Graham English

Posts Tagged ‘musical vocabulary’

Always Be Training Your Ears

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 word you don’t know in the dictionary. Read on…

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 [...]

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.

Sound Journal: Ringing

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 will be good for both of us.
Today, I [...]

Ear Training or Listening Practice?

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 straining.” And I can understand why if it’s something that you feel forced [...]

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

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 other systems. For example, this diminished pattern is a three note system:

within another [...]

Internalize And Eternalize The Music By Transcribing Solos

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. And musicians will transcribe their favorite artists solos as a study in ear training and to [...]