Emin 120bpm 04-28-07
April 28, 2007
0 CommentsI started this just over a week ago but have been too busy to spend much time writing or recording. Lame.
I wrote this with two things in mind: (1) working out, (2) a heist. So if you can imagine me training for The Italian Job, then you get the picture.
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(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)
Loading ...Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 04-27-07
April 27, 2007
2 Comments
Topics covered:
Learning absolute pitch, your motives, absolute pitch disinformation, motivation to learn absolute pitch, and more.
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I got really tired of updating my online status on Skype and iChat every time I had to step away from my computer. I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be cool if I could update all my instant message apps at once with a few keystrokes using Quicksilver?
Here’s what I cooked up. Call Quicksilver, type “a” (for away), tab, type “im” and hit enter. When you come back, do the same thing but type “o” (for online).
How to install:
- Download the IM Status script, unzip, and put it here:
~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Actions - Restart Quicksilver.
- Note: If you want to integrate with Adium, open the script in Script Editor and uncomment the Adium tell (remove “–”).
How to use:
- Invoke Quicksilver.
- Enter text mode (hit period) and type either “a” for away or “o” for online.
- Tab to the Action Pane and type “IM Status” (or as much of the word as you need).
- Enter.
Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow.
Update 05-08-07: I made a change to the way I use this script. Since I like to set the status and the message when I come and go, I’ve updated the script to do this. I’m leaving v1.0 alone but you can click here to open IM Status v1.1 in Script Editor.
Update 08-11-07: If you want to update Facebook, see this post: Update Twitter, Facebook, iChat, Adium, And Skype With Quicksilver
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...What’s The Difference Between The Free And Paid Samurai Songwriting Membership?
April 24, 2007
0 CommentsFree membership to Samurai Songwriting comes with many benefits. This site has a wealth of songwriting information available to you. As a free member, you will have access to some of our most treasured Samurai Songwriting principles and practices.
To become a free member, subscribe to the Samurai Songwriting Code and subscribe to the Samurai Songwriting blog. Then you’ll be the first to know about all of our special announcements and updates.
Paid membership comes with several additional benefits.
Once a month you will receive several Samurai Songwriting lessons. These are multimedia lessons with practical songwriting techniques that you can use immediately to improve your own songwriting. The idea is to give you just enough information that by the end of the month, you’ll have it mastered. You can choose to download these lessons electronically or receive a hard copy through the mail.
You will also receive several bonuses. Including, a guide to hit song forms, a chorus cheat sheet, a hit song model, and much more.
We believe that we have priced the membership to be very accessible to all levels of songwriters, beginner to advanced. And you can cancel at any time if you feel it’s not what you expected.
At the heart of the Way of the Samurai Songwriter is living a life that is on purpose. If you want to be a great songwriter, don’t let any more time slip away. Dreams are never realized by those who do not take action.
Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
- Sun Tzu
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...How To Use Tension And Release In Your Melodies
April 23, 2007
4 CommentsMusic, much like life, is fundamentally a swinging pendulum between tension and release. Fortunately, with music, this is easy to represent objectively and to utilize in your music composition.
Taking a look at the C major scale, you can see that each note has a relative degree of stability or instability. We also call this consonance and dissonance. Traditionally, the rules of counterpoint dictate that the unison, third, fifth, sixth, and octave are consonances. The unison, fifth, and octave are perfect consonances while the sixth and third are imperfect consonances. The second, fourth, diminished fifth, tritone, and seventh are called dissonances.
It’s important to note that dissonance doesn’t mean being wrong or bad. Dissonance simply indicates an increase in musical tension.
So a diagram of the C major scale, showing the relative degree of stability to instability, would look like this:
How can you use this as a composer?
Think of where you want to take the listener. A melody is like a roller coaster. It goes up, it goes down. It builds tension and releases tension. The final release doesn’t come until the ride is over and you are still again. Your job as a melody writer is to take your listener on a journey, weaving through tension and release just like that roller coaster ride.
A very practical way to illustrate this is to look at the end of melodic phrases. Perhaps your entire melody has 8 melodic phrases. It would make sense to increase tension in the first few phrases by ending on relatively unstable tones. Then you can resolve it, but not completely, on the fourth phrase. Increase the tension again, and then release it completely on the last phrase by ending on the first or fifth scale degree.
This is also a great strategy for improvisation. If you’ve got 32 bars to solo, don’t resolve until the very end. Or, depending on the section that follows, you may want to increase the tension during the entire solo so that the following section can provide the release.
We just looked at how to use tension and release on an entire melody by choosing stable and unstable tones for the endings of melodic phrases. You can also look at the individual melodic phrases and determine the motion between tension and release you would like the listener to feel within each phrase. You can zoom in and out as far as you need to help you create the desired effect.
Obviously, tension and release are created by a combination of factors, like rhythm, harmony, motion, and so on. I’ve only discussed one aspect of tension and release in melody so far. Here’s the bottom line, whenever you need to make a melodic choice, ask yourself, “What level of stability or instability am I trying to create?” Then make the appropriate choice.
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