Homework #4
Answer the following questions:
1. When you create a new track in Garageband what is the first thing you must do?
2. In Garageband where are the transport controls located?
3. What's that clicking sound I hear when I'm trying to record?
4. After you've created a track how can you change the tempo?
Homework #5
Answer the following questions:
1. How do you get the loop cursor for a single track?
2. What does the solo icon look like?
3. What do you have to do to play the keyboard with your computer keys?
4. How do you save your track in iTunes?
Homework #6
Answer the following questions:
1. How can you put loops in your favorites folder?
2. Where is the zoom control located?
3. How can you add a vocal track in Garageband?
4. What is feedback in Garageband?
EMAIL ME: albertwestside@gmail.com
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Homework 2013-2014 C2 #1-3
Homework #1
Answer the following questions about songwriting:
1. What are some ways songwriters get their inspiration?
2. What is the most popular kind of song throughout history?
3. Why are lyrics important in songwriting?
4.What is the standard format for blues lyrics?
Homework #2
Answer the following questions about the 10 Step Songwriting Process:
1. What is the first thing you must do in this process?
2. What kind of descriptions do you need to include?
3. What kind of words do you need to make the song interesting?
4. What kind of details do you need to toggle?
Homework #3
Answer the following questions about the Girl Group/Brill Building Era:
1. What was the Brill Building?
2. What were some factors that gave rise to the girl groups?
3. What was one thing that all the girl groups had in common?
4. When was the girl group era?
email me: albertwestside@gmail.com
Answer the following questions about songwriting:
1. What are some ways songwriters get their inspiration?
2. What is the most popular kind of song throughout history?
3. Why are lyrics important in songwriting?
4.What is the standard format for blues lyrics?
Homework #2
Answer the following questions about the 10 Step Songwriting Process:
1. What is the first thing you must do in this process?
2. What kind of descriptions do you need to include?
3. What kind of words do you need to make the song interesting?
4. What kind of details do you need to toggle?
Homework #3
Answer the following questions about the Girl Group/Brill Building Era:
1. What was the Brill Building?
2. What were some factors that gave rise to the girl groups?
3. What was one thing that all the girl groups had in common?
4. When was the girl group era?
email me: albertwestside@gmail.com
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
10 Step Songwriting Process by Andrea Stolpe
This is a great article on a cool songwriting technique.
THE 10-STEP PROCESS TO SONGWRITING
FROM COMMERCIAL SONGWRITING TECHNIQUES
BY ANDREA STOLPE
Andrea Stolpe has collaborated with great artists such as Mike Reid, Don Schlitz, and Stephen Robson, and penned songs for pop and country artists including Faith Hill, Steve Azar, Josh Gracin, Shonagh Daly and Daniel Lee Martin.
THE 10-STEP PROCESS TO SONGWRITING
FROM COMMERCIAL SONGWRITING TECHNIQUES
BY ANDREA STOLPE
Andrea Stolpe has collaborated with great artists such as Mike Reid, Don Schlitz, and Stephen Robson, and penned songs for pop and country artists including Faith Hill, Steve Azar, Josh Gracin, Shonagh Daly and Daniel Lee Martin.
Effective songs paint rich images for the listener. Imagine that your songs are paintings. Are you the proud creator of stick figures scrawled across construction paper, or does your palette of texture, color, and light capture the desires and deepest wan- derings of those gazing upon it?
To ensure that the latter is the case, you can use a writing process called destination writing. In destination writing, we begin with one key word—a place—as the momentum for your song content. The key to destination writing is to use all of your senses—touch, taste, smell, sight, sound, and also movement—as springboards for creativity. When those senses are involved, the writing springs to life.
SIX KEYS OF CONNECTION:
1. touch
2. taste
3. sight
4. smell
5. sound
6. movement
The connection that your audience makes with your lyrics depends on the power of this one key word. But how do we build that connection with the audience? By illustrating our piece through specifics and actions. We immediately know the meanings of words like ‘walk’ and ‘say’. But these words are generic and will not engage any audience by themselves. But there are dynamic alternatives. Consider the sentence below.
1. touch
2. taste
3. sight
4. smell
5. sound
6. movement
The connection that your audience makes with your lyrics depends on the power of this one key word. But how do we build that connection with the audience? By illustrating our piece through specifics and actions. We immediately know the meanings of words like ‘walk’ and ‘say’. But these words are generic and will not engage any audience by themselves. But there are dynamic alternatives. Consider the sentence below.
And I was saying
We know what’s being said, but it doesn’t mean anything.
And I was stuttering And I was stammering And I was blurting out
All of these phrases swapped out the boring ‘say’ with verbs that are emotionally charged. Verbs and adjectives like these that will keep your audience’s attention.
Once you’ve got a handle on what words will draw your audience, it is time to craft a compelling narrative. Any destination writing will consist of two types of detail: external and internal. Assume that your song is centered on a primary character. The external details will be what happens around your character and the internal details will be their thoughts and feelings. Any good song will be a mix of both. Toggling, or the art of combining internal and external detail, is integral to providing balance in your lyrics. Too much internal detail and your song from will be weighed down by the thoughts of the characters. Too much external and the audience will have nothing personal to identify with.
So how are our words going to work with the music? How we expect the melody to move is going to influence how the lyrics move as well. Every new melodic idea presented in a song – a movement from the verse to the pre-chorus, for example – will go hand in hand with a new lyrical idea. I’m sure you’re familiar with “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
Mary had a little lamb
Whose fleece was white as snow Everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go
These fours lines contain two musical and two lyrical phrases (“Mary had... white as snow” and “Everywhere...lamb was sure to go.”). But this isn’t the only way to attack these four lines. We could have kept describing the various attributes of Mary’s little lamb over all four lines. In that case, we would continue the same melodic idea for the entire verse. We could also change ideas with each new line if we have a new melodic idea to accompany these ideas.
The melodic phrasing determines not only where the topics begin and end but also where a rhyme might occur. For ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb,” the rhyme was occurring between the two large musical phrases.
Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow A
And Everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go A
If the four lines were all representing four smaller melodic phrases, the rhyme scheme might look more like this. Note that wherever the melodic phrase closes, rhyme occurs.
Mary had a little lamb A
and Mary had a pony too B
the sun was rising on the land A
and May was slipping into June B
Once you have your primary lyrical sections in place and developed, it is time to contrast. Imagine if every section of a song had the same number of lines, the same rhyme scheme, the same rhythm and the same toggling pattern. Sounds boring. By changing up the rhyme scheme, changing the rhythm, adding or subtracting lines, and altering the toggling pattern, a songwriter can keep things interesting over the course of their work.
Just from these short exercises, it’s clear to see that the process of commercial songwriting is based on a number of patterns. These patterns make up the content of hit songs and these are patterns that a songwriter can reproduce while still maintaining a unique voice. Knowing these patterns is critical to the success of both beginners and experienced writers. With this in mind, the best way I’ve found to approach commercial songwriting is through something I call “The 10-Step Process.”
THE 10-STEP PROCESS.
Step 1: Destination-write.
Step 2: Find rhyme pairs.
and Mary had a pony too B
the sun was rising on the land A
and May was slipping into June B
Once you have your primary lyrical sections in place and developed, it is time to contrast. Imagine if every section of a song had the same number of lines, the same rhyme scheme, the same rhythm and the same toggling pattern. Sounds boring. By changing up the rhyme scheme, changing the rhythm, adding or subtracting lines, and altering the toggling pattern, a songwriter can keep things interesting over the course of their work.
Just from these short exercises, it’s clear to see that the process of commercial songwriting is based on a number of patterns. These patterns make up the content of hit songs and these are patterns that a songwriter can reproduce while still maintaining a unique voice. Knowing these patterns is critical to the success of both beginners and experienced writers. With this in mind, the best way I’ve found to approach commercial songwriting is through something I call “The 10-Step Process.”
THE 10-STEP PROCESS.
Step 1: Destination-write.
Step 2: Find rhyme pairs.
Step 3: Choose a rhyme scheme and
toggling pattern.
Step 4: Add prepositions and conjunctions.
Step 5: Choose a plot progression.
Step 6: Destination-write again using thought/feeling language.
Step 7: Look for titles and write the chorus.
Step 8: Write a second verse and pre-chorus.
Step 9: Write the bridge.
Step 10: Assess verbs, tense, and point of view, and conversational quality.
By utilizing all of these steps, you’ll be able to craft commercially viable songs with ease. You’ll notice that I didn’t go over every step in the process. It wouldn’t make much sense, commercially speaking, for me to share everything I know here, would it?
Step 4: Add prepositions and conjunctions.
Step 5: Choose a plot progression.
Step 6: Destination-write again using thought/feeling language.
Step 7: Look for titles and write the chorus.
Step 8: Write a second verse and pre-chorus.
Step 9: Write the bridge.
Step 10: Assess verbs, tense, and point of view, and conversational quality.
By utilizing all of these steps, you’ll be able to craft commercially viable songs with ease. You’ll notice that I didn’t go over every step in the process. It wouldn’t make much sense, commercially speaking, for me to share everything I know here, would it?
Monday, November 3, 2014
Homework 2014-2015 C1 #19-21
Homework #19
Answer the following questions about the History of the Electric Guitar Lesson:
1. When did people start trying to amplify their guitars?
2. What were some problems with amplified acoustic guitars?
3. What was the first truly electric guitar called?
4. Who were the first two people to invent the solid body electric guitar?
Homework #20
Answer the following questions about playing the piano:
1. Why do your wrists and arms need to be straight?
2. What are the black notes called?
3. What are the numbers of the fingers?
4. What note is the dividing line between G and A?
Homework #21
Answer the following questions about the songs we played last week:
1. What two keys does the right hand part of I Got a Feeling start with?
2. What position does the left hand have in I Got a Feeling?
3. What key is "Heart and Soul" in?
4. Who wrote "Heart and Soul" and when was it first a hit?
email me: albertwestside@gmail.com
Answer the following questions about the History of the Electric Guitar Lesson:
1. When did people start trying to amplify their guitars?
2. What were some problems with amplified acoustic guitars?
3. What was the first truly electric guitar called?
4. Who were the first two people to invent the solid body electric guitar?
Homework #20
Answer the following questions about playing the piano:
1. Why do your wrists and arms need to be straight?
2. What are the black notes called?
3. What are the numbers of the fingers?
4. What note is the dividing line between G and A?
Homework #21
Answer the following questions about the songs we played last week:
1. What two keys does the right hand part of I Got a Feeling start with?
2. What position does the left hand have in I Got a Feeling?
3. What key is "Heart and Soul" in?
4. Who wrote "Heart and Soul" and when was it first a hit?
email me: albertwestside@gmail.com
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Homework 2014-2015 C1 #16-18
Homework #16
Answer the following questions about the Country Blues Lesson:
1. Where did you start your road trip through the sharecropping south?
2. When did the great flood of 1927 start and how long did it last?
3. Why was the South so poor after the Civil War?
4. Why was Mississippi a good place for cotton?
Homework #17
Answer the following questions about drumming:
1. What kind of notes are counted 1and 2and 3and 4?
2. How do you count 16th notes?
3. What do you call a long series of patterns in drumming?
4.What is the symbol to repeat several bars?
Homework #18
Answer the following questions about the drumming in the movie "Drumline":
1. What did the drummers have to stabilize the drums when they marched?
2. What is the usual formation of the drum corps?
3. What was the point of the new drummers playing in the rain in the beginning of the movie?
4. Name 3 tricky moves that the drummers did in the final drum-off?
email me: albertwestside@gmail.com
Answer the following questions about the Country Blues Lesson:
1. Where did you start your road trip through the sharecropping south?
2. When did the great flood of 1927 start and how long did it last?
3. Why was the South so poor after the Civil War?
4. Why was Mississippi a good place for cotton?
Homework #17
Answer the following questions about drumming:
1. What kind of notes are counted 1and 2and 3and 4?
2. How do you count 16th notes?
3. What do you call a long series of patterns in drumming?
4.What is the symbol to repeat several bars?
Homework #18
Answer the following questions about the drumming in the movie "Drumline":
1. What did the drummers have to stabilize the drums when they marched?
2. What is the usual formation of the drum corps?
3. What was the point of the new drummers playing in the rain in the beginning of the movie?
4. Name 3 tricky moves that the drummers did in the final drum-off?
email me: albertwestside@gmail.com
Monday, October 20, 2014
Homework 2014-2015 C1 #13-15
Homework #13
Answer the following questions about drum rudiments:
1. Who invented drum rudiments?
2. What are the 5 kinds of rudiments?
3. How can you make them sound smooth?
4. How do you play a flam?
Homework #14
Answer the following about reading drum music:
1. What does the drum clef look like?
2. What do the two numbers of the time signature stand for?
3. What are the 3 visual components of an eighth note?
4. What is the purpose of rests?
Homework #15
Answer the following questions about the Country Blues lesson:
1. What does Amiri Baraka say in his quote?
2. What were some of the problems sharecroppers in the South have?
3. What did these problems have to do with the blues?
4. How do these songs relate to current day music?
email me: albertwestside@gmail.com
Answer the following questions about drum rudiments:
1. Who invented drum rudiments?
2. What are the 5 kinds of rudiments?
3. How can you make them sound smooth?
4. How do you play a flam?
Homework #14
Answer the following about reading drum music:
1. What does the drum clef look like?
2. What do the two numbers of the time signature stand for?
3. What are the 3 visual components of an eighth note?
4. What is the purpose of rests?
Homework #15
Answer the following questions about the Country Blues lesson:
1. What does Amiri Baraka say in his quote?
2. What were some of the problems sharecroppers in the South have?
3. What did these problems have to do with the blues?
4. How do these songs relate to current day music?
email me: albertwestside@gmail.com
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Homework 2014-2015 C1 #10-12
Homework #10
Answer the following questions about the guitar review:
1. What happens to all the other strings when you tune one string higher?
2. What do the guitar parts of I Got a Feeling and Use Somebody have in common?
3. Name 3 main differences between electric and acoustic guitars.
4. In TAB which guitar string does the bottom line represent?
Homework #11
Answer the following questions about the Drumline movie:
1. Do you think the movie was an accurate representation of college life?
2. Do you think the hazing of the freshmen was excessive?
3. What is unique about Devon's situation at the college?
4. How does the love interest play into the plot?
Homework #12
Answer the following questions about the history of rock:
1. Where did rock and roll come from?
2. What are Chuck Berry's contributions to the genre?
3. How old will Chuck Berry be on this October 18th?
4. What surprising thing did Chuck Berry do when he was 17?
email me: albertwestside@gmail.com
Answer the following questions about the guitar review:
1. What happens to all the other strings when you tune one string higher?
2. What do the guitar parts of I Got a Feeling and Use Somebody have in common?
3. Name 3 main differences between electric and acoustic guitars.
4. In TAB which guitar string does the bottom line represent?
Homework #11
Answer the following questions about the Drumline movie:
1. Do you think the movie was an accurate representation of college life?
2. Do you think the hazing of the freshmen was excessive?
3. What is unique about Devon's situation at the college?
4. How does the love interest play into the plot?
Homework #12
Answer the following questions about the history of rock:
1. Where did rock and roll come from?
2. What are Chuck Berry's contributions to the genre?
3. How old will Chuck Berry be on this October 18th?
4. What surprising thing did Chuck Berry do when he was 17?
email me: albertwestside@gmail.com
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