Subject: How Does That Make You Feel?
You are getting this e-mail because you subscribed to it on www.learn-to-play-rock-guitar.com. If you don't want to receive these e-mails any longer, go to the bottom of this message and click on "unsubscribe." Hey there Friend, Before I get into the topic for today, I wanted to bring your attention to a tragedy that occurred recently. I read this article on the Guitar Player's Magazine website. Over New Year's, one of our own lost his shop to a fire. I'll let his friend tell you more... On New Years Eve 2014, Shad Peters, a husband, father, friend, and talented guitar-maker/Luthier behind Peters Instruments lost his entire workshop to an accidental fire that leveled the building. Along with all of his tools, he lost countless irreplaceable personal/family items, and a handful of custom one-of-a-kind guitars he was creating... We can help Shad rebuild. If you feel compelled, you can help minimize the loss to our guitar community. Small, custom guitar shops build amazing instruments as a labor of love - love for music, love for the instrument, and love for the musicians that can make it sing. These are the things dreams are made of - help keep the dream alive! Earlier this week I was in a lesson with a new student. We were talking about chords (triads) and as usual, I was going a bit too deep into chord construction. I could tell I was losing her... Since we were talking about various open position chords, I wanted to start her thinking about the differences between chord voicings, specifically major, minor and 7 chords. She was already familiar with some of the open chords, and I wanted to help round out her repertoire. So we went over the differences between major and minor chords. I really wanted her to make a connection between the sound of the chord and the feeling that comes off the voicing of the chord. I played some major chords, and then changed to the minor chords. After each, I asked her how the chord made her feel. Not surprising, she had no problem hearing a major chord as a happy sound, minor chords as sad sounding. We don't really think about it much on the surface, but this is exactly what music is supposed to do. It is supposed to give us a mechanism to express a particular feeling. I've said before that we can create music that manipulates how the listener feels. I don't mean manipulate in a bad way, just that a song can change a mood in an instant. Over the past couple weeks I've been studying and creating exercises that demonstrate intervals. If you don't know the word, an interval is simply the spacing between two notes. There's more to it than that, though. When you start recognizing how different intervals move a melody along or change the way a chord sounds, you really start to appreciate the skill of songwriting. Songwriters learn how to use all these intervals to achieve the effect they want a song to have on listeners. Think of the score to a movie. The composer knows how to take a scene and write a score that will not only complement the scene, but cause the viewer to completely empathize with he characters. Music is the glue that connects the film to audience. For example, listen to the opening score for the old TV show "Fantasy Island". The music combined with a view of the island create a beautiful fantastic, panoramic atmosphere with an idea that anything is possible. The first notes take you on that journey by using a major seventh interval, which is leading us to the next note, which is the octave. Using major seventh intervals is very common in themes where you want to build a feeling of possibility and beauty. Every interval has at least one emotion that can be expressed by it. Here's a very good chart to help translate the various intervals to emotional directions. If you want to deepen your understanding of music, study intervals. You'll find yourself connecting with the mood and message of a song, and as you learn to recognize intervals as they occur, you'll gain an intuition about the notes to use in songs. You'll realize why a songwriter used certain note combinations, and you'll appreciate why a song either has mass appeal or falls flat. This is knowledge, and knowledge is power. I challenge you make a conscious effort to listen more closely to the music you like. See if you can start picking out the intervals and how they move the song along. All music makes use of these principles, so it doesn't matter what you like to listen to - you'll gain a lot by understanding how intervals work. Peace~ Dave Dave "Eddie" Vance is a rock guitar enthusiast and gear nut. He has been playing guitar for over 30 years and enjoys tormenting the neighbors every chance he gets. When he's not slaving for the man, you can find him rocking out with his B.C. Rich Bich guitar, a cold beer and some sweet tunes. He also runs Learn-To-Play-Rock-Guitar.com, but you knew that already! Follow Learn To Play Rock Guitar:I welcome your feedback! Did you like today's message? What other topics would you like to see covered in my e-mails? Please let me know at: dave@learn-to-play-rock-guitar.com As always, please feel free to forward this email to a friend! I review products before recommending them. If you buy a product based on my recommendation, I will receive a commission. However, my emails also contain links that don’t require any investment on your part and are jam-packed with "juicy, guitar learnin' tastiness". We don't rent or share your name with anybody. Feel free to forward this issue to any friends you think would enjoy its contents. They will thank you. So will I.
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