Graham English

Posts Tagged ‘blues’

You Got What You Wanted From Me

A funky blues about a devious woman.

Music from 12-06-05

I’ve taken a few months off of posting music here but I’m back in the saddle now. It took a while to get my work flow down after my move to Boston. So I’ll be archiving all my new and old music again.

Hit Songwriting Tips Podcast 08-22-06

Topics covered: Chord progressions, I-IV-V, The blues, classical music, mashups, melody, modal progressions, music software, rhythm…

The Musical Genius of Oscar Peterson

Listen to the Oscar Peterson Trio ripping at tempos upwards of 320bpm! Let it inspire you to practice.

Music for 06-22-06a

This is a warm up on a cool and dreary day.

Music for 02-23-06e

This final thing for the day is an F7 shuffle on the hammond organ. Wanna hear a badas5 solo? Listen to this, biatch!

How Do You Develop New And Interesting Chord Changes?

Here’s a handful of my top techniques that I use to develop new and interesting chord changes.
1. Stick with I-IV-V
I know, it’s not new, but I-IV-V doesn’t have to be uninteresting. There’s a reason why these chords are so fundamental to our harmony. So master them. Use their constraints to challenge your songwriting ability.
2. Copy [...]

Dark Was The Night

Dark Was the Night from the album “Dark Was the Night” by Blind Willie Johnson
Johnson (c. 1902-1945) was blinded at an early age. The story goes that his stepmother threw lye in his face in a fit of rage. His home burned down in ‘45 and having nowhere else to go, he lived in the [...]

The Golden Mean in Harmony Part 1

If you ride chaos all the way out to its edge, you find beauty and order… and the Blues
Chaos: complete disorder and confusion; behavior so unpredictable as to appear random, owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions; the formless matter supposed to have existed before the creation of the universe.
Chaos theory: The branch [...]