1. Basic Music Theory

Lesson 1

Music Notes or Tones

Notes are the frequencies and sounds we here in music aside from the crashes and hisses (white noise and pink noise). There are twelve notes altogether. The twelve notes repeat on octaves. An octave is the same note repeated at a frequency higher than the original note. The frequency is twice as much hertz or double the amount at each octave.

Example:
"A" = 440hz
"A"one octave higher = 880hz

In between the octaves are all the other notes. There are twelve notes all together. The twelve notes, from lowest to highest, is what is call the chromatic scale. On a piano, the scale can be played by hitting a key then one key higher (a half step higher) and another, up to twelve times then it repeats an octave higher. These twelve notes are the basis of music writing, (aside from partial bends and certain foreign genres, of course).

Here is a basic outline of the first lessons I will be posting.

1. Basic Music Theory

I will run through a quick explanation of music theory. I will skip most technical terms as I see no need to learn them so that we can hurry and see how scales are placed together and chords are made up.

2. Good Verses Bad Music

I will compare some examples of good music and bad music (my opinions of course). I will of course explain in detail the reasons behind my observations.

3. Basic Song Arranging
I will discuss some of my favorite song arrangements by using examples. I will also be explaining skeletal structures and what they are.

4. Layering
I'll show how to build upon a skeletal structure and show broken down samples of how the layers work together.

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to my blog. My name is Donald Stanley and I have been a singer\songwriter for many years. I have developed my own style and theory on music writing over the years based loosely on traditional styles of classic and modern music.

I plan on posting my techniques for anyone who might learn from them and so it can be used as a tool to help in your own song writing stylistics.

I'll will be posting samples of some of my material and hopefully music from other people to try and paint my picture of good songwriting.

So, please keep checking in from time to time and feel free to ask any questions about song writing and techniques.
Thank you,
Donald