music notes | The Musicians blog

Grab a Free Music Dial…

As a musical instrument player, we’ve got you covered this Holiday.

Here’s the deal… With ‘any’ physical Dial purchase from our Music Dials selection, you’ll receive a Free, Guitar Chord Charts Music Dial… Yep, that’s 100%! Off the regular price [a retail value of $14.99!]. It’s yours free when you purchase ‘any’ physical product from our Music Dials selection.

Guitar, Bass, Keyboard, Mandolin, Banjo… You’re Dialed In!

Now Free With Any Purchase! The deal ends on Jan 1st.

Go to the Music Dials Website Here for Your Deal!

This Free Guitar Chord Charts Music Dial will be included with your order.

Heck, even if you want to buy just a Guitar Chord Charts Dial, you’ll get another one for free, to be used as a gift for a family member or a friend. It will be automatically included in your order.

Like all of our easy-to-use two-sided chart dials, this Guitar Chord Charts Music Dial shows you the essential information that contains 24 guitar chord charts. It provides you with…

* All 5 chord forms including fret positions in every key.

* All formulas for basic chord forms as well as all chord extensions including suspended chords, power chords, 6th, 7th, 9th, 11th, and 13th chords.

* Fingering for all the chords in all positions including extensions.

Forget those big fat cumbersome chord books or trying to find the right app. This is a complete guitar chord reference guide on a 2-sided movable dial… It fits right into your instrument case.

> Go to the Music Dials Website Here for Your Deal!

Guitar, Bass, Keyboard, Mandolin, Banjo… We have a Dial for you!

Many uses include:

* Teaching tool / visual reference guide

* Learning to play all forms & positions for major, minor, augmented, and diminished chords

* Figuring out chords to songs by ear, jamming, improvising

* Songwriting

* Learning basic chord theory

Once you discover its many uses, our Music Dial Charts will become your permanent fixture in your musician’s library, as a lifetime music reference guide and your primary instrument-playing resource assistant.

Remember, even if you want to buy a Guitar Chord Charts Dial, you’ll get another one for free, to be used as a gift for a family member or a friend.

Dial into your Free deal here (click dial image)…

Now Free With Any Purchase! The deal ends on Jan 1st.

Basic Music Theory

Hey fellow musicians… Ron Greene here,

There are a lot of decent basic music theory books, tapes etc. on the market these days, and many of them provide good technical content. However, most of the information in them seems to lack specific details that otherwise, really never get you to the point of playing your instrument.

For example, this free music theory publication does a good job of explaining Key Signatures and the history of music, yet, this subject might not interest you as much as getting your instrument out and actually getting down to the matter at hand… playing it! Continue reading Basic Music Theory →

Guitar Legend John McLaughlin Retires

Jazz-rock legacy of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, John McLaughlin (age 75 at the time of this blog post) is retiring from touring.

Many of us musicians have known John as an esoteric monster on the strings. His departure from mainstream songs to introspective nuance has been instrumental (no pun intended) in providing for insightful creative considerations of arpeggiated themes in playing styles.

The article below mentions some fun highlights of McLaughlin’s final performance in Los Angeles at UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance at Royce Hall in December 2017.

Appreciations for John’s input in our wonderful world of music!

Jam On!
Ron

(credit given via: Richard S. Ginell released in sfcv.org)

Article December 12, 2017

“The 75-year-old English guitarist (now a resident of Monaco) has said that his The Meeting Of The Spirits tour would be his last in North America, and the concert at Royce — where he played way back in 1974 — was the last stop. Fellow guitar-slinger Jimmy Herring, one of the few McLaughlin acolytes capable of dueling mano-a-mano with the master, shared the bill…”

Read more about this John’s farewell tour here…

https://www.sfcv.org/reviews/none/guitar-legend-john-mclaughlin-retires-with-an-incendiary-farewell-concert

How to play great sounding guitar lead notes…

Using the Music Dial Chart Guitar Solo Scales Dial…

Good solo or lead playing is a form of personal expression. Feeling, tone, phrasing and technique are all used to create a personal style. The ultimate goal is to play solo melody or lead notes that sound great when played with the rhythm accompaniment chord progression and which enhance the overall feeling of the song.

Start your learning patterns with the 4 basic and popular scales, used to play lead guitar for all styles of music, including… rock, pop, country, blues, traditional, jazz etc.

These scales include… Major scale, Major Pentatonic scale, Relative Minor scale and, Relative Minor Pentatonic scale.

On the Guitar Solo Scales Dial, select one of the 4 scales, depending one the key and style of music you’re playing.

When using these patterns for Major or Major Pentatonic Key, emphasize the black notes on the Dial, which is the keynote or ‘tonic’ of the Major Scale.

For example, when playing songs in the Major Key of C, emphasize the black note, which is a ‘C’ note. When playing songs in the Relative Minor Key of Am, emphasize the black note, which is an ‘A’ note.

For ease of playing, first learn the pentatonic scale note patterns (black notes only on the Guitar Solo Music Dial). Then learn the major scales and relative minor scale note patterns (black & white notes).

With a little practice and experimentation, you’ll be able to hear and feel the different emphasis and sound when playing with the 4 different scale note patterns.

Playing Scales…

The first and last note of each scale is called the root note. The root note for major key scales is the black note on the Music Dial. The root note for minor key scales is also the black note.

To play each scale, locate the lowest root note on the lowest string. Play each scale note from the lowest to highest, ending with the octave higher root note.

Other Guitar Techniques…

Some of the techniques used in playing ‘hot’ solos include, string bending, hammering on, pulling off, sliding, vibrato, two hand tapping, harmonics, tone, distortion, sustain, etc.

Some of the approaches to improvising solos include, using scales notes to play the melody, using scales notes to play a solo different from the melody, using scales notes or chord notes to play repetitive riffs, using chord notes to play chord arpeggios for each chord in the chord progression… etc.

Enjoy exercising your individual artistic expression!

Jam On…
-Ron

Tips on Earning Money in the Music Industry…

As a musician, you’ve no doubt given the thought that one day you can take your playing, singing and/or songwriting skills and make-it in the music biz, while earning a decent living doing so. Any insights along this path can be helpful and you’ll discover in this article a nice checklist of items to incorporate into your music career resolve.
Jam On!
-Ron

(By Bobby Borg on Sonicbids Blog – also shared on hypebot.com)

There are literally hundreds of tips on making it in the music business, and we all know how overwhelming that can be. If you’re wondering which ones you should try to integrate into your daily life starting today, these 15 basic guidelines…

NY Subway Musicians Play Together via the Internet…

We’re getting closer (it depends on location these days) as musicians at being able to co-collaborate via the Internet and jam live together. The idea kinda emerged many years ago when lead guitarist, Jeff Skunk” Baxter with Steely Dan, created one of the first ways to gig with other musicians in different locations, all at once.

In this article…
An online video by director Chris Shimojima and producer Anita Anthonj set each performer up with a computer that connected them to the composer Ljova, who directed them from Bryant Park. Though there were many connection issues, the musicians were able to work through it and perform an original piece together from the different locations.

Jam On!
-Ron

As one of the NY street artist mentioned…
“I could see the composer was not matching up with music in my headphones,” she said. “I decided to go by ear and not the visual.”

Learn (w/video) more about this interesting experiment here:
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-musicians-collaborate-subway-stations-article-1.1996403

Listening to Vinyl Records/Albums…

Here’s a curious follow-up to the original vinyl age of dics. Vitaphone offered something stranger than time travel… They pulled back the screen from another dimension.
In this video (and further reference hereof) you’ll discover some very interesting facts about getting the best sound out of your Vinyl listening pleasure.
Jam On!
-Ron

(credit to: Seth Winner, via: Bob Kosovsky)

Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone was the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one which was widely used and commercially successful.

The name “Vitaphone” derived from the Latin and Greek words, respectively, for “living” and “sound”.
via Widipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitaphone

In Memory of the Passing of Musicians in 2013

The passing of musicians in 2013…

NPR just released a nice montage and dedication of the passage of this planet’s wonderful musicians, departed this past year…
Jam On!
-Ron

NPR Music remembers the musicians, composers, producers and other visionaries whom we lost in 2013. Explore their musical legacies…

See the dedication here -> https://apps.npr.org/music-memoriam-2013/

Saxophonists, Clarinetists and other Wind-Instrument players, Beware…

‘Saxophonist Lung’ can afflict wind-instrument players…

Wow, this is quite interesting (subj.)… Wind instrument players please keep your reeds and mouth-pieces very clean. You could be affected by this ailment. If you blow with a reed (or any wind band instrument) this short article may be very beneficial reading…
Jam On!
-Ron

(By Marc Lallanilla, Assistant Editor – via lifescience.com)
A man in Atlanta had been diagnosed with a severe case of saxophone lung. Though the name of the condition seems odd, it’s quite appropriate, since saxophonists, clarinetists and other wind-instrument players are among those who contract the illness most often…

More on this peculiar ailment here…
https://www.livescience.com/41057-what-is-saxophone-lung-hypersensitivity-pneumonitis.html

The history of the Hammond Organ…

the Hammond Organ

The history of the Hammond Organ goes beyond the iconic double level keyboard… Hammond patented over 100 product ideas, including… (in 1922) 3D movies and a few years later he was first to market the electric clock!

Ironically, the syncronistic motor in the clock contributed to his insights in the development of the Hammond Organ (in the 1930s). An interesting note is the fact that Lawrence Hammond was never a musician and never thought a musical instrument was in his future.

Of course, the B3-Hammond went on to become the most classic ‘jam Organ’ of all times with the help of Jimmy Smith’s Jazz electric keyboard intro… Then rock opened the doors even further.

And… the history of Hammond, well… here’s the ‘History!’

I especially love the part about how Hammond was able to use the word ‘Organ’, whereby before, the word was reserved for pipe organ manufacurers only. Also includes the first lady of the Hammond and the most interesting, early conflicts with Hammonds important counterpart, the Leslie speaker enclosure… Wow!
Ron-

Further citations for your reference…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammond_organ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_speaker