Graham English

Posts Tagged ‘HowTo’

Rewriting Song Titles For Practice And Inspiration

Here’s an exercise I love to do when I need inspiration for song titles. If nothing’s coming naturally, this trick can really get the creative juices flowing. Even if I end up using nothing that I come up with, I find that within a day or two, one of my ideas will trigger something completely different, usable, and inspiring.

How To Use TextMate As NetNewsWire’s External Blog Editor

I used to be an Ecto user but I have since seen the light and call TextMate my be-all-end-all blogging tool. The only thing I missed was being able to use Ecto as my external blog editor while reading feeds in NetNewsWire. Not anymore!

Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 15

This will be the last dominant 7 pentatonic scale pattern in this series. This pattern begins in the “outside key” and moves to the tonic key for two notes before switching back. The second part of the pattern begins in the tonic key, switches to the “outside key” for two notes, and then returns to the tonic.

Having Trouble Ripping a DVD on a Mac?

The blood and gore in the movie 300 was vivid and the fighting was intense. I would need to watch this again and again. So I tried to rip it but couldn’t. Then I figured out how.

Update Twitter, Facebook, iChat, Adium, And Skype With Quicksilver

I’m a Facebook fanatic. I joined immediately after they opened to the public. In the beginning, there wasn’t much to talk about. None of my friends had joined and there really wasn’t that much I could do there. But since then, the buzz has caught my friends’ attention and Facebook’s extendibility has grown consistently, giving [...]

Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 14

Now this pattern is the exact opposite of the twelfth pattern. Every other note is transposed into the “outside key” but this pattern begins in the outside key and is a full bar long.

30-Day Challenge To Internet Profits – Without Spending A Dime!

Ed Dale is doing his third 30-day challenge again. The challenge has a modest goal: to earn $10 dollars on the internet with absolutely no out-of-pocket expenses. The entire program is free to join.
I’m excited to see what Ed and his team have in store. I’ve followed Ed Dale a while now and can tell [...]

Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 13

This pattern is almost the exact opposite of the previous dominant 7 pentatonic pattern. Every other note is transposed into the “outside key” but this pattern begins in the outside key and is only two beats.

Download the full pattern:
Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 13

Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 12

This dominant 7 pentatonic pattern is super squiggly. Every other note is transposed into the “outside key” for superior in-the-moment transposition skills.

Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 11

The primary purpose of this dominant 7 pentatonic pattern is to force you to transpose keys a number of times during the bar. If you keep your wits about you as you play this pattern and don’t just memorize it without giving it any thought, you’ll start to become extremely comfortable moving between two keys at will. This pattern changes keys 5 times within a single bar.

How To Expand Your Google Adwords Keywords With TextMate

There are lots of tools out there to expand your Google AdWords keywords by adding brackets (exact match) and quotes (phrase match) to your keyword list. Some of them are free, some are not, and even fewer options are available for Mac. But if you use TextMate a lot, like me, then you’ll enjoy this [...]

Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 10

This dominant 7 pentatonic pattern sandwiches the tonic key with two full beats of the “outside” key on either side. It starts in the transposed key, moves to the tonic key, and finishes in the transposed key.

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 [...]

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

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 [...]

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: [...]

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.

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 [...]