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

Graham English Blog Archives

Musician, Author, and Entrepreneur

  • Blog
  • Consulting

Virtual Composer Creates New Music

November 16, 2009 By Graham English

There's a mysterious new composer on the classical music scene. Her name? Emily Howell. But no one's ever seen her in person. The reason? She's a computer program created by David Cope, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Host … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose, Technology Tagged With: classical music, composers, composing, composition, computer music, David Cope, Emily Howell, generative music, LISP

Brian Eno On Composing

September 14, 2009 By Graham English

Craft has to be dropped at a certain point. You’ve gotten somewhere and you have to decide what you want to do there. (@synthtopia) … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: Brian Eno, composing, craft, Synthtopia

How To Use Tension And Release In Your Melodies

April 23, 2007 By Graham English

Music, 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 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: composing, composing strategies, consonance, counterpoint, dissonance, fundamentals, harmony, HowTo, improvisation, intervals, lessons, melody, music fundamentals, Music Theory, scales, soloing, stability and instability, tension and release, Writing Music

Songwriting Challenges – Where Do I Begin?

March 8, 2007 By Graham English

One of the most common challenges I hear about songwriting is not knowing where to begin. With the lyrics? With the music? Or something completely different? It's a rather simple challenge to find a solution to, really. Start with a single note or … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: challenges, composing, composing strategies, creative process, creativity, CreativityHacks, exercises, image streaming, imagination, listening, listening practice, listening skills, lyric writing, melody, random word generator, song writing, Songwriting, songwriting process, songwriting techniques, songwriting tips, strategies, writing lyrics, Writing Music

Music for 12-29-06

December 29, 2006 By Graham English

This is me sketching out an idea on the [tag]piano[/tag] in the key of [tag]F[/tag]. [tag]solo piano[/tag] [tag]composing[/tag] [tag]ballad[/tag] [tag]77bpm[/tag] [tag]ToWrite[/tag] Download: Music for 12-29-06 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Audio, Music Tagged With: 77bpm, ballad, composing, F, piano, solo piano, ToWrite

Music for 12-07-06

December 7, 2006 By Graham English

This is a verse and chorus I came up with tonight. I'm not really sure how I want to modulate back and forth from major to minor yet. The rhythm of the melody and harmony don't provide much contrast but the move from minor to major might be enough. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Audio, Music Tagged With: 85bpm, C#min, chorus, composing, Db, pop, prechorus, rock, ToWrite, verse

Is Your Ear Suspect?

November 15, 2006 By Graham English

If your ear can't understand whatever it hears, then it's suspect. Whatever the application -- composing, songwriting, singing, playing the guitar, piano, or any other instrument -- there is a logic to becoming a spontaneous musician. Your goal as a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Video Tagged With: absolute pitch ear training, composing, Dick Grove, Ear Training, guitar, music school, Music Theory, piano, singing, Songwriting

Define: Microtones

October 25, 2006 By Graham English

Division of the octave into intervals smaller than the half-tone, the smallest interval used within the tempered scale. Examples include Fokker's thirty-one-note organ, Partch's forty-three-note percussion instruments, etc. Microtonal music, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: Adriaan Fokker, composing, definitions, half-tone, Harry Partch, intervals, microtonal music, microtones, octave, percussion, tempered scale

If You Haven’t Checked Out Splice Yet, You Don’t Know What You’re Missing

October 22, 2006 By Graham English

Splice is a free website where you can download music, compose songs, record sounds, remix, make friends and just listen to new music -- all through your browser window! … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Technology, Video Tagged With: composing, remixing, social, Songwriting, Technology

Hacking Your Musical Strategies Day 5: Composing Strategies

October 10, 2006 By Graham English

Find another musician or composer -- and with their permission -- elicit the strategy they use to choose what to compose or the strategy they are using to compose a current piece of music. Use their strategy to decide what you are going to compose or … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: composing, composing strategies, exercises, hacks, LifeHacks, MusicHacks, NLP, strategies

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »
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