A little more than two weeks after guitarist and lead singer Damien Kulash wrote an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times (“WhoseTube?”) lamenting EMI’s decision to ban the embedding of the band’s YouTube videos, OK Go tweets: “Today we are pleased to announce that we have officially parted ways with our record label, EMI. Details here: http://www.okgo.net“.
Of course, there is a video announcement as well…
Nate provides a two-part lesson for this one. After teaching the original piano part, he shows you how to fill in the melody to play it as a solo piano piece without vocals. And if you’ve ever heard me sing, you will really appreciate that.
How To Play The Scientist – Part 1
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How to Play The Scientist – Part 2
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I knew it was hard to make scales exciting, but trying to find a good tutorial on YouTube tells me it may be impossible. There are some high quality demonstrations of individual scales on pianolessons.com, but the introduction is missing some key information. Go ahead and watch it, then come back.
Here’s what you missed:
Starting from C, it is a whole step to D, another to E, then a half step to F. Then there are three whole steps in a row: F to G, G to A, and A to B. The half-step from B to C completes the scale. Got it? Whole -Whole-Half, Whole-Whole-Whole-Half. Now play that sequence starting anywhere on the piano, and you know all your major scales.
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There are 8 notes in the scale, so on the way up, remember 3 + 5 = 8. On the way down: 5 + 3 = 8. The left hand uses the same sequence, just upside-down. Try it, you’ll see. Start with your little finger on the C, and it’s 5 +3 on the way up, and 3 + 5 on the way down.
Now you are ready to tackle all the variations from the intro page. But don’t try to learn them in alphabetical order, or even in the order suggested by the lessons. Instead, learn the Circle of Fifths by watching the video below.
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Starting from C, you will see that circle can be traced up or down. Going up, you add one sharp (#) to each key for its major scale. The key of C Major has no sharps, G has one (F#), D has two (F# and C#) and so on.
Going down from C, you add one flat (b) to each key. The F major scale has one flat (Bb), Bb major has two (Bb and Eb), and so on. Just remember the sequence: W-W-H, W-W-W-H to find the right notes.
Start by learning the major scale for the first five keys of the Circle of Fifths in both directions:
Going up: C-G-D-A-E
Going down: C-F-Bb-Eb-Ab
These scales cover most popular music written in major keys. From there, learn the minor scales for the same keys, and whatever you need to know for the pieces you want to play. To brush up on the theory behind all of this, visit Ricci Adam’s musictheory.net. If you play guitar (or just about any instrument for that matter), you really should learn some piano too. But don’t worry, we have plenty of scale excitement coming up for you pickers out there.
If you’re Coldplay, or any of these defendants, maybe less original than you previously thought. If you’ve ever listened to La Bamba and Twist and Shout back to back, or watched the Pachelbel Rant on YouTube, you know that plenty of songs share the same chord progression. And I had to laugh when I heard a DJ and his engineer comparing Tom Petty’s “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” to Dani California: “Whoa…even the drum beats match up…Unbelievable!”
Nina Paley and the folks at QuestionCopyright.org make the case that all creative work is derivative.
The whole history of human culture evolves through copying, making tiny transformations (sometimes called “errors”) with each replication. Copying is the engine of cultural progress. It is not “stealing.” It is, in fact, quite beautiful, and leads to a cultural diversity that inspires awe. One person’s “influence” is another’s “infringement.”
A time-travelling IP lawyer could find all kinds of infringements at the Met. Greeks, Egyptians, and South Asians influenced each other heavily; was this “borrowing,” “stealing,” or “copyright infringement?” What derivations are transformative? Do we really want lawyers and judges determining what “transformative” is and is not? Do we want cultural progress dictated by the courts at all?
So if chord progressions and beats are routinely duplicated, and all work is derivative, what makes a composition original? Is part of the answer the musical style or personality of the artist? If so, can that be copyrighted? Eliot Van Buskirk suggests it can in “Virtual Musicians, Real Performances: How Artificial Intelligence Will Change Music.“
The 2010 South by Southwest music festival will be held in Austin from March 17 -21, featuring over 1,000 acts. The Music staff at NPR picked out 100 songs for a six-and-a-half-hour mix that is well worth a listen.
If you haven’t checked out NPR’s Music page before, you should: always lots of good stuff there.
And now, something to take home — an exclusive track from my friend, former band-mate, phenomenal guitarist and founder of the Austin School of Music, Dave Sebree. Here’s “The Front Porch Swing” from his upcoming release “Dog on a Roof”.
This is an excellent series of podcasts on Guitar Music Theory available for free on iTunes. Taught by Desi Sarna, the author of Fretboard Theory, they are best for intermediate and advanced players. Lessons include pentatonic and major scale patterns, chord inversions and arpeggio patterns with the CAGED system.
The music industry seems a bit conflicted over how to handle this social media stuff. On February 19, OK Go guitarist and lead singer Damien Kulash wrote an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times (“WhoseTube?”) lamenting EMI’s decision to ban the embedding of the band’s YouTube videos:
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It’s decisions like these that have earned record companies a reputation for being greedy and short-sighted. And by and large they deserve it. But before we cheer for the demise of the big bad machine, it’s important to remember that record companies provide the music industry with a vital service: they’re risk aggregators. Or at least, they used to be.
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The video with OK Go on treadmills,”Here it Goes Again”, still shows “Embedding disabled by request.” Lucky for us, the label relented and allows embedding of their latest video, “This Too Shall Pass.”
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Pretty great, huh? One week after the WhoseTube Op-Ed, CNET comes across with: “New Music Acts to Labels: ‘We Won’t Tweet’“. This from the founder of indie label Glassnote:
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“There may be some indie hipper-than-thou artists who want to let the music speak for itself,” Glass said on Friday. “They are probably not for us. We believe an artist has a responsibility to communicate with their audience…We embrace the world of technology and the vast improvements in communication.”
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So bands that want to use social media to promote their work aren’t allowed to, and groups that don’t want to use social media won’t be signed. Personally, I find it easier to understand the artist who wants to focus on their music than a company that acts against its own economic interests. And the artists themselves may not always be the best choice to lead promotional efforts. In those cases, the music needs to be strong enough to find a promoter willing to take the risks, or the artist needs to understand that the path they have chosen may limit their exposure and financial rewards.
This Green Day number is a popular song for beginners, which means its also a popular song for YouTube tutorials. Of the thousands out there, I like this one best. The low-key approach of the guitar-in-a-nutshell guy helps you build up the song and picking patterns section by section. Be sure to tune up before you play.
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iTunes: Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
Heard back from Bengt at 2BOX and updated the original post with the following information:
1. Have you found a US distributor?
We have some leads we are working on but we are not in a rush as we need to ramp up production before entering the US market. At this time we are pretty back-ordered in Europe.
2. When will they be generally available in:
a. Europe – They are available now in limited quantities
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b. US — Nothing decided, see above.
c. Elsewhere? — During Spring time.
3. What will be the MSRP and expected street price in Euros and US Dollars for the DrumIt Five?
For US there is no price set yet. In Europe street price is €1990:-
4. What will be standard pad sizes for the DrumIt Five?
For now 10 and 12. Later we will add 8 and 14 inch.
5. Will there be any colors available other than orange?
For now – only orange.
Tuning a guitar to itself is an important skill for all guitarists, and this tutorial has a slow-paced, methodical approach that is just right for a beginner. If you’re even halfway serious, you should go out and buy an electronic tuner. If you have to save up for one, you can use the online tuner from the amazing justinguitar.com site.
