3 octave 7th arpeggios

This is just a short thank you lesson for all my Youtube subscribers. If you haven't subscribed yet, please do. Anyway here is the lesson. I hope you enjoy it.

For those who want the tabs/notation, you can find it below.

Dominant 7th

 Major 7th

 Minor 7th

 Minor 7th b5

Modal harmony and why you need it.

I'm sure some of you know what modal harmony is, but for those who don't I'll explain it quickly. It is harmony built on the modes of a scale(mostly the major scale). The reason you use modal harmony instead of normal major or minor harmony is that it has a different sound than more traditional types of harmony and in a lot of cases can give you a unique sound. Modal harmony is less widely used and understood, so by using it you'll have an extra technique in your a arsenal that will let you create new sounds that could differentiate you from similar artists.

Each mode has its own unique sound and that sound will conjure up certain feelings in people, so by using modal harmony is like adding more colors to your harmonic pallet.

There are lots of different ways to go about creating modal progressions, but there are 2 important concepts. Emphasize the root note and make sure you feature the 2 characteristic notes of each mode. The 2 characteristic notes are the notes that differentiate one mode from another. For example let's take the Ionian mode. Its 2 characteristic notes/intervals are the perfect 4th and the major 7th. No other mode has those 2 intervals, so using chords or riff that uses the 2 intervals will give you the Ionian sound. Of course you still have to use taste, but this is basically how you do it. I'll be making a series of YouTube videos on this in the future. So stay tuned.

Discover the Hirajōshi scale

Today I'm going to talk about the Hirajoshi scale, which is a common scale in traditional Japanese music.
Here is a lesson I put up on my youtube page that will explain more.

 Here is a song that typifies the sound.

The hirajoshi is a 5 note(pentatonic scale). For the guitar players out there, here are the fingerings for guitar.

 Until next time have fun.

Allan Holdsworth style chords part 2

Here is my 2nd post of Jazz fusion style chords. For the first 4 min or so I talk about theory, stuff, so if you're not into that skip ahead. I'll leave pictures from the video below, so you can copy those and use them as you wish.

I'll post the tabs/notation from the video here for anyone who wants it.  Hope this helped. Be on the lookout for my series on modal harmony next month.

Breaking down J-pop

Today we are going to break down J-pop music. I choose J-pop somewhat randomly. I didn't want to choose something everyone knew about, but I thought something like traditional chinese music might be too boring(also I don't know many traditional Chinese musical artists). I digress, listen below to some examples of J-pop if you want to know what it's like. This isn't a comprehensive list, but it should give you a pretty good idea of what it's about.

Here are a few more

Chubbiness
J-Soul Brothers
Perfume

To start most of these songs are fairly simple which is what we would expect of pop songs and they're all fairly upbeat, but lets look at things in more detail.

1). Instrumentation - All of these songs and most J-pop songs have synths in them. Sometimes it's subtle but most of the time there are lots of synths and the music sounds very electronic. At times J-pop can seem like a light version of EDM, but most groups will break that formula and have a few songs that are punkrock-ish or have a ballad with acoustic instruments. The drums are also often electronic and there doesn't seem to be any hurry to update sounds. I often hear songs with synth sounds that could have come from the 80s or 90s. Guitars are also employed often, but they are never the main focus, so they are usually low in volume. Another interesting thing is that you'll often find bar chimes used quite liberally. Recently there seems to be an interest in dubstep, so sounds will often have a part where a wobble synth is thrown in.

2). Rhythm - J-pop is made for dancing, so you'll rarely find a song that isn't in 4/4 time. The kickdrum will be on 1 & 3 or on all 4 beats and the snare will be on 2 & 4 or some syncopated variation. The bass will usually be a simple rhythm(quarter notes or 8th notes) and won't be a main element in the song. The synths are usually pretty active, playing fills, counter melodies, etc and they can have almost any rhythm. The tempo is usually between 170bpm and 100bpm. They tend towards the faster side.

3). Melody - Usually the melody is relatively simple and  the vocalist doesn't usually try to show off their voice.The range of the melody is usually fairly small also. Usually the melody will be in a major key, but sometimes it will be minor. You usually won't find any exotic scales or modes used.

4). Harmony - It will mostly consist of common major scale harmony. There won't be more than about 4 chords in a section, but different sections usually have different progressions. The chords will mostly be basic major and minor chords, but 7th chords and other more advanced chords show up sometimes too. Every once and a while something weird will be throw in however. Check out the wholetone/augmented breakdown in the chubbiness video above.

5). Form - It usually follows the verse-chorus format with a intro and a break down in the middle. Also it's not uncommon for there to be a solo or an instrumental break down somewhere, which differs from some other types of pop music.

6). Nuance - There aren't too many, but the chorus of the song almost always has multiple vocals and choruses of shouts are also extremely common. Also there is a fair amount of call and response between various members of the group.

Overall J-pop isn't too different from other types of pop music except that it is generally more happy, the types of synths are older sounding and solos/instrumental sections aren't uncommon. I'm sure there weren't too many people asking for a J-pop break down, so next time I'll do a style of music that is a little more familiar.