Ed’s Music Blog

Band in a Box Omni-Pak

Go to FedEx/Kinko’s and have them replace your glue-bounded music books with a spiral binding instead.

Make sure you get this type of ‘corkscrew’ binding instead of the ‘comb’ type binding, because with the corkscrew binding the book folds open completely. Plus with the comb type binding, the combs always pop out, which can be annoying.

Great music theory 101 tutorial website for Songwriters:

ChordMaps.com

In our western tonal music there are 12 keys:

C Db D Db E F Gb G Ab A Bb B

that means their are 12 diatonic blues harmonicas(mouth harp, toe pickle, Dylanizer, whatever you wanna call em’)  you can buy…

1. Hohner Special 20’s each one is $30 (I suggest buying one per month, if you cant afford buying all 12 at one time)  It doesn’t matter what order you buy them in, I suggest starting with D E G A C …and so on.

2. Buy a neck holder for $15, (and Optional: Hohner sells a great case to hold all 12 for $35)

3. Sit down with your guitar and start strummin chords and blowing/sucking air through that harp and you’ll know right away which chords fit and which ones don’t.  Tip: The minor chords sound especially good, so be sure to try the 3 in each major key(for example in the key of C they would be your Dm, Em, & Am chords)

4. Sit down at a piano and do the same thing

5.  Have Fun!

Play this game daily:  (you should be able to achieve 100% when setting the speed at 70)

http://www.emusictheory.com/practice/speedNoteNames.html