Tag Archives: rock band

teaching

October Lesson Materials

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I decided to rename my newly-created ROCK BAND page, so it is now called SONGS. I didn’t want it to be specific Rock music or to the Rock Band I’m teaching. Instead it is any genre of songs that I’ve come across and decided to transcribe. Also, the songs are suitable for many different ability levels, so there should be something for everyone. Since I want this to be a hub for all of the songs that I have music for, I moved “Songs with One Progression”, “Mary Had a Little Lamb / Hot Cross Buns Medley”, “Amazing Grace”, “Two Hanukkah Songs (Treble Clef and Bass Clef”, and “I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You” from the GUITAR, UKULELE, PIANO, MALLETS, and BASS GUITAR pages to the SONGS page.

With many of the songs I took multiple approaches to how I notated them. The “lyrics and chords” PDFs are similar to what you might find on most websites, except that I edited them and added a simple version of music notation using text (“|” is a barline, “/” is a beat or quarter note, “-” is a sustain, “X” is a quarter rest, etc.). For example, strumming a G Major chord for four beats (quarter notes) would look like this: |G / / / |. Strumming a G Major chord on beat one and letting it ring out for the remaining three beats (whole note) would look like this: |G – – – |. Strumming a G Major chord on beat one and then muffling/silencing it for the remaining three beats (quarter note, three quarter rests) would look like this: |G X X X |. This gives more clarity about what the harmonic rhythm is. The “tab” PDFs have text-based tablature for songs that go beyond chord-strumming and have simple riffs. The “riffs” PDFs use more detailed music notation for songs that have riffs that might be too complex for text-based tab. The “YouTube” links are so that students can listen to recordings of the songs. The “guitar tutorial” links are to YouTube videos of how to play more complex riffs and songs.

All of these materials can be found under the FOR MY STUDENTS tab, on the SONGS page. As always, please let me know if you use any of these teaching materials with your students, and if you find them helpful, or if you have any questions or comments.

teaching

September Lesson Materials

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Since I’m going to be teaching the Fall Session of Rock Band at one of my studios, I created a new ROCK BAND page (under FOR MY STUDENTS). It includes materials such as “Notes on the Low E and A Strings”, “12-Bar Blues in G, D, A, and Am”, “Strumming Rhythms Index, Book 1 Summary”, “TNT by AC/DC”, and an easy version of “Nothing Else Matters by Metallica”. I will continue to add materials (mostly songs) as I finish them. All of the materials that are instrument-specific will still be found on my GUITAR, BASS GUITAR, and DRUM SET pages.

For Drum Set, I moved 12-Bar Blues from my Recital Songbook to my Method Book, since I have 12-Bar Blues in my Ukulele, Guitar, and Bass Guitar Method Books, not in the Recital Songbooks. There is a version at the end of each Level that incorporates what the students have learned up to that point. I posted new versions of Levels 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

The Guitar and Ukulele Recital Songbooks, Book 1 are now ready to sell. I posted a PDF of the first 6 songs so that students can still try try them out before deciding if they want to buy them. The PDFs also include some blank pages for songwriting, and there are still the recordings of songs 1 to 5 to listen to and/or play along with.

PDFs of all of these materials can be found under the FOR MY STUDENTS tab, on the ROCK BAND, GUITAR, DRUM SET, and UKULELE pages. As always, please let me know if you use any of these teaching materials with your students, and if you find them helpful, or if you have any questions or comments.

Nerds That Geek

Movie Mumble Theme: Hybrid

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From August of 2017 through all of 2018 I had composed/arranged custom themes for the Movie Mumble podcast (hosted by Nerds That Geek). Since January of 2019 I’ve been using an orchestral version of the theme (Movie Mumble Theme: Orchestra) for almost all of the episodes. Now that it’s been four years, I figured that it was time to write a new version of the theme. I wanted to incorporate my influences and personal style preferences, as well as utilize what I had learned at Berklee in my Film Scoring Masters program.

I used elements rock music, percussion ensemble, orchestral music, world music, and electronic music. For “rock music” I used distorted electric guitar, bass guitar, and drum set. For “orchestral music” I used low woodwinds, horns, low brass, timpani, tam-tam, choir, and strings. For “world music” I used wind instruments (zurna, xiao, ney, duduk, and didgeridoo), tanpura, and various percussion instruments (from India, the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia). For “electronic music” I used a bass synth with an arpeggiator and wavetable synthesis.

Movie Mumble Theme: Hybrid can be heard for the first time in this month’s episode (January 2023).

Film Music

Genre Reels

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In my Berklee Online Spring 2022 Semester Professional Film Scoring Skills 2 class I had to create reels for a variety of genres to show potential clients. I had to have a total of five reels: a general reel, a horror reel, a comedy reel, an electronic reel, and a fifth reel that was my choice. By the end of the semester, each reel had to have at least eight tracks. The first assignment was to put as much of my preexisting music as was relevant so that I could get feedback from my professor. Some of my tracks were too long (they shouldn’t be any longer than two minutes), some of my mockups were not up to par, and some reels just didn’t have enough tracks in them. I worked to implement this feedback throughout the semester.

Circus Clown (my rescore for He Who Gets Slapped), and A Date with a Ghost, (my score for Date) were two tracks for which I created new and improved mockups. A Mouse and an Elephant and Quirky Waltz are two brand new tracks that I composed to meet the requirements for my comedy reel.

Most of the tracks I’m not going to post because they are either short clips taken from one section of much longer tracks or a slightly shortened version of a track that was a little bit over two minutes. If you are interested in listening to any of these tracks in their “new forms” you can follow the links here: Classical/World/Electronic Hybrid, Cold and Hollow, Dracula’s Tomb, Electronic Groove with Drops, Floating in Space, Haunted House (from Complements IV), Lobsters, A Prophesy of Auras (from Aura), Sci-Fi Car Chase, Space Shooter, Suspense (from Complements IV), and Synthia. If you want to listen to any of my complete reels you can follow these links: Classical/Rock/World Music Hybrid Reel, General Reel, Horror Reel, Comedy Reel, Electronic Reel.

Film Music

Expanding My Tone Color Voice

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These next three tracks were from my Berklee Online Winter Semester, Week 7 in Compositional Voice Development in Film Scoring.

Orchestra/Rock Hybrid was an exercise to “…compose a short phrase that combines orchestral and popular music instrumentation. You may combine orchestral and pop elements in any way that is musically interesting to you.” I combined bass guitar and drum set with strings and brass, and had the strings and brass play power chords in place of an electric guitar.

Orchestra/Ethnic Hybrid was an exercise to “… compose a short phrase that combines a world or historical instrument with the orchestra. You may combine orchestral and world/historical elements in any way that is musically interesting to you.” I used a Middle Eastern Zurna as the melodic instrument and accompanied it with sustained strings, concert toms, and concert bass drum. I used the scale C Db E F G Ab B and came up with a bass line for the strings to play, then improvised with that scale for the Zurna part. I also experimented with using extra reverb to try to counteract its very nasal sound.

Orchestra/Rock/Ethnic Hybrid was the end-of-the-week assignment to “…write a one-minute piece using an instrument or tone color idea you’ve never used before. You may use common or rare instruments, acoustic or software sounds.” I continued with the concepts that I experimented with in the two exercises this week: combining rock/pop instruments with orchestral instruments, and combining world instruments with orchestral instruments. I used a combination of all three, and while I was combining things, I thought it might be interesting to use 12 Bar Blues as my form. For rock/pop instruments, I used electric bass and drums again. For orchestral instruments I used strings, and had the low strings play a pad, while the violins played a melody in octaves. For world instruments, I used the Indian Tanpura, the Middle Eastern Zurna, and a Middle Eastern Darbouka. I also used a vocal synth sound in the C section. The drum set has such a wide range of colors between bass, snare, toms, and cymbals, and there is such a punch to it that you don’t get from orchestral percussion. Similarly with electric bass, you get a nice percussive attack that cuts through (especially in the higher register) in a way that string bass doesn’t. I didn’t want this to sound like pop music or a chamber ensemble, so the strings give warmth and a roundness, and also make the track sound bigger. The Tanpura has a buzzing, sustained sound, with a fuzzy attack, so there is only a vague sense of rhythm, all of which creates a meditative bed underneath everything else. The Darbouka has a nice high pop sound which makes it work well with, and stand out against the drum set. It functions the way bongos might, but with a more unfamiliar sound because it isn’t used as often as bongos are. The Zurna comes in for the C section and final A section, and it cuts through everything with its intense nasal timbre. Once again, I used a huge wash of reverb on it to try to give it a less abrasive sound. In the last A section it is playing in unison/octaves with the violins, which also warms the timbre.

 

Theater

Music from an Opera about Mummies that was Never Made, or ‘Ramses’ the Stand-Alone Composition

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During my undergrad at the University of Rhode Island, I read the book The Mummy or Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice. I had the overly optimistic idea to compose an opera based on the book and began working on some musical themes. For many reasons, the opera never happened (if you know Anne Rice and think she might be interested, give her my info), but I had this short piece to show for it. Originally, it was written for rock band and strings, but I recently rearranged it for rock band, choir, and full orchestra.