Music +301: An Introduction; What YOU need to know first.

Hello

 Welcome to Music +301. This series of posts is designed to help you learn to expand your musical abilities past chord progressions and basic melody making.

Topics that you should roughly review before continuing:

• Music reading  
• Basic Chord Construction (Major, Minor, 7th)
• Major, Minor, and Pentatonic scales 
• Interval recognition and construction

Let's start with reading music. This is necessary in every aspect of music if you ask me. All musical notation in this series will be in well...musical notation.

(e.g)  If you don't read music,

 Some people, guitar players in particular, believe that they never have to learn to read music or even take formal lessons because it's impure or uncool. The fact of the matter is that if you haven't taken lessons and have little knowledge of music, chances are that you won't get anywhere REAL in music. Reading music help with cognitive abilities outside of music, as well. So go learn to read sheet music!

 Next is basic chord construction. I'm talking very basic. Basic like 1-3-5 and such. If you can't do this yet and you know how to play a major scale, figuring it out shouldn't be too difficult. We learn chord construction to further our knowledge of improvisation. (ex: switching bass notes around, adding stacks of thirds, AUGMENTED THIRD chords, diminishing for tension, etc)

 Ahh. Scaling. Major scales are obviously the primary scale to know for this course. As for the Pentatonic scale, it's necessary simply because it's used so often. Honestly, they have little use in music, but in guitar playing, they're extremely helpful if you lack dexterity.

 Finally, intervals. This is the essence of music as we know it. No more explanation.


Follow this series if you'd like to learn all about higher level musical training.

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