Playing catchup with the best job in the world.

First of all I'd like to apologize for falling behind on the updates here on the Blogosphere. I'll do my best to make up for it with the next few posts, and several pieces of awesome news.

First, my focus for the past month has been on finishing up the details on my first solo album ' The Flood' which should be released by June 1st 2015. IF you are interested in hearing what one of the tracks sounds like, you can listen to When A Train Rolls By on Soundcloud, you can also purchase the album through IndieGOGO.

Listen to When A train rolls by

Pre-Sales on Indiegogo

The second piece of news is that I will be remaining in the Comox Valley for at least another year. It was not an easy decision to make, but I feel like its the right one. Sooooo FolkHarmonic will be resuming in September after a summer break, with some breaks while I'm on tour, or we can work out a way to have classes continue while I'm on the road fall 2015/spring2016.

The third is 2 last minute performances
April 3rd (friday) - I will be the feature performer at the Qualicum Acoustic Cafe in Parksville
April 19th (sunday) - I'll be joining Archie Pateman, Tammy Fassart and Anne Louise Genest at the Waverly Bluegrass brunch in Cumberland.

All This Trouble - The Fugitives

The Harmonies were sounding wicked last night! Take a listen to the full arrangement mp3 and write out a roadmap from the recording, (what happens, where, anything you need to remember, any stops, extra harmonies etc). There are a couple times where the cord progression does something different than what is written on the lyrics sheet.

Full Arrangement & Lyrics

nifh_trouble_full.m4a
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nifh_trouble_altmel_2.m4a
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I checked with Brendan about Regiments vs Regimens, in the final verse. The verdict is Regiments. Remember that often lyrics will play with double meanings, Bee's are filled with lines that can mean more than one thing. 

all_this_trouble_in_the_world.pdf
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Vocal Parts

Verse Harmonies,  these tracks include the "all our problems always" line that happens during every verse

nifh_trouble_verseharmonies_-_2015-03-31,_5.23_pm.m4a
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nifh_trouble_verseharmonies_low_-_2015-03-31,_5.26_pm.m4a
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nifh_trouble_verseharmonies_mel-_2015-03-31,_5.24_pm.m4a
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nifh_trouble_verseharmonies_mid_-_2015-03-31,_5.25_pm.m4a
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Extra(s) Trouble - fiddle chops

For some reason the video is mirrored... I don't play left hand fiddle (I can play left handed but I sound like a 3 year old at their first lesson) But the content should get you started on Chopping anyways....

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A Love Like Yours... 2 ways to get there (aka Double Roadmaps)

Sometimes there is more info than can be easily conveyed in one road map. The whole idea of a roadmap is to help you keep track of where you are with a quick glance. If  a song has both complicated vocal and instrumental arrangements I like to break them into 2 separate 'routes'. This way, depending on what I've blanked on in the arrangement I can glance down and quickly find the next turn.

Vocal Map

Ch 1 - Melody - Everyone
Vs 1 - Solo - Low harmony
Ch 2 - Melody - Low & Mid Harmony (3rd split)

<instrumental: optional - sing scaly bits/vocal back up parts quietly>

Vs 2 - Solo - Low, Mid, Hi Harmonies (3rd Split)
Ch3 - Melody - Low, Mid, Hi Harmonies (1/4 Split)
Ch 4 - Melody, Harmonies stagger joining melody

Instrumental Map

Intro:
Accordion Drones (no pulse)
Bordun (technically a Bordun is 5ths not 4ths *Meh*)
Scaley Bits in harmony

Ch 1 - Bordun Continues - everyone else switches to strumming chords
Vs 1 - Strum (2-3 people carry Bordun)
Ch 2 - Strum

instrumental: Harmonica Solo, Scaley Bits softly below. 

Vs 2 - Strum (2-3 on bordun)
Ch 3 - Crescendo Strum, Bordun
Ch 4 - Accapella. 1 bordun (Barb M) will continue as will heart beat pulse.

Outro: (all play of intro)
Scaley bits,
Accordion 
Bordun

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Chromatic Scales, AKA Applicable Theory 
and 48 reasons you should do this exercise.

One of the hardest things in music is figuring out how to apply any musical theory or knowledge that you are being taught. Often, in the case of Music Theory the concepts can seem quite abstract especially if your instrument does not have a keyboard.

The first thing that you can do to help yourself apply and learn theory is to learn a basic one octave chromatic scale on your instrument. If your heart seized in panic at all those fancy words just now take a deep breath and trust me.

A chromatic scale uses all of the notes between one note (ex E) and the next note with the same name (ex E). Every note in a Chromatic scale is a semi tone apart. 



When written in standard notation (Polkadots) it looks like this:

A Chromatic scale is only limited by the range of your instrument, and if we talk about them in the theoretical sense they are an infinite line of all the notes possible (in 12 tone music... no experimental 1/4 tones and all that fancy stuff)

Now, thats all fine and dandy, but what does this look like on each of our instruments?

on the Accordion (right hand):

on the Guitar:

Notice that the notes in brown pictured here are the same as the white keys on the piano keyboard above. These ones located on the bottom 2 strings are the most useful to memorize.

On the Fiddle:

On the Ukulele

so how do we use this information?

Often in class I'll call out the note names of a melody, or ask you to build a riff around a specific set of notes. If you know where to find these notes right away and the patterns that they fall in you'll be able to focus on the exercise and not be scrambling to find were to start.

The other main way we use this information is mainly for the fretted instruments. In swing music we like to use what are called movable chord shapes. There are 2 key pieces of information that every swing guitar player needs to know

1) Where the Root of your chord is in the movable shapes
2) The Chromatic scale up and down the 2 lowest strings (E & A)

I'm going to use the Minor 6 shape that we play in Swing 48 as an example here

Guitar:

Ukulele:

The Yellow dot in the pictures above is the Root of the chord, any strings with X's above them are muted so that they do not ring out when you strum.

If you play these chords exactly as shown in the pictures above you'll be playing a Gm6 (G-6) Chord. Now comes the trippy part, if you slide this shape up and down the neck the letter name will change, but it will always be a Minor 6 chord. Ex slide whole hand up so that yellow dot is on the 8th fret. you are now playing a Cm6 chord.

you can play the first 2 lines of Swing 48 without moving your hand from this shape.

Swing 48 - Django Django Django

swing48_leadsheet.pdf
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If you're only gonna listen to one of these its this one you need:

swing48_uke_tab.jpg.pdf
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Some Youngsters being pretty darn talented.

Check out the cool intro/lead in that these guys do.

Lift a Riff:

If you get a chance find one 8(ish) notes long riff. in one of these videos, or in any other versions of the song and try to copy it. You may have to listen to that one little line over and over. Remember to only do a short "word" of music, we're not trying to memorize someone else's speech, just pick up some interesting vocabulary. Its generally easier to do this by imitating someone who is playing the same instrument as you, but it can be very interesting and fun to try learning riffs written for different instruments as well,.


Good luck! 
See you all next week

cheers
a