• grahamenglish.net – Blog
  • grahamenglish.com – Artist Site

Graham English Blog Archives

Musician, Author, and Entrepreneur

  • Blog
  • Consulting

Always Be Training Your Ears

July 30, 2008 By Graham English

If you hear some music and don't know what it is, figure it out immediately. The next time you hear the same chord progression, melodic structure, or rhythm, you'll probably know what it is. It's usually as simple as that, and not unlike looking up a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: Ear Training, listening practice, Music Education, musical vocabulary, skills

Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 6

June 12, 2007 By Graham English

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 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: dominant 7, exercises, free lessons, HowTo, jazz harmony, modal, modes, musical vocabulary, patterns, peak performance, pentatonic scales, playing outside, scales, tips, transposing

Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 5

June 10, 2007 By Graham English

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. Again, this pattern helps you to get comfortable transposing quickly. And all of these patterns … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: dominant 7, exercises, free lessons, HowTo, improvisation, jazz harmony, juxtaposition, melodic motion, modal, modes, musical vocabulary, patterns, peak performance, pentatonic scales, playing outside, polytonal, scales, soloing, tips, transposing

Sound Journal: Ringing

March 21, 2007 By Graham English

Last week I mentioned creating a sound journal as part of a listening practice and to improve your aural intelligence. So I thought it would be a good idea to give some examples of how to do this by keeping a public diary of sound. Hopefully, this … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: aural distinctions, definitions, distinctions, Ear Training, ear training exercises, listening, listening practice, listening skills, music perception, musical vocabulary, sound, sound journal, waveform

Ear Training or Listening Practice?

March 15, 2007 By Graham English

You can make ear training something you do once in a while or you can make it part of who you are. That's the difference between ear training and a listening practice. Ear training has often been half-jokingly, half-seriously referred to as "ear … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: deliberate practice, Ear Training, ear training exercises, EarTrainingHacks, exercises, listening, listening practice, listening skills, musical vocabulary, Practice, Practicing, unconditional listening

Top Secret Patterns (shhh, they’re free!)

July 18, 2006 By Graham English

Patterns are a great way of putting scales to work. Not only do they get you out of any do-re-mi rut, they expand your musical vocabulary. They also expand your mind by forcing you to think about systems within systems—and sometimes within … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: creativity, diminished patterns, diminished scale, music lessons, Music Theory, musical vocabulary, MusicHacks, patterns, scales, soloing, technique

Internalize And Eternalize The Music By Transcribing Solos

June 20, 2006 By Graham English

A time honored tradition for learning the ins and outs of a specific discipline is by transcription. Monks transcribe sacred texts in order to internalize the teachings. Writers copy their favorite authors' books in order to assimilate their style. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: authors, Ear Training, ear training freeware, freeware, musical vocabulary, opensource, software, soloing, transcribing, transcriptions

Graham English
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
image title

Crank your sound up to X with Apple's premier recording software and Logic Pro X For Dummies

Read the blog
Listen to music

Archives

  • September 2014
  • July 2014
  • March 2014
  • June 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • April 2012
  • November 2011
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • February 2006
  • January 2006
  • December 2005

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Follow me on Facebook

Follow me on Facebook

Recent Posts

  • Final Score
  • iGrahamEnglish is just GrahamEnglish
  • Cleaning Up My Act
  • Logic Pro Mixing, Metering, And Loudness Explained
  • Attention Musicians: Comfortably Avoid Hearing Loss With Custom Fitted Earplugs

Graham is a singer/songwriter and jazz-trained keyboard player, music producer and studio musician, best-selling author of Logic Pro X For Dummies, and serial entrepreneur.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube


  • About
  • Contact
  • Wiki
  • Legal Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Living Room Rules

Copyright © 2023 Graham English