The Daily Practice Blueprint: What Every Musician Should Focus On

Whether you're channeling Miles Davis, channeling Mozart, or crafting the next chart-topper, your daily practice routine is the foundation of your musical growth. Each musical discipline requires its own unique approach to skill development. Here's a comprehensive guide to structuring your daily practice, complete with specific templates for jazz musicians, composers, rock artists, producers, and classical performers.

Each discipline requires it's own separate approach and practice program

Blues Music Theory: Explained and Simplified

When most people think about music theory, they imagine the rigid rules of classical harmony; carefully resolved dissonances, proper voice leading, and the predictable journey from tonic to dominant and back again. But blues music operates by a different set of principles, creating its own theoretical framework that both embraces and rebels against traditional Western harmony.

The Question Every Blues Student Asks

"Do I use major or minor scales? What about pentatonic? Should I be thinking in Mixolydian or Dorian?" These are the questions that perplex musicians when they first encounter blues music. The answer isn't simple because blues theory itself isn't simple—it's a sophisticated hybrid system that draws from multiple theoretical traditions.

Essential Vocabulary for Rock and Pop Musicians

Here's a comprehensive vocabulary list for rock and pop musicians, covering essential terms from song structure to performance nuances:

Suspended & Added Chords: A Deep Dive for Pop, Folk, and Rock Musicians

If there's one chord that's used a lot (often overused) in pop and rock music, it's the suspended chord. It's a traditionally classical and folk music idiom that has found it's way into mainstream pop, rock and even metal. It's used in classic rock like Van Halen's "Panama," Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine," and Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive." It also often appears in more modern, power-chord-driven music like Pierce the Veil's "Props & Mayhem".

We're going to go through all of the variations and the way this chord is used over and over in everything from pop to classic rock to metal.

How Music Works: A Guide to Chords, Progressions, and Their Functions in Classical Music

Classical music, with its profound emotional depth and intricate structures, often captivates us without us fully understanding how. Much of this power lies in the masterful use of chord progressions – the purposeful sequence of chords that guides our ears through a sonic journey. This blog post will delve into the fascinating world of classical harmony, exploring how understanding scale degree characteristics and chord families can unlock the secrets behind these compelling musical narratives.

Classical theory doesn't need to be complicated. There are basic rules that all music follows. Here are the basics. 

Deconstructing Metallica's Masterful Chord Progressions (with Musical Examples)

For over four decades, Metallica has reigned supreme as a titan of heavy metal, their sound synonymous with aggression, power, and intricate musicianship.

While their relentless riffs and thunderous drums are undeniable, a deeper dive into their music reveals a sophisticated understanding of harmony and composition. Beyond the sheer force, it's their ingenious use of chord progressions that truly sets them apart.

By Kreepin Deth - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6230336

Let's pull back the curtain and analyze the fundamental building blocks of Metallica's enduring sonic legacy, complete with specific musical examples.

Deconstructing Grunge: The Simple Yet Potent Chord Progressions of Nirvana

Nirvana was known for their raw, aggressive, yet melodic sound. While they often utilized simple chord structures, their genius lay in how they manipulated and combined these elements, often defying traditional music theory.    

While classic rock often relied on straight up I - IV - V -blues progressions and the I - ♭III  - IV - ♭VII progression, Nirvana relied on other chord progressions and patterns to achieve that distinct "grunge" sound.    

Analyze Kurt's creations for yourself

Blues Chord Progressions

When it comes to popular music, it's hard to overlook the influence of the blues. You can hear it in everything from Led Zepplin to Nora Jones. It has also had a huge effect on jazz, pop and many types of folk music. There are a number of ways that you hear these effects. One of them is on chord progressions used in songs. Most people think that this is simply a matter of the I-IV-V blues form but it goes way beyond that. Today we'll look at some of the other common blues type progressions.

I-bIII-IV

This is the one that's used in all types of music from metal to dance. Some may think that it's a version of a minor chord progression but the main difference is the melody is a major scale played over the progression. A number of scales can be used over this progression; the major, blues and mixolydian scales are all available. This progression is used in two ways. First it's often used as the main idea in a rock song, usually played with a riff or reocurring line. It's also used in sequences where you would use a I-bIII-IV using the I chord and then transpose the entire progression up a fourth to be used over the IV chord. For example a E-G-A progression to a A-C-D progression.

Intro To Pentatonic Scales

Most musicians are familiar with the pentatonic scales in one way or another. Most of the time it's usually learned early as a preparation for soloing and improvising. There are many pentatonic scales and many ways of using them.

It's Worldwide

Pentatonic scales are used in many types of music all over the world. Many different types of folk music use this scale. If fact most people are familiar with this scale without even knowing it because it's used so often. There's a great clip by Bobby McFerrin who sings a pentatonic melody to an audience and to their surprise, they finish the tune without him! African and European (Celtic, Scottish, Russian) folk music use pentatonics quite frequently.

Music Theory For Rock Musicians

During the times that I played in various rock bands one thing that always amazed me was how proud rock musicians were about the fact that they 'knew nothing' about music. It was like knowing something about the theory of music was a bad thing. There was the feeling that real rock musicians didn't know anything about music theory and that was good. There are many reasons why some musicians feel that learning theory is a bad thing that I talked about in a past post. One of the reasons why rock musicians feel that theory isn't useful to them is because they think that it just doesn't apply to what they're playing. There is in fact lots to learn about rock music that is easily explained and easy to learn.

Harmonic Elaboration

So you've written a memorable hook, or a nice little melody. You put together some chords to go with your creation and that's it. What a lot of musicians don't seem to realize is that with any given set of notes, there are a ton of different ways to harmonize it. If you've ever heard some of the mash-ups of well known songs put on top of other tracks, you can see how there are many things you can do with the background.

The Basics

Whenever you've written a melody, there are a set of chords or harmonies that we may 'automatically' hear. For example if it's a simple melody that doesn't move around much or have any weird leaps and accidentals, we will probably hear a basic I IV V I. Since we hear these progressions so often, we may automatically hear them in our head. That doesn't mean that we have to use them, or even that they're 'right'. For example if you have a simple melody you may want to use other chords because you want a different 'feel' for the song. Or, you want to invoke some surprise, or you want to change it into a different genre, or you just may want to make the song 'more interesting'.

Cadences for the Rest Of Us

While studying theory and composition at university, one of the first things they talked to us about was voice leading. Voice leading is simply trying to find the best way of connecting the different voices in your harmony. You would start with a Cantus Firmus (fixed song) and work at writing counterpoint to that melody.

A big part of voice leading and counterpoint are cadences. Cadences are simply a way of ending musical phrases and ideas. There are a number of different cadences that happen in music. These are still just as relevant today although not used in exactly the same way. Today we're going to look at the different 'classical' cadences and see how they are used in today's music.

How To Sing Harmonies

Harmonies. They almost seem to be invisible on some tracks, yet on others, they seem to make the whole song. Most music you hear on the radio (pop/rock/MOR) is filled with harmonies. Sometimes it's obvious, usually it isn't. A great harmony can take a track to the next level. Yet, there seems to be lots of confusion about how to do these or where to put them.

The Cirlce Of Fifths: Other Applications

We've talked about the circle of fifths and the different ways that songwriters you can use it. Today we're going to talk about a couple more ways that the circle applies to different aspects of music theory. Other uses include chord progressions, key modulation, improvisation and composition.

The Other Circle Of Fifths: Thirds

We've talked about the circle of fifths and it's many uses here before. There is another circle that exists in music that you need to be aware of. It's the answer to many other questions in music as well as the answer to any chord in music. It's the circle of thirds and it's so important that it needs to memorized.

Musician's Top 10 Guide to Learning Music Theory

You've decided that you want to learn some theory or some new concepts on your instrument. You may start out reading a book or checking out something online but then lose interest quickly. It's kind of dry and nothing you read seems to have anything to do with what you're doing on your instrument. Here are some things to help you out and make your time learning theory a lot more effective.

Forms in Music for Songwriters

We talked about working on arranging as part of developing your writing skills in a past post. This time we're going to go into more detail about the different forms in music. Going through all of the different forms is too much for one article, so we're going to focus on forms used in popular music. If you're an aspiring songwriter, you should be familiar with all of these forms. It's a good idea to know about the different forms, be able to hear the form in music, and be able to apply them to your own work.

The Ubiquitous Verse-Chorus

Pretty much the de-facto standard for today is the verse-chorus form. Most of the hits  you hear on the radio follow this form. It's basically an intro, followed by a verse-chorus.

The Circle of Fifths for Songwriters

If you're acquainted with an music theory at all,  you've heard about the circle of fifths. It's one of the building blocks of western music theory. It lists all of the keys in a circle of fifths (or fourths depending on your direction around the circle). Musicians primarily use it at first to learn the key signatures of the various keys. It starts with the key of C, which has no sharps or flats. It then goes onto G with it's one accidental of F#. Then on to D with it's two sharps F# and C#, etcetera. The interesting thing about the circle is how many different ways it applies to music.