This is my Fifth and Final Blog Entry.

This is my fifth and final blog entry. I will be disusing the next parts of The AB Guide to Music Theory book that I have read. And also I will be talking about where I want my music career to go in the future and what I want to achieve. So here we go…

Chapter 5 focuses on “The Grouping of Notes and Rests.  Time Values are: 3 (triplet) are written as quavers. 5 (quintuplet), 6 (sextuplet), 7 (septuplet) are written as semiquavers, while 9 (no special name is used) are written as demi-semiquavers. When a time value which would normally divide into 2 is divided into an irregular group of equal notes.

3 notes are written in the values appropriate to 2 of the same kind.

5, 6, 7 notes are written in the values appropriate to 4 of the same kind.

9, 10, 11, 13, 15 notes are written in the values appropriate to 8 of the same kind

And 17, 19 etc. notes are written in the values appropriate to 16 of the same kind

Thus a group of 5 notes in the time of a crotchet uses the values it would if there were only 4 of them, i.e. semiquavers. Similarly, a group of 9 uses the values it would if there were only 8 of them, i.e. demisemiquavers. If they were performed in the time of a minim, however, a group of 5 would be written as quavers and a group of 9 as semiquavers. I mean it’s simple if you think about it.

Chapter 6 all about making sense of “Rhythm: Words, Syncopation. I read this chapter, but I don’t want to spoil the rest of the book for you. Keep on reading and keep on learning as I will be doing so in the future. In school I have started Unit 6, which is working as an ensemble. This course is teaching me valuable aspects of the music industry that will help me and be of great use in my later life. Thank you for reading and see you soon. Hopefully by then I would have become a famous music producer. :) Goodbye.  

My Forth Blog Entry.

Due to health issues I haven’t stuck to my timetable and didn’t complete my blog entries in December. But better late than never I say. This will be my fourth blog entry. I can’t provide the exact dates which I did my activities but I will try and give you a rough idea on the time periods on which I did them. So, what I did in the time I was away is the following.

In December I went to a concert in Wembley arena to see Hill Songs perform. It was a Christmas concert, where they sang traditional songs as well as there own. It was a live performance so any mistakes would have been noticed, which makes me think about the development of music, and that even if you practise and practise sometimes mistakes are inevitable. When you write music it is always a trail and error progress, sometime you want a line in the chorus instead of the bridge. And if that song make number one in the charts then you have to make a music video. Now there is more of a chance that you will make a mistake in a live performance than a studio perform piece. Any errors will get picked up before it’s is broadcasted but when your live it has a all together different effect on the perform outcome.

Anyway, back to Wembley, where they had a kitted out drum kit, about five guitars - electric and acoustic, a grand piano and Mic’s for the choir and leads singers to sing. Like you would imagine they had all the flashing lights, moving cameras, the whole shebang. And from where I was sitting in the third row it looked like the chairs never ended. The concert last for about three hours and for me it was a night I’ll never forget. The reason why is because although it was a fun time out, it was a learning experience as well which showed me things like what kind of job I could have when I’m older. E.g. singer songwriter, guitarist, pianist, drummer and the list goes on. I can be whatever I want to when I put my mind to it.   

Over the time I was ill I only read two more chapters of “The AB Guide to Music Theory. As you know I always take notes as I read this book. So here is a copy of my notes. Some of chapter three say that the sings used for silences are called rest. If a silence last as long as a crotchet is shown as a crotchet rest. A minim rest sits on the top of the third line, the semibreve rest hangs below the fourth line and the breve rest completely fills the space between two lines. Sometimes bars are drawn in-between notes, so they have to tie them together with a curve at the top or bottom. Ties are not the only way of lengthening notes. A note can be made half as long again by placing a dot after the note head. When a beat is divided into two equal parts it is called a triplet. Or sometimes there is just a quaver written and a three under it. 

Chapter four being’s by talking about Scales, Keys and Clefs.

The scale of C major has no sharps.

The scale of G major has one sharp – F#

The scale of D major has two sharps – F# C#

The scale of A major has three sharps – F# C# G#

The scale of E major has four sharps – F# C# G# D#

After Major scales the next common are minor scales. There are two types of minor scales. The first one is called melodic minor scales and the second is harmonic minor scales. There is a pattern of minor-keys signatures corresponding to the pattern of major key signatures. A 1^st degree is called a tonic, the 5^th degree is called a dominant, and the 4^th degree is called a subdominant. Key words: 3^rd degree is the Mediant. The 6^th degree is the Submediant. The 2^nd degree is the Supertonic. The 7^th degree is the Leading Note.

This concludes my Forth Blog Entry.  

James Haye's Third Blog Entry

Hello, it’s me again and today I will be talking about what I did over the week, in terms of Music Work. On the 9^th of December I altered my time table to try and make it more sufficient to and easier to use. I decide to create a colour coded table. It works like this: The entire timetable is in Red. The colour red is intended for when the task is incomplete. So when the objective that I set for myself is complete, then I fill the block in the colour Blue. This colour will obviously be for complete work. And that’s how my colour coded time table works. I haven’t missed a single task so far. So it seems to be working.

On the 10^th of December I searched for a new song to play on my guitar. The song I wanted to play was the “Lazy Song” by Bruno Mars. So I went on Google search and typed in Lazy song by Bruno Mars Guitar tabs, and I choose one that I thought was easy to play. This is the URL if you want to have a go yourself. http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/b/bruno_mars/the_lazy_song_ver6_crd_1049970id_26042011date.htm. In addition to this, I also practised for one hour this week and played with another musician during that time. I believe the expression is that we “Jammed” and in English this means that we played together for a long period amount of time, not really undertaking a performance just practicing as one and learning off each other. And I know for sure that that experience has slightly improved my practising and listening skills.

On the 11^th of December I continued to read The AB Guide to Music Theory book. I found the second chapter as simulating as the first one. While writing the book Eric Taylor, the author of the book intended to help people learn and understand how music is written down and what various signs and symbols mean. I took notes as usual, and this is what I learnt in the second chapter. The second chapter is all about the introduction to Pitch. Part one is on pitch names and notation. The C note is centre of the keyboard. The five lines on a music sheet are called the stave or staff. From the top it goes fifth line, fourth line, third line, second line and first line. Then the spaces are called fourth space, third space, second space and first space. Each line and each space represents a note, so there are nine notes in total. A sign called the clef is always placed the beginning of every stave. The second part of the chapter is about Major Scale, the third part is on Key Signatures and the fourth and finally part is information on the topic Accidentals. I really recommend that you read the book for yourself. If it can increase my knowledge the it can do the same for you. See you in my Fourth Blog Entry.

James Haye's Second Entry

Hello, it’s James Haye again, and in this blog entry I will be talking about what I did in terms of Music work this week. On the 5ht of December I practiced and played a song by Bruno mars, featuring Travie Mccoy. I managed to retrieve the chords from s website called ultimate guitar. There were many versions at first will different chords, but eventually I found one that just had simple mayor chords. I need to find one like that because I am not that advanced in the guitar playing ability. The information on the page just had the lyrics, the chords and if you needed a capo. A capo is a steel clip with a rubber face that raps round your guitar and takes it one note higher, required that you have standard tuning. But this version of the song didn’t need one. However the enclosed information did not have the strumming patterns in. So I had to work that bit out myself. After playing a few times I got the hang of the chords the lyrics and the strumming pattern. Overall I think I leant and memorised that song, and that may not be a big achievement but an achievement never the less. 

I made a few changes to my Professional Development Plan this week. I create a time table of thing to do, at what time and on what day. I haven’t missed one day so far. Include in my time table I added a significant amount of time for me to practise. I played the song by Bruno Mars and also I practised in total this week on the 3^rd and the 7^th of December for, 1hour and 15minutes. I may not seem a lot but if I do a little bit more each week, then in the long term it will defiantly improve my overall skills. I haven’t found any falls in my timetable so far, as a result of that, I think I will continue with my plan and try my best to accomplish the task I have set for myself.

On the 4^th of December I read a book called The AB Guide to Music Theory. I read chapter 1 called The Basics of Rhythm and Tempo. The first part of the chapter was about Time Values. There are different Notes for different symbols, I couldn’t find all of the symbols on my Microsoft Word computer, although if you copy and paste the words into Google images, I’m sure it will show you a picture. Therefore I am just going to right all my notes and words down that I took at the time to summarise the Chapter. Big drum, Footsteps: - left, right, left, right, small drum. One semibreve = whole note, Two minims = half notes, Four crotchets = quarter notes, Eight quavers = eighth notes, Sixteen semiquavers = sixteenth notes. Symbols can be drawn as different symbols but they still mean the same thing. The second part is information about Time Signatures; the third part is information about Tempo and the forth part is information on Rhythm. Then after that it moves onto chapter two. I strongly advise you go out for yourself and buy The AB Guide to Music Theory. It is a great reading book and it provides lots of useful information about the life of Music. See you in my Third Blog Entry.

 

On Friday the 25h of November 2011 at 8:32pm, I played and sang the famous Cold Play song “Fix You” in front of a crowd. A few members from my church in Bedford made up the 25 people there that night. There are many other songs by many other artists out there. Why did you choose the cold play song, I hear you say? Well it is a church I was playing in, so the song I chose could not have any swearing in it, any rude words, and over all no bad related lyrics, I know, it really takes the biscuit right? Also I had to sing something that I play at the same time. And “Fix You” fitted the bill.