Re: Chord connection


"SleepyHead" <simonharpham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1156099126.989778.188010@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
...

<snip>

...



yeah. I'm trying ;/

Aw fella - I feel like I was a bit harsh on you there - I didn't mean
it that way : (


no ;) not at all. Just saying that I'm trying. Just seems really hard for
me ;/ (maybe its hard for everyone though)

I guess I was just trying to offer little encouragement and try to get
across that there are probably going to be a few bumps and knocks along
the way, but just to have confidence in yourself and you'll get there
in the end.


yeah. But I feel that its extra hard for me compared to a lot of musicians.
For example, I saw this show on discovery(I think) called "Musical Savants".
In it they had this guy that could play anything he heard "perfectly" and
could hear 20+ notes(he would listen to an orchestra play a chord and then
play back every note(arpeggiating all the notes being played). What this
says is that people have different abilities that are physiological because
this guy didn't struggle through it. Now maybe for his ability you have to
be blind and retarded but the point is that maybe I just don't have the
"brain" for music and I'm trying to climb a hill that is perpendicular and
smooth as a babies ***. I just don't want to trick myself into "wasting"
my life and at the end have nothing to show for it.

...

<snip>

...

Sure. I think its a delicate balance and if you off either way then you
suffer. I've just always been one of those overanalyzing types ;/

Sure, I understand. I'm of a similar bent and it drives me absolutely
crackers sometimes, especially when I'm trying to be creative in a
free-flowing kind of way - trying to hear a melody in my head, or
trying to drift and see what noises I can make that grab my attention.
On that front the only practical advice I can offer (though it might
sound a little bizarre) is to meditate. Don't worry - I'm not about to
suggest you shave your head and run off screaming to a monastery in the
Tibetan foothills. It's just that the very state of being uptight about
something (I don't know about you but over-analysis tends to make me
uptight) makes it very difficult to concentrate on what's important, so
anything which helps you relax also helps you to get your focus back -
to realise what's actually important. Sometimes it can be something as
simple as saying: OK, I'm going to have to stop concentrating on this
for a little bit.


Yeah. I understand. I've been wanting to do it lately and have tried a
couple of times but my mind is so wired that I haven't done much. I guess I
need to start trying though and working at it and see what happens.


For me though that probably would have been much easier. I have don't
have a
problem with the learn the language as long as I can put it to use. I
cannot memorize *** unless I use it and then I have no problem. For me,
since I am self taught, I cannot get any feedback so I cannot learn in
the
way that is best for me. (I do get feedback thanks to Steve and this
NG...
but mostly Steve ;)

I've always been a doer and thats how I've learned but it doesn't seem to
work for me with music.

Again I understand. I'm also self-taught when it comes to writing and
lack of feedback is a real killer, especially when it could be as
simple as "Yes, but if you write that line out a third lower you won't
get that horrible leap of a 7th in bar 3". It's frustrating for sure.


yeah.


Sure. But unlike building a bridge music is much much harder ;) I have,
say, a very clear idea about how to build a bridge. I know the purpose of
it
and I can learn from experience the intricacies to make it a good bridge.
With music it seems that I don't have a clear idea or some "map" about
what
to do to make a piece... or maybe I do but the map always seems to lead
to
something bad and I'm expecting to much. Hell, maybe its the same thing
;/

Sure, it's difficult to learn from your mistakes if you're not sure if
they are mistakes or if what you think are the good bits are actually
the mistakes and the bad bits are right! In which case, hear ye some
advice from my guitar teacher: You can practice for hours on a piece of
music and at the end of it all you can still not know if it's any
better or worse than it was in the first place. (I.e. every musician
feels the same about practice and writing - did I do it right? If I do
it this way is it any better? Is anyone other than me actually noticing
I've made some changes here or not!?)

Have you got an example or two you want to discuss / work-through /
chat about?


I'm working on some things now. I'm going to write to write a very simple
song even if I think it sucks and then post it and get some responses. It
might be a week or two though because I have some other business that I have
to do first.

<snip>

I think it is simple and thats why I don't see why I can't do it well ;/
I
look at some pieces that I think sound quite good and they are quite
simple(or seem that way) yet when I try to do similar stuff mine doens't
sound good. This kinda goes back to thinking that there must be
something
more going on than I realize and thats why its bad.

Again, if you've got an example or two you want to go through it will
be better than any generalisations I can come up with.


hehe, yeah. I'll try and get something done and post it soon. I want to try
to do something a little larger than what I normally do.

...

<snip>

...

I like to improvise much more than compose because it seems more natural
to
much... but the music is so disorganized and structuraless that no one
could
problem make sense of it. Many people in the know would say it sucks but
there are probably some avg people out there that would think its ok.

for example, this is something I recorded while I was just playing a
couple
of months ago(I tend to just record things incase I get something cool).

http://www.geocities.com/abstract_dissonance/Untitled.mp3

For me its good in the sense of feeling. Its not necessarily technically
great or perfect but it expresses moods that I seem to feel inside. I can
relate to the "idea". Maybe its not structured very good or doesn't make
much sense musically to most but it makes sense to me. Since it was just
improvising I did make some mistakes(specially at the end) where it was
really just hitting the wrong note or something like that... but luckily
I
think it turned out quite well since to me there are no obivous
mistakes(like blatent wrong notes).

But again, its the mood that I like and not the specific notes or
harmonies(which though have almost everything to do with it). But I think
most people woudln't like it because it makes no sense to them.. So what
I
try to do is take those feelings and wrap them up in something that is
more
structured and such but I can't do it. It always sounds bad or
contrived...
so maybe I just have very wierd tastes or I don't know what I'm doing (or
both) ;/

Thanks,
Jon

It's good! Pat yourself on the back!

Well, I don't feel that. I feel you are just saying that(not that you are
but thats what I think ;). I don't think its good ;/ seems kinda boring
overall? (but there are parts in there that I like and I like the feel...
just very boring to me after I listened to it a couple of times).

Don't worry about the technical aspects. Not all great pieces of music
require you to be able to play like Afred Brendle so don't worry that
there aren't enough notes or it's not hard enough - it doesn't need to
be hard, it just needs to be you.

It makes perfect sense musically and you don't have very weird tastes.
It's kinda melancholy (so I see what you mean when you talk about going
to a sad place - it's a sad piece of music), and it's kinda reflective.


yeah. I like that "feeling" or "mood". I don't know how to describe it. It
suppose to feel like hopelessness but kinda like maybe a light at the end of
the tunnel but the light keeps disappearing.

It doesn't sound contrived - you keep coming back to the same rhythmic
figures, the accompaniment isn't over-busy and stays more or less the
same throughout (this helps give the piece cohesion), and the whole
thing flows naturally from the opening notes without trying to get
over-adventurous.


I have a big problem changing left hand rhythmic ideas without it sounded
screwed up. Like Beethoven can easily go from one rhythmic idea to another
and it sounds fluid but mind sound contrived.

Great stuff!

Points to note.

1. The piece doesn't sound like it concludes at the moment because the
last note you play is a B (dominant) and you're writing in e (tonic).
Either replace the B with an E, or just add a low E to the end and it
will sound great (i.e. the last thing you hear will be dominant ->
tonic).

Yeah, that F was a wrong note ;/ I was trying to hit E and I missed and so
I just played the E afterwards.


2. The piece is quite short. THIS IS NOT A BAD THING. However, at the
moment the piece isn't contrasting with anything. What you need to do
is generate some contrast by writing another couple of short but
sprightlier pieces and put them either side of this one to make a
three-movement work. Or you could do the same thing, but join all the
pieces together by writing transition sections and have one work with 3
moods. If you wanted you could use the ideas in this piece as the
starting point for other pieces. To do that change the meter, the tempo
or the key, then transpose and augment / diminsh the ideas you've
already got to make them fit the new tempo, key or meter then go off
and improvise some more around those ideas until you've got a new
piece. Re-using familiar ideas across 2 or 3 pieces helps to give them
cohesion, using new material helps to generate contrast.


Well, it was an improv. I just record sometimes when I sit down at the piano
just incase I play something I really like I'll have a copy of it. I'm not
sure if it would be good enough to make a song out of it. I might try
though. Maybe thats what I could do for a song to post.

One problem I have is that I don't improvise in any one meter. Its all over
the place and sometimes very hard for me to notate because I'm not sure
which is the best way. I'll work on it though.

Thanks,
Jon


.