Guest farnsbarns Posted August 2, 2011 Share Posted August 2, 2011 I have been teaching a friend to play. A complete beginner. In order that he share my understanding and abstraction of the fret board I have just taught him how a 12 bar works and shown him how to play one in any key using barre chords. I've done this so he can start to see how keys work and how the relationships between chords are the same in any key (we were sticking to major keys). I have also taught him the minor pentatonic blues scale and he is just starting to get to grips with improvising over a 12 bar with that scale in the root. He noticed himself how ending bar 4 with a diminished 7th and going on to the 4th or 5th for the first note of bar 5 sounded nice. He had also noticed how some notes sounded wrong around the changes. Apart from being impressed by his ear (it's only lesson 5) I decided it was time to start imparting to him how it all fits together so I showed him how to grab the diminished 7th in a chord so he can use it in the 1-4 change when he's playing rhythm. I explained how the 7th leads nicely to the next chord because it us the 4th in the coming chord. He got exited and said "yeah, it's as if the seventh announces the change us comming, it like saying wait... Go!". (he even said the three full stops) I was staggered so I showed him how a minor chord has a flattened 3rd which gives a feeling if sadness. He got it. Then came the interesting concept... The resolution and solidity of a 135 major chord is like a full stop, a major chord with a diminished 7th is like three full stops, announcing something's about to change and a third is like a semi colon, full of suspense and drama. What do you think, timing aside, thease are our punctuation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The RandyMan Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 I was always taught (my mom was an English teacher) that punctuation was used to add emotional context to the written word. I firmly believe that music conveys many emotional triggers, the most obvious being Major chords = happy, upbeat, power, etc. Minor chords = sadness, melancholy, vulnerability, etc. All of the variations of chords, instrumentation, melody, and such fill in the blanks to cover all ranges of emotional feeling. To that end, I suppose different musical elements could easily be considered "punctuation" of sound. That's always been my take. But I'm just a one-eyed monkey puppet. So I could be right, or I could be full of monkey poo. I'm thinkin' you're on the right track. Why else do people listen to music? Because it makes them feel something (emotional). But that's just my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest farnsbarns Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 You can actually expand the analogy. Different speach patterns in different countries tend to sound a lot like that region's folk music. Edit: this is something I've heard before and is not original thinking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damian Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 You can actually expand the analogy. Different speach patterns in different countries tend to sound a lot like that region's folk music. Edit: this is something I've heard before and is not original thinking. You are entirely correct........This is why Swedish Folk music sounds, well, actually is Heavy Doom Death Metal........It's the Swedish speech patterns !!!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damian Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 You can actually expand the analogy. Different speach patterns in different countries tend to sound a lot like that region's folk music. Edit: this is something I've heard before and is not original thinking. You are entirely correct........This is why Swedish Folk music sounds, well, actually is Heavy Doom Death Metal........It's the Swedish speech patterns !!!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eallenb Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 I like your analogy concerning punctuation of our musical thoughts. If I may take this one step further in the respect of a band. I have always considered music to be a conversation. My thought, your thought, our thoughts together. It seems to me that the truly Great Artists have always had a way of talking to each other, and those of us who are the audience enjoy that conversation. I was going thru my head some of the Jazz, Swing greats i.e. Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa. Harry James and it seems to me that as the audience when they were "talking", it was worth "eaves dropping" Consider my point by listening to Sing Sing Sing or any number of the "Greats" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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