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.

The Musician's Most Important Skill

All too often we talk about how to practice and perform. You might think that the most important skill a musician could have is great dexterity or, a great imagination, or maybe even great creativity. Where these are important, that there is one skill that is the foundation of all that a musician must do. It's our memory. Memory isn't just used by musicians to remember tons of songs; it's used in every aspect (improvising, composing, performing). Musicians must remember songs, chord progressions, fingerings, lyrics, scales, idioms (licks), performance notes (dynamics, inflections, phrasing, breathing, etc),  recording techniques, engineering facts, song forms, theory, stage moves, gear settings, recording settings, software applications, etc. And this is just the musical applications! This doesn't include any of the marketing, PR, business activities that we have to do on a daily basis. Memory even comes into play in our ear training because ultimately, the ear is using our memory as reference point for all of those chords, intervals and sounds.

How Not To Practice

There are many times when we set out to accomplish our goals but it either takes too long or doesn't happen at all. When it comes to music, we all know how important it is to practice. Yet, there are many things that we do that undermines our ability to get better, grow and learn. This things may not seem all that important at first but their effect over time can be monumental.

Practicing Quickly

We know what we want to do. We have a basic idea of what it is and how to go about it. So we try the exercise a couple of times slowly and then plow ahead and see how quickly we can pick it up. It's not perfect but it's close. The speed is almost there but there are a couple of problem areas. So we keep plowing ahead and forcing it to work. This is in fact contrary to what we want to do. Every time we practice something, it gets reinforced in our brain. Practicing something at a fast tempo, incorrectly, over and over again just reinforces the bad technique. That's why it's important to practice slowly. When you practice slowly and deliberately, you are reinforcing good technique (i.e. the neural pathways in your mind). The tempo doesn't matter; it just matters that you are doing it correctly. Practice slowly and get faster gradually. Ironically, if you practice this way, you'll get better sooner.

Practicing On Purpose

We seem to set out with the best of intentions. We try and practice everyday. We make sure we're covering the basics. We're trying to improve. Like we've talked about here before, it's important that you set apart some time to try and assess what your goals are. You try to figure out what you want to accomplish on your instrument and what you want to accomplish with music overall. But there's so much to learn. So much to practice. Every new skill seems to take forever to master. How do you know what you're supposed to practice and what not to? Of course having a great teacher is invaluable for this because that should be a prime consideration of theirs every time they see you. But how to do you figure this out on your own? How do you practice with purpose?

The Real Life Of A Musician

I read a great quote a long time ago that said ‘a musician doesn’t do just one thing, a musician does many things’. Great words of wisdom. Unless you’re lucky and hook onto something immediately, you’re going to end up doing a lot of things to make ends meet and ultimately become successful in your career. Instead of just going out there and just getting 'any job to pay the bills', it may be in your best interest to really think about what you want to do and how to go about getting there. Something that you should take into consideration when trying to figure out how to get into the industry is (oddly enough) 'industry related' jobs. These are better than your regular run-of-mill jobs because a) in some cases be a greater source of income than your standard part-time wage b) it may be something you're already skilled at, and most importantly, c ) it may create excellent opportunities that take your music career to the next level.