Graham English

Prose

iPhone LiveBlogging

3:28 – Some people will think we’re all crazy. Some will totally get it. But I’m in line and I can’t wait!

Exclusive Interview With Award-Winning Songwriter, Andrea Stolpe

Andrea Stolpe, an award-winning songwriter who has penned songs for top artists like Faith Hill. Andrea graciously shares some of her new and original songwriting techniques from her new book, Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Storytelling

Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 9

This dominant 7 pentatonic pattern spends a full beat in the original key, modulates to the “outside” key for two full beats, and then returns to the original key for the final beat.

You can play around with this pattern and find some useful alternatives. Try pushing the pattern back a beat so it starts on [...]

Hit Songwriting Tips Podcast 06-21-07

Andrea Stolpe, an award winning songwriter with writing credits for top artists like Faith Hill, shares some powerful and unique songwriting tips from her new book, Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Storytelling.

Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 8

Similar to dominant 7 pentatonic pattern 3, just by playing around with two different scales, we can invoke many more different keys and harmonic shapes. This is the first pattern to start in the “outside” key.

Download the full pattern:
Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 8

Append To OmniOutliner Quicksilver Action

One of my Twitter friends wished that you could use Quicksilver to append to an OmniOutliner document. This took me 5 minutes to whip up. I got the entire code from MacScripter and then wrapped it up as a Quicksilver action.
It’s pretty simple to use. Save it in your Quicksilver actions folder, restart Quicksilver, and [...]

Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 7

This dominant 7 pentatonic pattern gets challenging again. Like the previous pattern, it spends more time in the “outside” key. Only the first and fifth notes are in the original key. This means that you have to switch keys a total of three times during the entire eight-note phrase.

A useful exercise is to take a [...]

Clarifications On Duplicate Content By Google

There were some excellent potential solutions to duplicate content discussed at the Duplicate content summit at SMX Advanced. I also learned a couple important points:

Duplicate content doesn’t cause your site to be penalized. If duplicate pages are detected, one version will be returned in the search results to ensure variety for searchers.
Duplicate content doesn’t cause [...]

Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 6

This dominant 7 pentatonic pattern spends more time in the “outside” key. Only the first full beat of each phrase is in the original key. Without looking at this pattern, can you play it? You should be getting more comfortable switching keys. Even if it doesn’t feel completely natural, you might be able to imagine [...]

Where Do You Begin If You Think You’ve Been Penalized By Google?

Rand Fishkin has posted an excellent flow chart for determining how to handle a Google penalty.
Speaking of Google penalties, Google webmaster tools just added a form to report paid links.

My New Method Of Automated Journaling

I’ve been hacking this auto-journal script for a while and I’ve recently settled on using a local install of WordPress combined with AppleScript and Quicksilver. It’s really pretty easy.
Follow MacZealots’ tutorial on Installing WordPress on Tiger. If you have any trouble along the way, you might need to check out Mac OS X Server 10.4.4: [...]

How Google Universal Search Will Steal Your Top Listings

Google is beginning to grab a part of the top 10 search results for themselves. So far, they’ve been adding the following to page one of your search queries:

Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 5

This dominant 7 pentatonic pattern gets tougher again. It has four notes in C and four notes in D flat but they are all spread throughout the bar.

Check Your Google Adwords Account Today

There was a minor change made to the Google AdWords quality score last night. This could impact your minimum bids so you’ll want to login and see if you need to make any adjustments.

Happy 30th Birthday, Apple

Dear Apple,
I’m really sorry about leaving you during the mid-90s and moving to the dark side. What can I say? I was broke and it was a gift.
But now I’m back and with a vengeance. Thanks for understanding.

SEO Automation: How To Track Multiple Search Engine Keyword Rankings Instantly

With a little help from Dave Taylor, author of a number of cool tech books, including the book that inspired this time-saving tip, Wicked Cool Shell Scripts, I was able to save myself a tremendous amount of time and energy. Time that I used to spend doing mind-numbing repetitive data entry can now be used [...]

Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 4

This pattern should be easier than the previous dominant 7 scale pattern. The transposition doesn’t split the bar so you only have to think about transposing once during the full pattern.

Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 3

This dominant 7 pentatonic pattern is similar to the previous pattern. It still moves up a half step for a total of 2 notes in an eight note pattern. But this time, the transposed notes are the fifth and eighth notes in the sequence. This means that you have to transpose up a half-step twice during the pattern, rather than just once.

Solo Transcriptions: Remember Synth Solo

I’ve got dozens and dozens of transcriptions that I’ve done over the years. Some of them have been formatted nicely using either Sibelius or Finale. The other day, as I was listening to the Bryan Adams Anthology, a synth solo caught my ear and I quickly transcribed it. That got me thinking that I would [...]

Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 2

If Pattern 1 seemed easy to you, I guarantee you’ll find this next one more challenging.
Last time, we simply took a four-note pattern and transposed it up a half step for the second half of the bar. This time, we’re using a full eight-note pattern and transposing only the fifth and sixth notes up a [...]