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Most musicians just want to play songs. They don't want to learn a bunch of theory that has no immediate practical application. That's where Dan comes in. He's put together this two-hour video that explains how music works in layman's terms. You don't need the Pocket Music Dictionary to figure out what he's talking about. He explains and demonstrates everything. All you have to do is pay attention.
If you've been playing music for a while, or working in a band, you may know some of this stuff included in Understanding the Formula of Music, but chances are you don't know all you really need to know, or how the various parts relate to each other.
While the video is designed for the musical novice, there are several points during the program that could prove useful even to the musician who already understands the formula of music. It could prove useful to teachers who are seeking some ideas of how to tie everything together for their students.
Keep in mind that once you buy the video you are allowed to watch it more than once. This is not like a cram course, where you have to break your back trying to absorb all this material and then face a tough exam the next day. It's one of those videos you might want to watch all the way through and then come back to it a week later, after playing out, or practicing, or woodshedding.
The idea is for the musician to know enough about how music works, to be out of the dark. To be good at your instrument, you don't need four years of college theory: "Too much theory can take all the flavor and personality out of your style, " Dan says. He offers the facts, the basics with none of the time-consuming filler.
Dan recommends that the budding musician or even the veteran get an inexpensive keyboard, because the keyboard is the best instrument to illustrate pattersn of music. The keyboard is a form of musical diagram itself. That's because: regardless of what instrument you play, you need to know about other instruments for harmony. Dan also demonstrates how music theory works on guitar, another chord instrument. He covers the major scale and explains how it relates to the Nashville Numbering System, which is also used in blues and pop music recording studios.
Dan explains how to build a major scale. Then he shows how, once you listen to it a few times, you will have it embedded in your mind's ear. The major scale is the basis for all the other scales and modes, most notably the blues scale and pentatonic scale, used in blues and jazz, as well as pop configurations.
Dan then gets into various chords and how the chords are built from the scale. Obviously, not all of this will be of equal importance to every player, but it makes it easier to learn to recognize the chords that apply to your playing. He focuses on the three chords that most blues players know as the I, IV, and V chords (tonic, subdominant and dominant) which are the major part of the Nashville Numbering System.
During the course of the video, you can learn quite a few songs. But most of the songs are used to illustrate a point about a chord change or idea. If you can identify a concept with a familiar song, you are likely to remember that concept. For the novices, this video emphasizes ear training: learning to listen so you know what you are hearing. Knowing what it is, you can play it right back on your own instrument after you hear it with a little practice. -- American Harmonica News Magazine August 1998, by Phil Lloyd
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