British Comedy Guide

Four Chords, 36 Songs Page 4

Quote: Seefacts @ February 5 2009, 10:42 PM GMT

As someone who's learning to play the piano and has been for 3 years

How are you getting on?

Quote: Moonstone @ February 5 2009, 11:20 PM GMT

How are you getting on?

Not as well as I'd like.

I don't practice as much as I should. I'm about to take my grade TWO exam! Get me.

This year I've told myself to get my arse in gear.

I can't read music and understand the basics, but I want to know more. I'd love to do a music degree actually . . .

Quote: Seefacts @ February 5 2009, 11:25 PM GMT

Not as well as I'd like.

I don't practice as much as I should. I'm about to take my grade TWO exam! Get me.

This year I've told myself to get my arse in gear.

I can't read music and understand the basics, but I want to know more. I'd love to do a music degree actually . . .

At least you're sticking with it. That's the problem a lot of people have is they want to be able to play NOW and can't be arsed with the learning bit.

It's a great thing to be able to do though. And best of luck with the exam, it's f**king hard to play when you know you're being graded for it but after that grade 3 and you're really starting to go for it!

Quote: Moonstone @ February 5 2009, 11:33 PM GMT

At least you're sticking with it. That's the problem a lot of people have is they want to be able to play NOW and can't be arsed with the learning bit.

It's a great thing to be able to do though. And best of luck with the exam, it's f**king hard to play when you know you're being graded for it but after that grade 3 and you're really starting to go for it!

Do you play at all?

I found it was a slog at first, but with the basics under my belt I can enjoy it a lot more. And just get some chords for songs I like and bash them out, which is fun.

Quote: Seefacts @ February 5 2009, 11:45 PM GMT

Do you play at all?

I found it was a slog at first, but with the basics under my belt I can enjoy it a lot more. And just get some chords for songs I like and bash them out, which is fun.

Yeah that's half the battle learning all the scales and shit, but as you say it's well worth it when you've got it out the way and start finding stuff easier to play cos it makes a lot more sense.

I stopped at grade five but I've carried on since then so I'll be above that by now. I don't have a piano any more though cos my flat's not big enough, so just a keyboard but it does the job (give or take a few octaves!).
Love love love to play Moonlight Sonata when I'm depressed, speciality piece is Bach's Badinerie though, cos it's ace and sounds posy :D (for me anyway).

Are you learning classical then or more modern stuff?

Quote: Moonstone @ February 5 2009, 11:53 PM GMT

Yeah that's half the battle learning all the scales and shit, but as you say it's well worth it when you've got it out the way and start finding stuff easier to play cos it makes a lot more sense.

I stopped at grade five but I've carried on since then so I'll be above that by now. I don't have a piano any more though cos my flat's not big enough, so just a keyboard but it does the job (give or take a few octaves!).
Love love love to play Moonlight Sonata when I'm depressed, speciality piece is Bach's Badinerie though, cos it's ace and sounds posy :D (for me anyway).

Are you learning classical then or more modern stuff?

Classical really. Whatever is in the ABRSM syllabus.

I passed my grade 1 last year but am struggling to sight read. I'm cross with myself for not putting the work in really.

Eventually I want to play both popular and classical stuff. It's be nice to get into classical properly.

I'd like to try a bit of blues too.

Did you do any extra stuff yourself? Reading books on musical theory and what have you? And how much practice did you put in?

Howe old are you actually and how long you been playing?

Annnnnnnnd . . . No more questions!!

:D

Quote: Griff @ February 6 2009, 12:10 AM GMT

I did up to grade six as a kid. Piano was something my parents initially pushed me into, but I eventually started enjoying it for myself, once I could sit down and play music that I actually liked.

Then I got to about sixteen, started learning rock guitar, and was tempted to drop the piano altogether because electric guitars were way cooler. However just at that time, I got involved in a whole bunch of blues and jazz things at school and elsewhere. Some really great teachers, including a guy called Digby Fairweather who is a well-known jazz trumpeter as well as a music teacher, started explaining to me about how to improvise with other musicians, and all about how jazz and blues music "worked" and it was at THAT stage that the lightbulb flashed on over my head and it all made sense, and I started getting into music of all kinds with a passion.

I've been involved with music ever since in some way, from playing in rock bands in my teens/twenties, to playing jazz piano in a restaurant for a while (that was SO much fun), to doing "theatre" music like organising bands for am-dram, pantomimes and revue/sketch shows. I think 2009 will be the first year for a long time that I don't do any music projects. Although my wife (a great singer) is talking about doing a set of vintage French songs, so maybe we'll do that.

Er, I didn't ask YOU, Griff :P

Seriously though, it's the mechanics I really want to be able to know about, not just reading music and playing a tune.

But I just haven't invested enough time so far. I really need to rectify that.

In terms of knowledge, I think I lack any any, for example, chord progressions. I'd struggle to sting some chords together than sounded nice.

I really need to start teaching myself extra stuff from books.

Quote: Griff @ February 6 2009, 12:18 AM GMT

Well, jazz was the key to unlocking music for me. Everything else was "playing by rote" up until that point. But with jazz, suddenly you have to seriously think on your feet. Do a couple more grades and then go on a jazz course. Even if you don't much like jazz music, it's all about chord progressions and stuff.

Also, learning a second instrument helps amazingly.

I've got a guitar but beyond about 5 chords I know very little.

Quote: Seefacts @ February 5 2009, 11:59 PM GMT

I passed my grade 1 last year but am struggling to sight read. I'm cross with myself for not putting the work in really.

I found that to one of the toughest things to learn if I'm honest.

Eventually I want to play both popular and classical stuff. It's be nice to get into classical properly.

I think it makes you see it in a whole different light, for loads of reasons. Listening to it is fine but when you're actually expressing it yourself it makes the world of difference, I'd really give it a go.

I'd like to try a bit of blues too.

Do you know the blues scale? Play anything in that and it will sound ace! Agree with you on that one!

Did you do any extra stuff yourself? Reading books on musical theory and what have you?

I didn't read any books but I always liked to attempt pieces that were too advanced for me just to push myself and because I wanted to be better quickly. It meant learning some pieces very slowly but I don't regret doing it because I really believe it benefitted me in the long run. A few bad habits did creep in though :$

And how much practice did you put in?
Howe old are you actually and how long you been playing?

I'm 32 and I've been playing since age 12. Regularly for the first four years then after 16 I was more interested in getting pissed and going out to the youth club where the girls were! So very sporadic after that, I just forgot about it for a while and kept going back when I felt the urge. I'd guess that's kind of what you're doing now?

Annnnnnnnd . . . No more questions!!

:D

:D
Haha, no problem. Anything you want to know just ask. It's interesting for me anyway, nice conversation.

Quote: Griff @ February 6 2009, 12:18 AM GMT

Well, jazz was the key to unlocking music for me. Everything else was "playing by rote" up until that point. But with jazz, suddenly you have to seriously think on your feet. Do a couple more grades and then go on a jazz course. Even if you don't much like jazz music, it's all about the chord progressions and stuff.

Or ragtime man! :D Joplin is ace. I struggle a bit with the Entertainer though cos my hand span is so stupidly tiny.

Also, learning a second instrument helps amazingly.

When you know one, the rest are a breeze! Kind of. Well, a bit!

I'm totally with Dolly on this debate. That doesn't mean "knowing about music is bad", rather that "feeling music" is better. I'm afraid there are no wankier words in which to say it.

Proof? You want proof?

McCartney. In the mid-sixties, at the age of 23-25, he wrote things like "Yesterday", "For No One", "Here There and Everywhere" and - if you want orchestral stuff - the soundtrack to "The Family Way". As far as I understand it, pretty much all of this was composed on acoustic guitar with chords he picked up by listening to Chuck Berry et al, or by humming bits to George Martin who managed to put it into a form the orchestra could play.

In the 80s and beyond, when he had learned more about the structure of music, he wrote "The Frog Chorus".

Quote: Griff @ February 6 2009, 12:41 AM GMT

Well let's turn that argument on its head and point out that David Bowie's earliest composition was "The Laughing Gnome" rather than "Heroes" or "Life On Mars"...??

So whenever a muso assists, the genius is better? Probably true. But the genius is still the genius, and the muso is still the muso.

Wow the most contentious debate on BSG is about a subject I couldn't give a fig about. As I am virtually tone deaf.
Hooray never have I been gladder to have awful taste in music, I shall now dig out my Scissor Sister's album.

Just one point for Dolly. I used to feel the same, when studying a piece of music, that analyzing it too much would somehow demystify it, take the magic away. Over analysis leads to paralysis...

What actually tends to happen is, once you begin to understand how it works, you also start discovering new things about the piece that you didn't know before. "New stuff" starts to enter your consciousness.

Think of it as concentric circles. There's stuff you're familiar with in your inner circle, whereas the stuff on the outside is peripheral, and therefore puzzling.

As you increase your knowledge, the circles expand outwards. So, as what was on the edge suddenly becomes clearer, the whole thing expands outwards and you start to discover new elements that you'd never considered before. And then they become familiar, and so on. It's true even for the simplest piece of music.

It's never a bad thing to do this, because you're always learning more. Music analysis and theory is all about explaining "why". Unless you take the view that it's all just chemical reactions in the brain and emotion isn't real anyway, just a scientific thing; in which case you're probably too cold a fish to be a real musician.

Sure if you're a R & B guitarist who prefers to use simple chords you don't want to be bothered with 11ths or 13ths. But that's up to you. You do have a choice.

Analysis is part of the study process. Not the performance itself, though you can analyze your performance afterwards.

Badge - you can be a genius and a muso. Don't be dogmatic.

Yes Griff, but it's the same argument about "funny bones" isn't it? Tommy Cooper and Eric Morecambe never went to the BBC College of Comedy, and for good reason. There's a lot to celebrate in natural talent, but I doubt those natural talents would disagree with anyone spelling out the building blocks more scientifically.

Quote: sootyj @ February 6 2009, 12:51 AM GMT

Wow the most contentious debate on BSG is about a subject I couldn't give a fig about. As I am virtually tone deaf.
Hooray never have I been gladder to have awful taste in music, I shall now dig out my Scissor Sister's album.

Take Your Mamma Out is ace!

Share this page