The Maximum Musician Newsletter for 4/3/2002

By Darrin Koltow

Hi, this is Darrin Koltow from Maximum Musician.com. Today I'm bringing you new tips on achieving musical success. But first, I want to thank you again for signing up for the Maximum Musician Newsletter at www.MaximumMusician.com. You can unsubscribe at any time using instructions at the end of this email.

In this issue:
-Harmonizing a melody
-Chord substitutions
-The Superscale Exercise
-Sing, sing, sing
-Models
-The importance of mood to practicing
-Quick music history link
-Minor chords

=== Harmonizing a melody ===

Putting chords to a melody is one of the most rewarding aspects of making music, no matter what instrument you play. Even if you don't play an instrument that can play chords, you still have arpeggios at your disposal. Arpeggios can especially help singers hear the changes they're singing.

Here's an online resource that simplifies the process of harmonizing a melody. It's a web page that offers a clear procedure to put chords to melody. The author of the page is Ken Rumery, who is Professor of Music, Theory and Composition at Northern Arizona University.

I've outlined the page here for your musical digestion.

How to choose chords for a melody:

Plan the overall feel of the tune. This includes simplifying the melody. I would say look for the chord tones used. Look also for melodic and rhythmic patterns. Listen for the key center or centers in the piece.

Sketch out the chords based on the results of the planning step. Use simple, diatonic chords, and simple progressions. This involves moving up by fourths, generally. Design a rhythm that complements the melodic rhythm.

Test the chords using your favorite chordal instrument. Choose a piano or guitar for this, or whatever you can get your hands on. I would also add that you can *imagine* what the chords would sound like *if* you had a chordal instrument nearby. In other words, if you don't have access to a chordal instrument right now, use your head and good old-fashioned gut feeling to play the chords you've created.

Even better than this is singing the arpeggios of the chords you've chosen. Or, sing the melody and hear, in your inner ear, the root of the chord you've chosen. Then, switch sides and sing the chord root while your mind's ear plays the melody. This is composing, and it may not be easy at first, but it's incredibly engaging and rewarding, and you can do it *anywhere*.

Polish the chosen set of chords. When you do get access to a guitar, piano or computer with music software, flesh out the piece and make it flow.

Add variety, including using chord substitutions, harmonic sequences, and other patterns suggested in the melody.

The author emphasizes K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Sam) here, and he provides a wonderfully simple summary of what effects each type of chord movement produces. To summarize that summary, move up a fourth to emphasize tonality, move by thirds to add color, move by seconds to give momentum to the melody.

You can read the full page here.

For further reading in harmonizing a melody, including an example of putting chords to a specific song, see the new ebook "Guitar Chords: a Beginner's Guide," available now at www.MaximumMusician.com.

==== Chord Substitutions ===

I read recently a page about chord substitutions. The author is Professor Joan Wildman at the University of Wisconsin. The subtopics talked about different kinds of substitutions: tritone, root omission and addition, and the author talks about what she calls Circle Progressions. Well, what good does all this do us?

We want to know how to apply these substitutions to add variety to our playing. When you get tired of always preceding C major with Dmin7 and G7, go for the tritone: Dmin7, Db7, C. As I see it, substitutions are all about giving us additional ways of sounding -- and feeling -- good.

Root omission is another kind of substitution to add variety to our playing. To use it, take a chord, usually a dom 7, and replace it with a chord whose root is a third or a fifth higher. The point is to use at least two tones in the substituting chord that are common with the chord being substituted. For example, swap in a Bb7 for a G7. You'll get the notes D and F in common with G7. Really, you can think of a Bb7 as a kind of G7. It's got a #9 and a b9, the b7 and the 5. You can go crazy with this substitution stuff, and probably find reasons to call any chord a substitute for any other. It's great to have so many options available to add variety to our playing. But I think it's best to work within a simple framework until we're fairly comfortable with it, and then bust out with substitutions. In other words, get the diatonic ii-V-I and cliché changes in your head first, then go for the fancy stuff.

=== The Superscale Exercise ===

We could also call this the Free from Position Imprisonment exercise, but that's not as catchy a title. This exercise is one of my solutions to break out of the problem of playing in just one position on the guitar. Specifically, this exercise forces you to move from one CAGED position to its neighbor and back again, never giving you the chance to become locked into one position.

The tablature shown here is for use with CAGED forms G and E, in the key of C, but it's easily adaptable to work between any two adjacent CAGED positions. If you need a primer on CAGED, check out WholeNote.com's excellent articles.

This exercise was written to build your arpeggio skills, but you can adapt it to modes and scales, or *any* melodic material.

I want to let this exercise speak now for itself. Here's the tab. You'll want to make sure the font for this tab is Courier New for easiest viewing.

Set 1


|---------8-10-8-5---|
|------10----------6-|
|-7-10---------------|
|--------------------|
|--------------------|
|--------------------|

|--------7-10-7-----|-----*|
|------8--------8-6-|-5---*|
|-7-10--------------|---5-*|
|-------------------|---5-*|
|-------------------|---7-*|
|-------------------|---8-*|


Set 2
|------8-10----------|
|-6-10---------------|
|-----------10-7-5---|
|------------------7-|
|--------------------|
|--------------------|


|------------------|-----*|
|----------8-6-----|---5-*|
|-----7-10-----7---|---5-*|
|-5-9------------9-|-5---*|
|------------------|-----*|
|------------------|-----*|

Set 3
|-5-8-10-------------|
|-----------10-6-----|
|--------10------7-5-|
|--------------------|
|--------------------|
|--------------------|


|----------7-------|-----*|
|--------8---8-6---|---5-*|
|---7-10---------7-|-5-5-*|
|-9----------------|---5-*|
|------------------|-----*|
|------------------|-----*|

Play that last bar in each set as a quarter note, followed by a dotted half note.

This is not a complete set of tabs, just a sample. If you understand them, you'll be able to work out a complete set of tabs for yourself.

Here is a summary of the benefits of this exercise:

- You're playing in a place on the fretboard that's physically easy to get to: not too high, not too low, just right.

- It makes keys irrelevant. You don't need to learn keys, just positions. Do you want to play in Db instead of C? No problem: just move the superscale up one fret. The pattern remains the same.

- It focuses on moving across just two CAGED positions at a time. Any more would be confusing, any less would lock you into one position.

- If forces you to look at moving across positions as something as natural as moving within a position.

- It's musical: you're playing a ii-V-I, the most musical progression in Western music.

If you have any questions about this exercise, please just ask. Reach me at dkoltow@MaximumMusician.com.

=== Sing, sing, sing ===

We guitarists and other instrumentalists often forget, and sometimes *completely* forget, that our primary instrument is not the one we play with our fingers. Our first, best, most reliable instrument is our voice. We have the potential to use it to compose symphonies, though a thousand miles may lie between us and our other instrument. Also, we can use our voice to become better at our other chosen instrument: guitar, piano, saxophone, etc.

The great music educator and researcher Edwin Gordon wrote, "The goal of instruction in instrumental music is to learn to play an instrument as an extension of the inner audiation instrument." (Audiation is essentially the ability to create music in your head.) He follows this with "singing and playing by ear are essential for developing the ability to connect audiation to the physical manipulation of the instrument." (Source: http://www.giml.org/applications.html).

Here's a simple idea instrumentalists can use to apply singing to improve their playing. Before you practice any scale, arpeggio or other melodic material on your instrument, finger or fret the notes but don't play them, sing them. Replace the sound of your instrument with the sound of your voice. Begin playing only after you can successfully complete singing the phrase.

Don't worry if some of your notes are off. As long as you start a phrase on the correct note and end it on the correct note, you are building your ear for music. You are improving your ability to audiate. You are becoming a more responsive, effective musician.

=== Models ===

Who are your favorite musicians? What is it you like about them? More importantly, what do you see in them that gives you a feeling that you can achieve your musical goals?

I believe everyone has and needs role models. And I believe we can achieve unlimited growth by learning how to model the musical success of others.

I'd like to offer some people to model, people who have been successful artistically in music. I suggest we learn from these people: don't study, but *play* their songs, and model what's great about them so we can make our own music great.

I'll throw out some modern names whose work we could model: Sarah McLachlan, Matthew Sweet, Billy Joel, Sheryl Crow, David Byrne. And how about Lennon and McCartney. What I think is interesting about these two is that they weren't great instrumentalists. Yes, they could play their instruments. And Paul can play piano, bass, guitar, and probably anything else, but their skill as instrumentalists was nothing compared to their songwriting skills. You don't see many or any guitar method books authored by Lennon, McCartney or even George Harrison. It's their overall musicianship we aim to model.

One of my role models is Hoagy Carmichael. He wrote a tune some consider the greatest ballad of all time: Stardust. He also wrote Georgia on My Mind and Skylark. (There's a great bio of him here.) In studying Hoagy as a role model, I've discovered some things that encourage me to continue pursuing my musical goals. Hoagy did not come by his great songwriting skills by studying music in college. He hung out at brothels, and he studied law in college. Also, Stardust was a flop when he first recorded it. When I look at what seem like my personal failings, I look at Hoagy's failings and see hope.

Modeling the success of someone we feel a connection with can go beyond mimicking just musical notes. There's evidence that modeling the physical and psychological traits of our role models can make us better musicians, too. I don't meant holding your bow hand just like Itzhak Perlman or curling your wrist just like Eddie Van Halen, though this can help. I'm referring to modeling how they look and behave and think -- within reason. Adopting such traits as our own can improve our musical skills. Read more about this in the book the Inner Game of Music by Barry Green and James Galway. Also, Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) books and web sites lend a lot of support to the effectiveness of such modeling, and techniques for effective modeling.

Tony Robbins, a master NLP practitioner, was *not* a master pistol shooter when he offered to increase the shooting competency of an army division that could only qualify 70% of its recruits. In fact, he had never shot a gun before in his life. But after modeling the beliefs of the top marksmen for less than a week, he turned that 70% into 100%.

What does this have to do with music? Nothing. What does it have to do with achieving our goals in music? Learn more about modeling and answer this for yourself.

=== The importance of mood to practicing ===

It would seem obvious that you practice most effectively when you're in a good mood. Yet, much of the time, we let the many little problems in life put us in a bad mood, and we take this bad mood into our practice sessions and into our music. We don't have to accept this. We *can* bring good, productive states of mind into our practicing. In fact, it's vital that we do so.

Here are some tips for ensuring a state of mind that helps you practice your music most effectively:

Recall in vivid detail your musical goals. Why are you studying song X, Y, and Z? What musical destination would make you walk through fire to get to it? What are your favorite tunes and artists?

Structure your practice time effectively: put hardest things earliest in the morning. Vince Lombardi said, "Fatigue makes cowards of us all." Use your time of highest energy for the most difficult tasks. It's better to play for two two hour sessions, one in the morning and one in the evening, than one four hour marathon session.

Be conscious of your mood. For every exercise, write down your rating of how you felt about it. For example:

"Arpeggios: Started out confused, not sure where I left off yesterday. Out of 5 for total satisfaction, I felt a 3." Keep these ratings in a daily journal. By simply being conscious of your mood in this way, you will improve your mood.

Be aware of mood patterns: your mood isn't entirely predictable, but it *does* follow patterns. There are probably certain parts of the day when your mood is better than others. Find out what images, sounds and thoughts you're putting in your head during those times, and bring these things back into your head before you practice.

Do *not* allow your practice to continue under the influence of a bad mood: your goals, and music making itself, are too important to be overshadowed by mere mood swings.

=== Quick music history link ===

Here's a link for those interested in the history of harmony: check out the bio of Jean-Philippe Rameau. Rameau created the melodic minor scale, a fundamental ingredient to modern Western harmony, especially jazz. Yet, according to the outline, Rameau had "difficulty accounting for the minor triad based on nature." Also, Rameau wrote works that analyzed music in terms of the basic major, minor and dominant triads.

== Minor chords ==

"They're not just for sad songs anymore."

Heck, no. Here are some tips on using minor harmonies to spice up your music making.

- Use a minor 6 instead of a minor 7.

- Use a min7b5 instead of a minor 7.

- Experiment with these minor 6 and min7b5 variations when the min7 you want to replace is the ii in a ii-V-I. Also, apply these changes when the min7 is set up as a tonic.

- Swap out the IV in a rock progression's I-IV-V with a ii.

- Swap out a I with the vi min7.

- Swap out a dominant 7 with a minor 7b5 whose root is a whole step below the dominant chord's root. The justification for this comes from the relationship a min7b5 has to a dominant 7 in the melodic minor scale. For instance, in the C melodic minor scale, the min 7b5 is the Amin7b5. The alt7 chord is the B7alt. These chords have roots a whole tone apart.

Confused? Reading the new ebook Guitar Chords: a Guide for Beginner's will give you the fundamentals of chords and harmony. It's available here.

That's it for this week. Look for more music making tips and tidbits next week. Until then, practice with great merriment and concentration. Make someone else happy with your music. And remember, you are audience #1 for your music.

Thanks for reading. I wish you joy and fulfillment in your playing and living.