mDecks. Learn Music, Challenge your Mind

2011-12-10T05:38:00.001-08:00

Reconstructing Beethoven's Für Elise
25 Studies on Beethoven's Bagatelle in A minor.
mDecks Focus Series

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Learn or Teach how to play
Fur Elise in 25 easy studies.

Für Elise, one of the most famous solo piano compositions in music history, written by composer Ludwig van Beethoven which still inspires millions of people to take up the piano, is now available as part of our Focus Series, a practical approach to learning and teaching Beethoven's Fur Elise.
Reconstructing Beethoven’s Für Elise consists of 25 studies that’ll help you attain the theoretical and technical skills to perform the famous Fur Elise, a bagatelle in A minor by L.van Beethoven.
Each study was designed to practice, understand and conquer a specific passage of the piece.
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Included in this book:
Form analysis- An explanation and analysis of the piece's form and structure.
25 Studies - Meter studies over 3/8 (key signature of the piece). A minor Studies (scales, harmonic progressions). Preparation studies (preparing elements from the bagatelle such as theme, accompaniment, anacrusis, arpeggios technique, pedal technique and more)

Original Score and Bagatelle Variation - At the end of the book, you will find Beethoven's original version and a new alternative version, entirely based on the original composition, form and structure, a "What-if-Beethoven-whould-have...?" version.

Listen to the Bagatelle Variation:
"Not For Elise" from not L.V.B.

About the Focus series
The books in this series consist of a set of studies created to develop the fundamental, technical and theoretical skills to conquer a specific piece, or group of pieces, targeting all challenges involved in said piece, using a practical approach.
In each of these books, the student will learn about the composer's approach to composition, harmonic language, and the process used by said composer to write the piece under study.

2011-11-02T15:34:00.000-07:00

mDecks Music. UST Jazz Piano Voicings<style type="text/css" media="screen">body{margin:0;padding:0}img.left { float: left; margin: 8px 20px 0px 0px; border: 2px solid #434343; }#saamsg{text-align:center;background:#333;color:#fff;font-family:Verdana,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;padding:1em}#saacontent{background:#fff;color:#000;padding:20px}#saamsg img{border:0;}#saamsg a{color:#5F8AFF;font-weight:bold}#saamsg a:hover, #saamsg a:active, #saamsg a:focus{color:#cc003e}#saamsg p, #saamsg ul, #saamsg ol, #saamsg table{line-height:1.5em;margin:0 0 1.125em 0}#saamsg ul ul, #saamsg ul ol, #saamsg ol ul, #saamsg ol ol{margin-bottom:0}#saamsg ul ul, #saamsg ul ol, #saamsg ol ul, #saamsg ol ol{margin-bottom:0}#saamsg table{border:1px solid #888;border-collapse:collapse;width:100%}#saamsg td{border:1px solid #888;padding:5px}#saamsg h1{margin:0 0 0.75em 0;line-height:1em;font-size:2em;font-weight:bold}#saamsg h2{margin:1em 0 0.75em 0;line-height:1em;font-size:1.5em;font-weight:bold}#saamsg h3{margin:1.25em 0 0.9375em 0;line-height:1.25em;font-size:1.2em;font-weight:bold}#saamsg h4{margin:0;line-height:1.5em;font-size:1em;font-weight:bold}#saamsg h1 a, #saamsg h2 a, #saamsg h3 a, #saamsg h4 a{text-decoration: none}#saamsg h1 a:hover, #saamsg h1 a:active, #saamsg h1 a:focus,#saamsg h2 a:hover, #saamsg h2 a:active, #saamsg h2 a:focus,#saamsg h3 a:hover, #saamsg h3 a:active, #saamsg h3 a:focus,#saamsg h4 a:hover, #saamsg h4 a:active, #saamsg h4 a:focus {text-decoration: underline}#saamsg ul, #saamsg ol{padding:0 0 0 3em}#saamsg hr{height:1px;border:0;border-bottom:1px dotted #888;margin:1.5em 0;clear:both}#saaheader img{vertical-align:bottom}</style><title>mDecks Music
Upper Structure Triads Jazz Piano Chord Voicings.
For the jazz piano player, chord voicings is an essential skill, not only for comping (accompanying or laying the chord progression for other players to improvise in) but also to use those voicings as an improvisational aid. All piano players get many melodic ideas or lines from their voicings. There are many ways of practicing and developing a Jazz voicing language.
UST Jazz Piano Chord Voicings Collection
Complete Practice Method for the Jazz Piano Player. mDecks Series

VOL. 1
INDIVIDUAL UPPER STRUCTURE
TRIADS over IIm7 and V7.
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VOL. 2 TO 9 COMPACT
All possible UPPER STRUCTURE
TRIADS in a IIm7 - V7 progression
(One exercise in twelve keys for each combination) 138 pages.
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VOL. 2 TO 9 EXTENDED
All possible UPPER STRUCTURE
TRIADS in a IIm7 - V7 progression
(Exercises for each and every key in all inversions) 630 pages.
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What's in the collection
This UST Jazz Piano Chord Voicing Collection is a complete method to study and learn ALL POSSIBLE Upper Structure Triads Voicings over the IIm7 and V7 individually and in the progression IIm7-V7.

Practicing with the books in this collection
Each exercise targets a specific upper structure triad or a progression using USTs and is introduced by a graph of the UST (or pair of USTs in the case of a IIm-V7 progression) with all its properties (Tensions, Chord Tones, suggested mental picture and other info).
A log is included which permit the students to organize their practice routine in blocks of 2 weeks. Student should write the starting day for that block and keep track of their practice on that topic every day. At the end of the block the student should write comments, end date and rate the UST voicing for later use and review.
EXAMPLE OF "BLUE IN GREEN"REHARM USING UST JAZZ VOICINGS

Decoding the Circle of Vths
All possible triads were found and studied using the Decoding the Circle of Fifths Chart/System. You can find out more about this system following this link: Decoding the Circle of Fifths.

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2010-11-06T19:58:00.000-07:00

Every time you hear or play a note you need to know/feel where that pitch lies relatively to the current key/mode or pole to understand what's going on and where it wants to go next.

I teach all my students ear training which is a invaluable skill to have.

For beginners I like to teach only intervals and how the sound, disregarding key. It is the first step before they can tell relationships inside a key/mode. And I don't use programs, just audio tracks so they can listen to them on their ipods, ipads or car without the need of a computer at hand, while they run or drive or whatever.

Here's a link to the Interval Trainer Vol. I
mdecks.com/intervals1.html

Major Pentatonic in Melodic Minor

2010-05-05T16:54:00.000-07:00

Is there a major pentatonic that can be used in Melodic Minor?

Using mCircle software: enter Melodic Minor as Main Structure and Major Pentatonic in Sub-Structure

Answer: Yes, and it is on the IV degree of the Melodic Minor.

How to remove duplicates from your iTunes Library

2009-12-09T11:05:00.000-08:00

If you have thousands of songs, you probably have lots of duplicate tracks in your iTunes library.
You might wonder... how did that happend?
Well... may be you've imported the same CD twice, or you converted some files from aiff into mp3 to put into your ipod, or you downloaded the same songs from different sources, or... who knows.

Duplicate tracks can take several gigs of space in your hard drive and make your iTunes library's performance slow down quite noticeable.

Duplicates in iTunes are easy to find. Here's how:
Open iTunes (9.0 or later) and under the File menu you will find the item: Show Duplicates. As an extra feature if you shfit+click on the File Menu (in Windows or you click on the File Menu and then you hit the option key on Mac) the same item changes to: Show Exact Duplicates, which is an excellent feature since duplicate track names doesn't always imply duplicate versions of a song (i.e. a live version and a studio version, etc).

Duplicate tracks are not the problem, though. It's the duplicate files that are taking lots of disk space. Removing duplicate tracks from the disk could save you several gigs of space. If you run the "Show Exact Duplicates" you will get a list of all the tracks that are duplicated in your library therefore: if you delete all the tracks on that list you will get rid of all the tracks! You will not have any versions left!

A manual solution #1: is to choose one by one which one of the duplicates you want to keep, (for example keeping the high quality versions such as aiff and deleting the mp3 versions, or the opposite to save even more space) and delete the rest. For some itunes users with 5000+ duplicates this task could take several days! also taking the risk of deleting a wrong version or even worse, all of the versions.

A manual solution #2: you can highlight all the tracks in your library and drag them from iTunes to a new folder on your drive, which will make a copy of the library without duplicates. Then you can delete all the tracks from the library and you hard drive. Then import the folder back into iTunes. You will need of course, double the amount of space while you do this and you will not be able to make a decision in which files to keep.

mDecks's mDelDupFile for iTunes is a faster and easier approach to eliminate your duplicate tracks and files in your iTunes library without the need for additional space or hours of work and the best feature...
No new application is needed !

Here's how to get your mDelDupFile:
1.Export your Show Exact Duplicates list as a plain text file.
2.Goto our mDelDupFile page and specify your decision criteria in selecting which files to keep.
3. Download your personalized mDelDupFile ( instantly available ) and run it. Your iTunes library and your drive will be now clean.

Upper Structures.... Triads?

2009-11-15T11:02:00.000-08:00

If you've never heard the term UST (upper strucure triads) you probably wouldn't want to read this piece unless your current playing/reading level is intermediate to advanced, in which case: you should read it.

USTs is a great device for improvising and comping. UST is short for Upper Structure Triad which in a few words is a triadic structure that is a subset (substructure) of the "current structure". USTs work really well in any song and/or style but they're not the only structures that can be superimposed against others. In fact, as we will see later, any structure that is a subset of the current structure can be successfully superimposed.

What is a structure? A structure is any collection of pitches. No rules will be imposed to these collections. Any collection is valid. Any subset of that collection is a substructure of that main or source structure.

e.g. The C major scale is a collection of pitches => it's a structure. The notes C-D-F-B are a subset of the C major scales => that set is a substructure of the C major Scale. C-E-G is another subset of the C major scale and is also a triad => it's a triadic substructure of the C major scale.

How do you use these substructures? Actually, it is very simple:
Choose a substructure of the "current structure" and improvise or comp with it.

It sounds easy but: How do you know which one is the "current structure"? and how do you choose a substructure? These are not easy questions to tackle. There are so many factors to account for regarding these matters that the answers to these questions are almost subjective.

Determining the "Current Structure"
In order to find the current structure, one must be able to analyze the harmonic progression of the piece. Assuming the piece is tonal/functional, the analysis should be pretty easy to realize (if you know tonal harmony theory)

In functional harmony every chord has a function which implies a scale that fits best.
For example:
1. The I chord in a major tonal key takes Ionian, since I is always associated to the Ionian scale. In this case Ionian is your "current structure".

2. The V7/ii chord in a major key takes Mixolydian b13, since a V is always asscociated to some form of the Mixolydian scale. In this case, the V7/ii is a dominant of a minor chord that takes Dorian, therefore the 3rd of that chord is minor and the 6th is major which superimposed with the V7/ii chord gives us a 9 an 11 and a b13 => Mixo b13.
Here's an example in C: The ii is D minor which takes Dorian. The V/ii is an A7 chord.
If we look at A7 mixo (A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G) we have A C# E G (1-3-5-b7) as chord tones and B D F# as tensions (or extensions of the chord 9-11-13). Only two of the notes are not in D Dorian: C# and F#. We must keep all chord tones to have an A7 chord, therefore we can't change C# to C, but we can change F# to F (which gives us Mixo b13) and fits D Dorian best.

As you can see it is not too hard to find the associated scale (the "current structure") for a certain function (if you know your harmony and your modes).

Choosing a substructure of the current structure
It's all subjective. Any subset of the current structure is available.
How do you choose?... You use your ears and your taste. Every structure (or substructure) has a color (a sound) produced by the combination of note-intervals embedded in it.
For example: the structure C E (2 note structure) is only an interval of a major 3rd (or 2 if you consider the inversion E to C which is a minor 6th) when played it gives us a color.

Why are triads so often used?... Triads have a very distinct color (sound) that has been invading our ears all our lives, therefore they are recognizable entities even against other structures. We can always tell them apart because we have unconsciously trained our ears to feel at home with them.

Music = B ( Repetition vs. Variation, Culture)

2008-11-19T09:12:00.000-08:00

Music is a language where all concepts and thoughts are abstract, where semantics can be re-formulated in each work and statements are made, (using an external device, aka "musical instrument"), embedded in an imaginary grid of Time. This environment of non predefine words or meanings, makes the communication of clear ideas a tricky endeavor, and at the same time gives music the power to express emotions like no other language.

How do we justify the presence of an element in a musical phrase? Why is the ending of a certain phrase the logical conclusion to its antecedent? In other words:
What makes a musical statement valid?

There is no simple answer to this question. ...maybe there is no answer. In the end this is all very subjective. Nevertheless music must follow certain universal rules since it's meant to be interpreted and understood by us: humans and ergo by our brains (or should we say: our minds). Music must talk to us in a way that our embedded language system can understand and process.

One of the key rules music must obey is, what we could call, a "pattern-predictability" rule.
Our minds are always looking for patterns, always trying to predict outcomes, to anticipate what's next. When we listen, we use time as a grid to discern between chaos and patterns.

A metronome at 60 will click every second and, after listening to it just a couple of times, we are able to predict when the next click will come. We interpret that as a beat, probably the most simple pattern there is. Now... Is that music? Probably not. The lack of variation is what makes it not musical. If, at least, the timbre of the click would have changed over time, or some of the beats went missing at a set amount of clicks; then we would have been closer to some kind of musical statement.

That balance between repetition and variation (new information) is what turns sound into music. Too much repetition is too predictable, too monotonous, it is just sound that comes at regular intervals. Too much new information (variation) is chaos. When composing or improvising, we must always remember that's the game we're playing.

A great musician is a master of balance, of equilibrium, he/she knows when to add something new, when to create tension, and when to give us the predictable and let us feel at home.

But that's not the end of it. There's an almost unsolvable problem in all this argument: us. The Audience. The Listener. Who is 'us'? There's one more variable we need to take into account:
Culture, because, unfortunately, what's repetition to me it is not always repetition to someone else, in fact it might be chaos. And then comes the famous quote: "That's not music! It is just noise"

So we must add that parameter to our equation:
Music = Balance (Repetition vs. Variation, Culture)

While writing about this, I've been listening to Mozart, The Beatles, John Coltrane, Keith Jarret (and many more...) and I must add something to my previous statement:

A great musician is a master of balance, of equilibrium, he/she knows when to add something new, when to create tension, and when to give us the predictable and let us feel at home. A master musician is one that makes Culture minimal in the equation of Music.

mDecks

The raised 5th assumption.

2008-11-18T07:19:00.000-08:00

What would you assume if a raised 5th degree of the key signature's corresponding major key, appears in the first few measures of a tonal piece?

Examples:
Key Signature: 0 flats, 0 sharps. Key Signature for C major. The raised 5th is G#.
Key Signature: 2 sharps. Key Signature for D major. The raised 5th is A#.
Key Signature: 3 flats . Key Signature for Eb major. The raised 5th is B natural.

In fact there's quite a few assumptions you can make. But based on the style and period of the piece (of course composer too) we can prioritize as follows:

1. We are on the relative minor key.
Explanation. The relative minor shares the same key signature as its relative major, but still needs it 7th degree raised to create the harmonic tension of the V (dominant)
Verification: Checking the first and last notes of the piece, for the relative minor chord, will probably tell us if this is true.

2. A strong vi chord is being targeted.
Explanation: In this case we would be in a major key (C). The raised 5th of that key (G#) is the 7th degree of the vi chord (Aminor) which is the 3rd of the V7/vi (see Why is there an F# on C major? post)
Verification. Checking the first and last notes of the piece, for the major chord(C) and verifiying that the chord used under the raised 5th (G#) is the V7/vi (E7) and that the chord after that is the vi (Aminor).

3. The note is part of a line cliche.
Explanation. It is very common to used a harmonic progression with alterations of the I chord.
I - I+ - I6 (sometimes keeps going - Ib7 - I7..)
Verification: Checking the chord below the raised 5th degree is still the I, and the raised 5th is a passing tone between 5 and 6.

mDecks

Why is the smallest 2nd, that can be written, negative?

2008-11-18T06:19:00.000-08:00

If we are to write two notes a 2nd apart, we need to use 2 consecutive letters of the alphabet (such as AtoB or EtoF) or GtoA (note names repeat after G)

The smallest 2nds are then B-C and E-F, being both 1/2 steps apart. And they're minor 2nds.

Now if we use flats and sharps we can make those 2nds even smaller and they will still be 2nds

So B#-C and B-Cb are 2nds and there notes are cero steps apart (B# is enharmonic for C, and Cb is enharmonic for B).

Now if we use both alterations at the same time we have:
B#-Cb which are -1 half step apart. (minus 1 half step , that's a negative number!)

mDecks

Talking Intervals: Why is 2+2=3 ?

2008-11-17T15:40:00.000-08:00

An interval of a second (2nd) is the distance between 2 notes which names are in alphabetical order (A-B, B-C, C-D, D-E, E-F, F-G) and G-A, regardless of their alteration (sharp, natural or flat).

If the distance between the two notes if a step (2 half steps) then the 2nd is clasified as Major.
C-D, B-C#, Bb-C are all major 2nds.

It he distance is a half step then it's a Minor 2nd.
B-C, C#-D, E-F are all minor 2nds.

If the distance is 1 and 1/2 step then it's an Augmented 2nd.
Bb-C#, Gb-A, Db-E# are all augmented 2nds.

If the distance is cero step then it's a Diminished 2nd.
B#-C, G#-Ab, D#-Eb are all diminished 2nds.

What about Gb-A#? That's 2 steps (1/2 step bigger than an Augmented)
It is called a double-augmented 2nd.

As you can see being a 2nd does not tell us much regarding distance between notes, but just distance between names of notes.

But, why is 2+2=3?
When we stack two 2nds, one on top of each other, we get a 3rd. (C-D + D-E = C-E)

Well.. We shouldn't be counting D twice, should we? (CDDE is actually CDE or C-E)

mDecks

Why is there an F# on C major?

2008-11-16T18:39:00.000-08:00

C major is the key with no sharps or flats.
So why is there an f# on almost every piece in C major?

Well, the answer is in the piece's harmonic progression.

For a piece to be in C major, we need the C major chord to be the I. The I only feel as a I if there's a V7 before it (G7) and if we have the 7th degree moving to that 1st degree (B -->C). That G7 makes the C major stronger when it resolves to it.

But how do you make the V7 (G7) stronger? You use the V7 of that V7 (V7/V). In this case you use the V7 of G, and that's D7.

D7 has an F# in the triad (the 3rd of D) (F#--> G works as the 7th degree going to 1st)

And there's your F# on C. Every time (almost every time, we should say) you see an F# on a C major piece, the harmonic progression is going through the V7/V (that's D7). So look for the D, the A and the C in the rest of the harmony and you'll probably find them (D7 = D F# A C).

Ok... Why is there also a C# on C major then???

mDecks