form and musical ideas into your hands and your ears. Practice shutting off your thinking for this exercise. This is your “cruise control” setting, and it is where high-level musicians are at when performing.

Goal 3: Bust Out a B minor pentatonic

Here it is in the 7^th position.

Many teachers, books, and videos refer to this form as the “Box 1” form of the pentatonic scale. I want you to wail over the chords with this form. Get expressive, play with feeling, try some bends, pull-offs, hammer-ons, whatever you want.

Theory Ahead

Turn around and go back if you were just looking for kicks, but stick with me if you can.

The chords G Maj 7 and D Maj 7 can be derived from one major scale–the D major scale. That means we can also use its relative minor–B minor. It is tempting to think G major scale would be the choice because the first chord is G major–and I’ve tried it, but G major has a C natural, and that note clashes hard in both chords (at least to my ears).

If you’ve come this far, maybe you’re asking about the C# from D Major getting played over a G Major 7.

The C# is the #4 degree of G major. The #4 note is a commonly played tone over a major seven chord. So, D major scale played from G to G over G Maj is called the G Lydian scale 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7 or G A B C# D E F#.

This bit of analysis is what music theory nerds do, kids. It’s useful info, but I hope you’ll take some time to just get creative with these ideas and start feeling musical.