- Daniel had taken secondary lessons in jazz at Oberlin in the late eighties studying the guitar, though he didn't look much older than me (..hmmm..does he look young or am I looking older? ..aging sucks...). Anyway, he gave us some scales to work on and gave us an idea on what to expect during the sessions. I definitely wouldn't have been ready to jam with the rest of the musicians, but maybe in a month or so...we shall see...
It's kind of weird discovering that some individuals I've danced with socially are musicians! It makes me wonder how much a musician's knowledge affects their dancing.
- For me it's definitely helped become more musical, but I've also danced with musicians who were very unmusical and uncoordinated. Maybe hearing all of the intricacies can also have a negative effect.
- I wonder if that can be tested somehow - if a person is a dancer first and then takes up an instrument, or if a person plays an instrument first and then takes up dancing, which is affected the most?
- I would suspect learning how to dance first would make learning an instrument easier because physically a dancer would be more apt to know how to move their body to get the instrument to play what they wanted and they would be immersed in the dance culture, and thus the music.
- But, if one learned an instrument first, it doesn't necessarily mean that a musician will know how to move their body in a coordinated way and the focus may be towards hearing the music which may "override" their focus on their body movement and dancing. ...hmmm....I don't know...
Lesson Notes:
I was also a little nervous during my lesson with Clayton after attending his recital, but not horribly so, though I made more mistakes than usual, and I couldn't stop saying "sorry" every time I messed up, which I've never done before! Lol! Okay, I was more than a little nervous... :).
Ear Training
- When we met with Daniel, he wanted to see whether we could hear if they were playing in a minor or major chords since it's important to recognize key changes. Clayton recommended that I do free exercises at: http://www.good-ear.com/.
- We sat down in front of a computer for a bit and he walked me through some of the exercises and told me what to listen for:
- Listen for the 3rd note which will tell me what type of scale it is
- Helpful tunes to associate with the different scales
- 2nd (minor) = Jaws
- 2nd (major) = Happy Birthday
- 4th = Here comes the Bride
- 5th (perfect) = Star Wars
- 6th = NBC
- Minor 6th = The Entertainer
- Assignment: Clayton recommended I Google to see if there were any other songs to associate with the different intervals. Below are some websites that provide some other songs:
- Assignment:
- On the website work on 'Simple Intervals' with fixed root for 5 to10 min a day
- Modes: to help in memorizing and hearing the scales, think of the scales in the descending order.with more and more notes being flattened
- Major = (3rd note is major)
- Mixolydian = (3rd note is major) 7th flattened
- Dorian = 2nd & 7th flattened
- Aeoleoun = 2nd, 6th & 7th flattened
Exercises:
- For the last week, I had stopped visually using my tuner and just using the drone on it, so I warned Clayton that I would most likely be off on my intonation. My intonation was okay, but my tone was a bit off due to my blow placement.
- Exercise 1: Tone
- Play one note repeatedly and listen for the quality of tone
- Practice each individual note repeatedly in a short section
- Then play that short section and make sure each note matches the quality of tone
- I was having issues playing a slurred triplet so Clayton also gave a an exercise to do. Playing the different lengths should make playing even notes easier.
- Exercise 2: Triplets
- Bow with 3 separate notes and then all three notes slurred
- Long, short, short
- Short, long, short
- Short, short, long
- Even either long, long, long or short, short, short
No comments:
Post a Comment