Practice Tip #4: Don't Forget to Write in the Music

Hello everyone, Sulli here with a very late post! Wasn't trying to have it this late but I've been having more difficulties with technology and some personal issues, so let's cut the chit chat into one sentence: Subscribe and follow please!

Now, as the name of this article suggests there are musicians who think writing in music hinders more than it helps, and I'm here to say that it should be reconsidered. Writing stuff down helps keep thoughts in our memories. Writing something down on its own will help put it into your memory, but when it comes to writing in music you will also have something to help you practice with. You will have your notes in front of you while you practice, and shouldn't forget what you practice.

Of course, this isn't a requirement however is strongly encouraged. I use this a lot with my music as a way to help focus on what I'm learning, however everyone has their own way of learning. The reason I bring this up though, so some musicians haven't learned a way to practice and this would probably be my most recommended way to do that. However there are some rules to using this method, though they are simple.

First, ONLY write in PENCIL that can erase well. No pens, or erasable pen. Chances are if you use pen then you will make a mistake. When you make a mistake, especially on an original it will stick and replacing music is not cheap. The other is if you can write in a copy then do so. It will help extend the life of the original.

Composer's Vlog Ep. 5: Time to get ready for something different!

Sulli here with episode 5 of the Composer's Vlog. Today we finish up the score as far as I'm wanting to get done! Next time, Tavarus and I are heading to the flea market for some sounds. Don't forget to subscribe!

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Practice Tips #2: Practice Slowly

Hey everyone, Sulli here and I'm back with episode 2 of the Practice Tips series. Today, I'm bringing back an older topic from the previous series and mixing it up a little bit. As the title says, one of the best things to do is practice slowly. If you want to read the original article(and it's worth a look over, but nothing great): http://sulliadm.blogspot.com/2012/05/how-to-practice-episode-1-start-slow.html

Back to the topic, one of the more common problems in musicians is the desire to keep things fast, especially while practicing. While that is not a bad idea if you know what you're playing, the better option is to play slower than you think. The overall objective of practicing is to know what the music you are learning is, not just recognize it through finger motion. Learning it involves not only being able to play it, but to be able to play it starting from anywhere. In order to get that deep of learning something, one must practice slowly.

Another thing to remember when practicing slowly is everything that goes in behind the music, such as bowings/breath marks, articulations, the style of the piece, etc. Run through the piece multiple times at that tempo and do the following: 1st focus on the note accuracy; make sure you can play every note at that tempo and the pitch is correct. 2nd focus on the articulations and bowing/breath markings and enforce those because they are there to make the piece easier or to sound a certain way that the composer likes. Finally focus on the stylistics if there is a style listed.

The way to tell if you're starting off too slow is if you can follow the checklist above and not have any errors. Usually when I'm deciding where to start the tempo at, I usually start with the tempo as written, then dial it back 20. If that's too fast, then I go back in intervals of 5 or as close to that as you can get. After you have completed the song or section several times and feel comfortable speeding up, then do so slowly. Only make tempo jumps in increments of no more than 5 BPM (beats per minute). This insures you are sure you know what you are playing. This process is a long way, however the payoff is you are creating beautiful music. There will be times this will be cumbersome, annoying, and possibly time consuming but I promise this is the way professional musicians like to practice.

So, as you have hopefully seen this thought can be used as a good mentality to practice with whenever one may need it. If you like what you have read then don’t forget to Subscribe to the blog via email (to the right), YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or SoundCloud. As always, thanks for reading and remember to fear the cellos!

Composer's Vlog Ep. 4: Let's start wrapping things up... Or are we??

Hey everyone, Sulli here with the 4th installment of The Composer's Vlog. This episode is about finishing as much as we could get this time. Also I introduced Tevarus, a friend of mine who has helped me with this composition. Don't forget to leave a like and a comment if you enjoyed this! Don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already! Subscribe via email (to the right) or through YouTube. Thanks for watching!

Composer's Vlog Ep. 3: Time to Take a Step Back for a Brief Moment

Welcome back to the 3rd installment of the Composer's Vlog. Sorry about the delay but this one was a bit of a tough one to edit this week because of a few bugs I had to deal with. Today's episode started out as a test for recording audio a new way, but wound up not working so sorry for the technical difficulties. However, I left the first full "rendering" of the song for you to enjoy at the end. Take a look at the video and let us know what you think. For those who actually read this, I'm starting season 2 soon without any more screw ups like I have in this season, so stay tuned for at least one more season of this show ;)

If you like what you've seen then leave a comment below and subscribe for more Composer's Vlog episodes.

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Composer's Vlog Ep. 2: Let's Start Getting Something Done!

Hey everyone, we're back with episode 2 of the Composer's Vlog. In this episode we begin by working on the first few cadences in order to show you how to get some work done.

The Composer's Vlog Episode 1: Basic Introductions

Hey everyone, it's Sulli and not only am I back, but I'm back with some exciting news! I am revamping the blog by making a new series I'm calling "The Composer's Vlog". Now, in this 1st season of the series (of hopefully many more) I am going to go over working with the themes from "Void". Void is a roleplaying game played in the style of Dungeons and Dragons however is set into the future. The protagonist (can't really call them heros from as far as I've gotten with it) are a group of people from all over the US "... so far in the future from our own timeline on earth that we humans, as a race, are incapable of putting a number to the years.". The objective of the game, like many others is to go through and defeat the antagonist (the Void) from taking over our universe. If you love RPG's or have always wanted to give one a try, then head on over to their site (https://www.facebook.com/groups/564393450248783/) and follow along. This is a really simple one and as of now is a great one to start out with if you've never played one before.

As for this series, however, I am writing some music to go along with the story of the game. This series is intended as a tool to not only demonstrate methods towards composing music, but it also going to be used as a way to help show many other ideas towards achieving sounds and effects that you may want to use for your own compositions. However, for the first few episodes I will be recording on my desktop like I have been with my tutorials.

Anyways, I hope everyone likes this new series! Let me know what you think in the comments here, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube ! Also, if you have any suggestions for this piece, then you are allowed to leave a comment about how you think it should be changed and if I like it and enough people agree with making the change then I will go it. Just remember that this will be a piece online for us to share and learn from! I hope you enjoy the series and I will be back posting something almost daily, and I will share with you the calender for the posts but that is for another day! I now have to leave to go grab something to eat but I will be back.

Always Remember...
Fear the cellos!
~Sulli

Episode 1: What is Music? (based off the original episode "Musical Alphabet and Note Values")

Hey everyone, Sulli here with the "main series" 2.0! The video above is the new version of the old video. It goes into a little bit better detail of what music is, and starts us off where the original episode is. In case you want to see where we started from, this is the original episode from the series:

http://sulliadm.blogspot.com/2012/03/episode-1-musical-alphabet-and-note.html

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How to Practice Episode 10: The Importance of Improvisation (Part 1)

Hey guys and welcome back to the next series of practicing episodes! Sorry about the delay on the episodes but I've been working on a surprise for the blog, so keep posted! Anyways, on to out next episode: The importance of improvisation. Now, to most classically trained musicians (those who are taught based off of classical literature or from classical methods such as learning through Suzuki or from a class) learn to read music and find their ways around it but don't look into improvisation or doing any kind of improvising. However, once the time comes to need that skill they don't know how.

Let's start off with what improvisation is. Improvisation; or improving as most people call it, is the art of playing music on the spot. So say someone gives you a chord (in case you need help remember or haven't learned anything about chords try looking at Episode 10 of the main series or click here), you play notes in that chord make a song. So say for example, someone plays a C and you want to write a "happy" sounding song revolving around a C major chord (C, E, G). Same thing applies for say writing a sad song and are given an A: write out a variation along a A minor chord.

Now let's take a step back and discuss the basics of a melody. Melody can be broken down into Rhythm, Timbre, and Contrast. Rhythm is the basic method of making a melody. Changing the rhythm of a series of notes can make a melody. So, for example taking any C and play it to a beat and (the most important part) vary the rhythm! Start out with two half notes for a few times, then move to quarters, eights, 16th and mix it up! Maybe play a 1 + a, 2 e + for a few bars then mix it up some. Make sure its how you feel because it makes a difference later down the road. Then add notes to the chord, in this case add an E to your C. Keep adding notes to the rhythm your constructing until you've built the chord out. The best way to learn how to improvise is with the use of 7th chords, which is my topic for next week's theory lesson.

Stay tuned for next week's episode as I finish explaining everything!

How to Practice Episode 9: Don't Forget the Pencil!!

How's it going guys? I hope my newest attempt at a meme was to your liking. If you want the link to it then click here. But as it says, we need to cover one of the biggest mistakes made by young musicians (including myself on numerous occasions), which is forgetting your pencil before you practice! It might seem like a waste of time to grab a pencil before you practice but in fact it is probably one of the best things to do when it comes to rehearsing.

The biggest mistake people take when it comes to practicing music is the lack of preparedness. It might come to a shock for some of you, but there is a large amount of thought that goes into preparing to practice. The first point one should realize is they won't remember every change they've made or the director has told us to make. We couldn't ever remember every change that's needed in music, unless someone's trained themselves to do that but that's not a very good idea to do. You can forget what changes you have made and wind up playing the piece wrong. Along with that, why would someone want to stress out more than you need to?

How to Practice Episode 8 : Don't freak out over a mistakes!

Hey guys! Sorry the page has been a little dry lately but final exams are just around the corner and I've been busy studying for them! I sense my older viewers are laughing right now but the younger ones don't get this at all but that's fine with me! Anyways today I am here to talk about one of the bigger hindrances to performing in front of a crowd or simply playing for your family around the holidays; the fear of making a mistake! This doesn't seem like that big a deal but it really does mess with your performance if you don't know the proper way to deal with this situation. Before I start talking about this topic, I wanted to announce a contest! I'll be giving away some Magic Rosin (3G and 3G Ultra) and some advertising space on here if you want to recommend your page to my viewers! I will post an official announcement after I talk out all the details and such. Also, for those who aren't aware, I do a vlogging series on Youtube and I am about to start a full video series on Finale! If you aren't aware of Finale, it's a program which you can write music in and I was thinking about doing a series on teaching the basics to it. If you are interested in the series or have ideas for me, then let me know by tweeting me on Twitter (@sulliadm), or join the Facebook Fan Page!

Now, have you ever felt very ill about playing to family or friends because you were afraid of messing up. Or have you ever been on stage to preform and felt stage freight from being afraid of messing up? I will admit that I had the exact same feel with my recital last Thursday and I got a good taste of what it's like to go through a mini panic attack from actually messing up... But there is a way around that. You have to learn how to continue playing after messing up. This might sound harder than it actually is because for the most part, it's all a mental state of thinking. You have to learn that messing up is just the way we are! We will make mistakes, but they shouldn't stop you in the middle of a performance. The big secret of music is, if you're playing to people who don't know the music as well as you do or are playing to people who aren't very "music savvy" then if you mess up then they probably won't notice. I'm not saying that you should mess up a song nor am I saying you shouldn't practice a piece and go on and mess it up! I'm saying if you mess up while playing a piece, then don't over react to it and either stop what you're doing or freak out on stage.

Here's an example from my personal life. For those who are new to the series, I am a freshman cellist @ Winthrop University. I've been studying with the cello professor there for a few years now  and she's been teaching me how to play the Saint Saens cello concerto #1 for around a year now. When one of the other cellist had to give a recital for the graduation requirements, she asked me if I would be interested in playing the first movement of the song for a "half recital" (a recital that doesn't count towards your graduation, but is more for fun and experience). Being the kind of person that I am (a little crazy but will take almost any opportunity to learn and grow), I decided it would be awesome to do it. I went through the usual feeling about the first time on stage "alone" would be good for my personality of being a little antisocial (which it did help). During the performance however, there was a disconnection in tempo in the middle of the song and we got off. When I noticed, I started to freeze up but I noticed I was near a break in my part so I kept going until the break and waited for my next entrance. After all was said and done, I talked to some friends outside who listened and said they only noticed my stopping because I was showing it.

It can be a difficult thing to learn, and there's not really a way to learn this skill besides experiencing it.

How to Practice Episode 7: Practice with a metronome

Hello guys and welcome back! I know that this is a fairly obvious thing but you would be surprised at how many people overlook this tip. Metronomes have been around before the times of Beethoven but they have gotten better over time. The reason why we use them is to make sure you're practicing at a constant tempo. One should learn a piece at a constant tempo even if it has stuff like accelerando or rubato and after learning it at the main tempo then add the accelerando, rubato or whatever changes the tempo. If you can't play it at the tempo given, then one should practice under the marking. The rule of thumb with myself when I'm practicing is if I'm having problems at the tempo listed I slow it down by 10 or the closest number to 10 below. Then so on until I have a tempo I can play it at well. Then I play it at that tempo until I have played it 5 times perfectly, which I then go to speed it up by the next marking on the metronome. I repeat that until I can get it back to the marked tempo and then a couple of clicks higher just in case the conductor starts the song off on the fast side.

I know this was a really short post but there isn't much I can say about this. If you liked it please follow the Facebook Fan Page (click here), the Twitter page (click here) or subscribe to the blog by email or RSS! I would like to get some people to start posting on the Facebook page about the music they use.

How to Practice Episode 6: The Pyramid of Music

Hello guys and welcome back! Today I have the next episode in the blog's how to practice series which is The Pyramid of Music. This is the basic idea of what to look for when sight reading music and what you should continuously have right when sight reading. This is most useful for students who are learning to sight read and to prevent students who tend to stop in the middle of songs in order to correct things. If you like this post then subscribe to the blog by following me on twitter, on the Facebook fan page or sharing the post by clicking the links at the bottom of this post!

Now, you may be wondering why is sight reading important and my answer for you is your musical life will be so much easier and practicing would be much more effective if you know how to. Say for example you were pressed to learn an etude of some sorts in a week. If you didn't know how to sight read then learning the study would be harder than you would want it to be. Now apply the same scenario from learning an etude in a week to learning your part in a symphony in about a month. The task is simpler knowing how to sight read than it is without knowing.

The more commonly used method in teaching sight reading is the term S.T.A.R.S which stands for Sharps and Flats in the key Signature, Time signature and tempo, Accidentals, Rhythm and Signs. If you would like to review this method more than here is a link to a view of using it. Learning this method will help with sight reading because it is focusing your attention on details that most people would have missed without looking for something. Now let's say you did this but the piece is too hard for you to simply sightread the piece. Here is where the Pyramid comes into play. This is a method I've been developing for a few years and it is a way to for you to know what can I drop if I need to. NEVER USE THIS IN A "JUST BECAUSE" MANNER.

Ok, now the first important thing that comes to music is you need to have the rhythm right and be able to count the time signature. The basis of all music throughout history is rhythm. Think about an indigenous culture from any place on the world, and how they used music to communicate using beats to create chants. This is the fundamental level of music and when sight reading this should be the first focus on what you're reading. If you can get this much right, you are on your way up the pyramid! Following this step the next level of importance is knowing what key your in and knowing how they fit into place with your music. Most music has some kind of central key that it fits around, which is identified by the key signature. You should be able to identify what key you're in and play according to that key. immediately following this is noticing the accidentals. If you spot accidentals when sight reading music then note them in your mind and make sure you play them when you go back over them. Finally you need to note anything else that you missed before hand which are articulations, bowings/breath marks, dynamics and anything else that wasn't mentioned. Finally the top of the pyramid is putting emotion into the piece.

So, as you have seen this is my pyramid idea for sight reading. As I've stated a few times before one shouldn't use it in everyday circumstances, only if your sight reading a piece that the director or  your instructor wants you to look through. I hope this helps you guys and I'm working on my next contest so stay tuned! And don't forget to follow me on twitter, facebook or by email and if you liked this post or any post then share it!

Episode 8: Understanding Intervals Part 1

Hello and welcome back to those who are returning, and welcome aboard for those of you who are new to the series! Sorry this took me so long to post but I've been loaded down with stuff and I sort of forgot about this episode. So after I made the episode for last week I read over it and found out you were suppose to read this a few months ago... So, here we are! We need to start getting down towards the heart of music, and start learning about intervals and why they are important to music. If you like this post is great then please share this by clicking the Facebook, Twitter or Google+ buttons at the bottom!

First off you need to know what an interval is. An interval is the distance between two notes. There are 8 basic intervals: A Unison (same note or C to C), a 2nd (C to D),  3rd (C to E), 4th (C to F), 5th (C to G) 6th (C to A), 7th (C to B) and an octave or 8th (C to higher C). This distance will work between any series of notes but I was using those as an example. A to F is still a 6th just like a G to an A is a 2nd.

There are three main qualities of intervals: Major, Minor, and Perfect. The best way to see this is to separate the different qualities into their own section and learn them individually. First is the Perfects, which are only used to describe a perfect unison, perfect fourth, perfect 5th or perfect octave. As the perfect unison is the same note being repeated, and a perfect octave is the same note being played back to back but one is higher than the other. The perfect fourth and fifth are special because as it says, they are an important part of music. A perfect 4th is 5 half steps from the tonic note. The tonic is the note that starts the comparison or chords as we will get to later. If you need to review half steps and whole steps, please refer to episode 2 (click here). A perfect 5th is 7 half steps from the tonic note. Think about it from the layout of a keyboard. If we start on C, a perfect forth above would be an F (C#-D-D#-E-F) and C to G would be a G (C#-D-D#-E-F-F#-G). A forth above G would be a D (G#-A-A#-B-C-C#-D) and a forth above F would be a Bb (F#-G-G#-A-Bb).

Now major and minor intervals work in the same way. They include 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 7th. A major 2nd is 2 half steps, which is a whole step, or another way to say it is from C to D. A minor 2nd is only a half step or from C to C#. A minor 3rd is 3 half steps or from C to Eb. A major 3rd is 4 half step or C to E. A minor 6th is a 8 half steps or a C to Ab and a major 6th is one half step higher, C to A. Finally A minor 7th is 10 half steps or C to Bb and a major 7th is one higher C to B.


For those who this is just too much information then, I have a chart to help you comprehend this a little better. The numbers is the number of half steps from tonic to the note.

       Minor         Major        Perfect
1                                                    0
2        1                 2
3        3                 4
4                                                    5
5                                                    7
6        8                 9
7        10              11
8                            12

If this interests you, then please share it by hitting the icons below! I am interested in seeing how many people read the blog regularly. If you want to stay up to date with the blog series or hopefully soon to come the Youtube series, follow me on Facebook, Twitter!

How to Practice Episode 5: Play outside your box

Alfred 00-0483S Suzuki Cello School Cello Part- Volume 3 - Music Book

Hello and welcome back to his segment of How to Practice. This time I have a different (or at least less commonly thought about) technique for helping you practice; Practice outside your comfort zone. This means a few different things; like playing harder music or playing different music than what your use to. I say that you should do all of that and more!

Many people who don't like being outside the box are afraid of messing up and looking stupid when they do. Don't be afraid to make mistakes when you’re playing! Just believe in what you’re playing and if you mess up, then say "Ah well" and shake it off. That is easier said than done, I know but sometimes you have to get out of that block. As long as you’re not on stage giving a concert then it shouldn't matter whether you make a mistake or two. The point is as long as you’re learning something new and pushing your limits then you will be fine! Challenges come and go all the time and the courage is in trying to push your own limits because you are only limited to the extension of your imagination and technical know-how. If that means you are just starting out and know only how to produce a few "noises" or you are like what I did the other day at the SC Cello Choir and was the only 1st chair player in a couple of the rehearsals sight reading material and techniques I had never seen before. The point is you need to not be limited to what your mind knows what to do, but you should do what your mind thinks you can't do because that is the only way to learn anything but especially music.

As I stated before, I was the only cellist in Section I that didn't go to the advanced orchestra rehearsal because I felt like it would be better if I made the pieces I had sound the best I could get them to sound over being in both groups. That is the only exception to my rule: If you don't feel comfortable preforming something in the slightest, then don't add on. That only creates a train wreck. You should push yourself but at the same time know where your limits to your abilities are. You should aim a higher then you did before but not too high. If you’re reading Suzuki Book 4, then aim for the 5th or maybe the 6th, but not anything higher. For those who are learning through the Hal Leonard books, then go one page to about 2 or 3 ahead but no more than that. You don't want to try to push too much.

Now before I leave you I had a question for you. Is there enough regular viewers to start a contest on or what do you guys think I should do? You can email me, tweet me, use my hashtag, or facebook me. If you want to be heard, have a question, want to tell me how I'm doing or just want to make a suggestion on something to talk about or more review ideas. I'm here to talk to you about music! Also, if you want to create fan art I would love to see it! If not I will create a new logo soon enough!

Alfred 00-0481S Suzuki Cello School Cello Part- Volume 2 - Music Book 

Episode 7: Timbre and the Importance of Tone Control

Hello and welcome back everyone to something more exciting than all the reviews I have been doing. If I have bored you from them, I'm sorry but some people were asking me to do some reviews, and if you have any request don't be afraid to ask me! I love doing reviews for people and helping people if they need help. Anyways, on the the lesson at hand: What is Timbre and why does it matter to me?

First off Timbre or tone color is the sound that an instruments produces. Every instrument has it's own sound that it produces and its the only type of sound that can produce it. For example, you listen to a piccolo and listen to a flute or bassoon you can tell that the qualities of the sound have a lot of similar qualities but they aren't the exact same. The piccolo is a higher and sounds more "whimsy" and "In air floating" feel than the flute or bassoon does, but they all have a feeling of a wind instrument. Now add a cello to the mix and you hear a new feel to the music, which is a more earthy feeling that is produced from the violins, violas, cellos and bass. Every instrument has its advantages and disadvantages revolving around tone color and it effects the overall feeling of the orchestra. That is one of many reasons symphonic music is written with so many instruments as well, the composer wants to fill in every gap that he wants to be filled in and cause the piece to sound complete. It makes the piece sound better, and that is also the art of composing; Knowing how to make a one lined melody fit into the best possible group of instruments.

So now you're asking; why do I need to know this? The answer is you need to be aware of the differences in all music in order to be a better musician. If you know how everything links together then you become a better musician. There are reason why Bach wrote the suites for cello and not violin, and why he wrote the violin concerto for violin and not cello.

Now Tone Color is a different, but very important thing to talk about. Tone color is the type of sound you are producing from the instrument. It is similar to timbre in the way that it is left to the composer to control, however this is controlled by the instrument. The easiest way to explain this is adding a mute to an instrument. It not only softens the music, but it changes the overall sound of the instrument from blocking some of the vibrations. This is crucial because sometime you need the soft, but broad sound from an instrument, or sometimes you need a loud, harsh sound. Strings players achieve that by several ways, first being the mute. We add on a mute to soften the sound and change the overall sound. 2nd we can change the position of the bow. If we play more up towards the fingerboard we get a softer sound; sul tasto, or up towards the bridge; ponticello. Finally changing fingerings for a run can change the overall tone of a piece. For band and choir, there are mutes or some kind of tone changing methods as well.

Update: From the Eyes of College

Hello, and for all of those who have been checking on the page daily thank you so much! I have had a few of you email me about when the next episode will be up and my answer is... I don't know! I am working hard in college and I haven't been having much free time in school or outside of it, but I have a few ideas for you guys and I want all of you to give me your opinions! Here is what I was thinking... What if I created a big "fan supported music demonstration" sort of set that anyone can submit to. Say you wrote out a full song, or just a simple little melody it doesn't matter. Just submit it to me and I will put a link to it in the blog and have it shared. I had one person already submit me something and I will have it on here soon. It is a song for a starting out strings class and has a very driven feel to it that I like a lot. So, if you have any kind of song that you wrote and want advertised on here, then send it to my email and all of your responses to my question. If we get 200 responses, I will post something I've been writting on the side on here for you guys to review for me! So start sending those replies in, and use the header as "From The Eyes Of College" so I can tell why I am being flooded! Thanks, and keep checking in!

Episode Recap 1: Episodes 1-5 Part 1

Hello and welcome back! Now before I begin the recap let's go over a few things. 1st off, you may have noticed the button above me. Finances are really low, especially if you want more reviews so please donate anything you feel comfortable donating to me. I am wanting to do more reviews and if you want to see more, then any money is good money! With that said, I promise I WILL NOT go crazy with the button! The only time I will post it is on general recaps (like such), and reviews. I want to provide everyone with a few service to learn music theory, tricks from professionals, and reviews so you aren't wasting your money on pointless or terrible stuff for your instruments (and yes, I have used some terrible stuff, and amazing stuff so I know what's good and what's not).

With that out of the way, I bet you're wondering "What's an 'Episode Recap'?". I feel after so many episodes on all my topics, I will post one giant summery for you on what is in that section. For today, this episode recap is on episodes 1-5, which are:

-Episode 1: Musical Alphabet and Note Values

-Episode 2: Sharps and Flats

-Episode 3: Treble and Bass Clef

-Episode 4: Defining the Signatures

-Episode 5: Dynamic Contrast

Now how this is going to work is like a review over the selections, and explain some harder to explain things.

Episode 1:

This was a presentation-Only entry so most people didn't read this entry, so I will count this as the actual lesson. There are two main elements when reading music: a Note and a Tone. A note is the visual representation of a sound (♪). The actual sound that goes with it is the tone. We could say that the note is an A, or a C but we don't see that when we are watching a group play: We hear the tones of the chord(s) the person or people playing make but we don't see the (♪) in front of us unless you brought sheet music with you.

When you link them together in any pattern going up or down until you repeat the first note, you get a Scale. There is no simple number of notes in a scale, because there are so many different types of scales. However, there is a "Western" standard of scales, which has 8 tones in a repeating pattern. I will discuss this more later on in the episode review. 

Now we have to discuss the Musical Alphabet. This is the way musicians learn their notes, and it is always repeating: A, B, C, D, E, F, G. 

A standard Octave or simply the "Western" style of 8 note scales, is the repetition of one note. For example take a C scale. If we wrote it out we would have C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. The bold C is an octave higher than the one we started on. This works out on the entire musical alphabet.

Now, we talk about basic note values. They work the same was as fractions, which is they break down and are seen as fractions, like for example ♪ is an eighth note while ♫ is two eighth notes or a quarter note. The way the notes flow is demonstrated in the following picture:

The top note is a whole note, and it breaks down into two half notes. each half note breaks down into two quarter notes and so on all the way down the line. This is the proper way to subdivide notes. Now we must figure out how this fits into a staff. A Staff is a bar with 5 lines and 4 spaces that fit together and are split to make Measures. This will be further explained in a later chapter.

Episode 2:

Going back to notes on a staff, you can have either Sharps, Flats, or Naturals. Naturals are notes that haven't been altered and these are the white keys on a piano. Then if you take that note and go up a half step (going from a white key UP to a black key) your going from a natural to a sharp. When you go down a half step (going from a white key DOWN to a black key) your going from a natural to a flat. *Editor's Note* I just realized there was a glitch in the episode, and I fixed it so it's legible.

Episode 3:

There are 2 major clefts to playing most instruments. You have Treble, or the G cleft, which is the higher side and you have the Bass, or the F cleft, uses the lower side. Back to the discussion on scales. The "western" or non-asian countries use a standard for scales which goes with the "standard" of 8 notes that repeat at the base note but at a distance of an octave. For example: C Major is C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.

How to Practice Episode 4: Practice the Basics

Welcome back everyone! Now I know it can get very annoying to practice scales over and over again but you have to know your basics. There are many reasons why you need to know them, such as:

1). The basic skills of your instrument is what makes you a musician. If you didn't know how to play simple stuff, then how could you play the more complicated? For example how can you play work by Bach and Beethoven when you don't know the simple stuff.

2). There are crucial skills you can practice on scales that makes your whole style of playing better if you practice them on scales. For example, vibrato is a great example that you should practice on scales. Vibrato adds so much tonal flare to music, and is probably the biggest divider between musicians. However, it can be a hassle at times to practice so remember that an hour a week of nothing but good practicing is better than 3 hours a day of bad practice.


3). Practicing the easy stuff helps you be able to do things like improvising from being able to tell the chord progression and scales in the music and being better acquainted with your instrument. That is a huge factor when it comes to improving, because the less you are close to your instrument the more nerve wracking it will be. Your instrument is like your best friend, especially when your alone on a stage that has been lighted up.  

Review: D'Addario Helicore Cello Strings

Now, for those of you who are new to my blog I am a intermediate cellist. I have been playing for almost 7 years, which to most people is just a drop in the bucket but the benefit from my perspective is I am going to college in a few short months (as of now 2 and a few days) so I know where the deals are and know what to get so you get bang for your buck.

Now, for years I've been taught from my teachers that just because you have a cheap cello doesn't mean you have to think it will always sound bad. For people who are just beginning and have a student instrument, there are several changes to your instrument that will improve the tone and overall characteristics of it. The first, and usually the most effective, way to get the sounds you want is to get new strings. For people starting out the best strings you can get for cheap are D'Addario's Helicore. They are made strong, and they are made to last for a long time. Before I changed cellos, they were the only ones I would use on my cello and I never had to worry about strings popping. I kept a set on there for a few years, which is not a good thing to do but when your on a budget it works out well.

This leads me into a lesson on strings, for my stringed musicians on here. The rule of thumb for us is you should change your strings once a year, however there are strings that will last longer. Just keep in mind the longer they stay on your instrument the more they will go "flat" and the more likely they will snap.

Now, what do I mean by a string going flat? Every string is constructed where they have a core, and the metal is wrapped around it. After a while the core will start to get worn out and it causes the string to vibrate less vividly and it gives a "flat" sound to the instrument. Another key feature to know about strings is that there is a break-in period that varies between the strings. The way it works for the Helicore strings is 5-7 days. That is a good time, but you need to remember that if you have a competition, audition, or a performance you need to be able to avoid getting stuck with spotty tuning.

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