MUSICAL STYLES

Sound engineers and session musicians use a bewildering variety of terms to describe the style and feel of music they're trying to create.

These terms are quite precise – pro musicians will know immediately how to play a song in 'blues rock shuffle ' or 'pop 16th ballad' style, and it's never too soon to start learning what these styles sound like. by clicking through to PG Music's Band in a Box RealTrack audio-TOC and listening to the samples. Here's the link;

http://www.pgmusic.com/bbwin.realtracks.htm

But, take note! Piecing music together from other people's performances is one thing; being able to create and play it yourself is another. You could spend many years doing the first without getting any better at the second!

On the plus side, these audio samples are great for ear training. You want to able to go to your keyboard and find out from a few bars-worth of listening what key the sample is in. After that, a well-schooled musician will be able to make a pretty god guess at what the chords are.

If you want to be able to do that, Musicarta's Chord Progression series is the place to start. Start simple with plain I, IV and V (one, four and five) chords. (That's tonic, subdominant and dominant in classical-speak.) Don't try and work out a jazz bossa from scratch! You'll be hearing the 'Big Three' everywhere in no time – half of popular music uses little else besides.

Working from the other end; knowing just one chord sequence extremely well is a good way to develop your musical ear, and Musicarta's Pyramids Variations series aims to teach just that. If you haven't already worked through the eight-lesson build-up to the Concert Performance, start now! If you have – sit down and play a variation off the top of your head!

Tip: You can record streaming audio using Audacity, the free digital sound editor. and set it to 'loop' the track so you can try again and again to find those chords and play along. A great practice tool!

Thanks for vidting Musicarta.com! Come again soon!