To find out more about the Easy Music Theory course, click [here] Back to Past Issues page Easy Music Theory Newsletter Free, from Spring Day Music November 2002 To SUBSCRIBE to receive this newsletter in your email, go to www.EasyMusicTheory.com/newsletter.html The Easy Music Theory Newsletter November 2002 A Publication of Spring Day Music www.EasyMusicTheory.com (c)2002 Spring Day Music Welcome! This is the November edition of the Easy Music Theory Newsletter, squeaking in at the end of the month... but the articles last for ever!  You're receiving this newsletter because you own Gary Ewer's Easy Music Theory on CD-ROM, or because you've signed up through our web site. Unsubscribe instructions are at the end of this newsletter.Try our Listening Challenge! Ever heard of a suspended chord? Challenge your ear with this month's listening challenge at http://www.EasyMusicTheory.com/contest.html September's contest was won by John Clement of Prince Edward Island, Canada. Congratulations, John. A music CD is on its way to you now. (Want to know the answer to last month's contest? Go to http://www.EasyMusicTheory.com/contest.html ) News Flash: We're coming to the end of our run of Easy Music Theory Survival Guides. That's the 16-page booklet that you get for free right now, if you order the Easy Music Theory, enhanced version. We'll give them away for free until December 6, 2002. So time is limited. If you don't own the course, go now to http://www.EasyMusicTheory.com ================== IN THIS ISSUE 1. There's a Lot of Aspiring Musicians Out There! Give 'em a Break! 2. Suspended Chords - What are They? 3. Music Theory and Your Ear 4. Music Theory and Chord Substitutions 5. Question of the Month: Where did our Five-Line Staff Come From? 6. Skill-Testing Question ================== 1. There's a Lot of Aspiring Musicians Out There! Give 'em a Break! There are millions of aspiring musicians who are desperate to know how music really works. And you likely know of one or two. Wanna be a hero? Give Easy Music Theory as a Christmas gift. In fact, it's the ultimate gift for the musician on your Christmas list this year. Those of you who are using the Easy Music Theory course already know this, but those Easy Music Theory videos that come on the CD are downright entertaining. We get tons of email from excited users who rave about how much they learn about music. And for the musician in your life, learning how music works would be a dream come true. Make their dreams come true this Christmas! Go to http://www.EasyMusicTheory.com/buyemt1.html and be a hero. :-) For those musicians in your life that are toying with the idea of actually making a living with music, it's a no-brainer: the study of music theory is compulsory. That's why it's taught at all music schools! Easy Music Theory is the ultimate head start! ======================= What's a tuba for? 1 1/2" X 3 1/2" :-) ======================= 2. Suspended Chords... What are They? You know from Lesson 17 that a "triad" is a chord comprised of a root, a third, and a fifth. Example? A C triad is made up of a root (C), a third (E), and a fifth (G). A suspended chord (or a chord suspension) is usually made by holding one of the tones of a chord a tone higher, then resolving it to its resting place. This can be done with any tones of a chord, but one of the more common suspensions is to manipulate the third of the chord, by first playing the fourth, then resolving it to the third. So a C suspended chord has the tones of the root, the fourth and the fifth. Play the chord, then follow it with a standard C chord, of the root, the third, and the fifth. A C suspended chord of this type is often shown in chord charts as either a "Csus", or a "C sus4". "Sus4" means that the third is initially played as a fourth, then resolved to a third. Check out the examples at http://www.EasyMusicTheory.com/suspension.html In "real music", let's suppose you're playing a simple tune which uses three chords, C, F, and G, then returning to C. Try adding a little flavor to the mix: turn that final chord into two chords. Make it a suspended C chord, followed by a C chord.. Your chord progression would look like this: C - F - G7 - Csus - C. You can try this on a guitar or a piano. If those chords look confusing, you need to check out Lesson 17 of Gary Ewer's Easy Music Theory. Experiment with other suspended chords. Put them in places where you need a bit of emotion in your music. Might be just what you're looking for. Take a Christmas carol book (one that has chord symbols in it is good for this purpose), and try adding suspensions to dominant or tonic triads. Don't know what tonic or dominant triads are? Check out Easy Music Theory lesson 15. One more thing about suspensions... of a "technical" nature: a suspended tone must exist in the chord previous to the suspended chord. So if you are playing a Csus, the 'F' is the suspended tone, and should exist in the chord before (like a Bb chord, for example, which uses an F, or a G7 chord, which also uses an F.) Try playing the following three chords, and you'll see what I mean: G7 - Csus - C.)] To see this article complete with musical examples, go to http://www.EasyMusicTheory.com/suspended.html . And be sure to check out this month's contest. The contest is all about identifying suspended chords by ear. Tricky, but fun. The contest is at http://www.EasyMusicTheory.com/contest.html ====================== 3. Music Theory and Your Ear Ever wondered why we have the Easy Music Mix contest? After all, Easy Music Theory is about theory, not about ear training, right? WRONG! It always comes down to the ear. With the Easy Music Mix contest, we're trying to demonstrate that all of those interesting concepts you're learning actually sound like something. You can learn about suspended chords, and that's great, but you need to know that suspended chords actually sound like suspended chords. They're not just theoretical concepts on paper. You can read about compound and simple time signatures, but it's so important to realize that they can be recognized by ear. Music theory gives you the concepts so that you can apply them to your music with expertise. For the full story on why we need music theory, Gary has written a great article called "Why You Need Music Theory". Check it out. Let your music friends know too. It's at http://www.EasyMusicTheory.com/whymusictheory.html . ========================= How do you know when the stage is level? There's drool coming out of both sides of the drummer's mouth! :-) ========================= 4. Music Theory and Chord Substitutions Give anyone a guitar and a few months or years, and they'll pick up a few things. You know, they'll learn to strum an A minor chord, and hammer that second string to get an interesting effect. They'll figure out that if they play an F major chord while the piano player is playing a D minor chord, it'll sound great. But they won't know why it sounds great. When you study music theory, you come to understand that an F major chord played at the same time as a D minor chord, is actually a D minor 7th chord. And understanding that will begin to open up the fascinating world of chord substitution. In principle, the best candidates for chord substitutions are chords that share many of the same tones. You'll see this in Easy Music Theory lessons 15 and 17 in particular. As a really short primer, after you've made it through lesson 17, try playing a piece of music, substituting IV-chords for ii-chords. Substitute I-chords for vi-chords. Hmm, interesting! And if you own the Easy Music Theory course on CD-ROM, check out the article that comes on the CD set called "Writing Music - Making it Work!". It's all about how to make your music more fascinating, more compelling, and more professional. ======================== 5. Question of the Month: Where did our Five-Line Staff Come From? Did you ever wonder how we came to have the five-line staff that we use for our musical notation? The five-line staff had its humble beginnings back in the 7th century. At that time, a system of "neumes" was developed - essentially they were lines, dots and "squiggles", intended as a memory aid to singers to show the direction of a musical line. Soon writers added lines. The first line was coloured red, showing the note "F", and the second line was green, showing middle C. An eleventh century composer, Guido d'Arezzo, took this idea and developed a four-line staff. It took a while before our modern-day five-line staff came to be the standard staff. Throughout the Renaissance (c.1450 - 1600), there was experimentation with other multi-line staves, including an eleven-line staff, where the middle line represented middle C. Eventually, though, composers erased that middle line, leaving ten lines with a space in the middle. This became our "Grand Staff" which you have read about in Lesson 1. The first attempts at precise rhythmic durations happened in the thirteenth century. Notes at first were square shaped, or diamond, before eventually evolving to the round ones we know today. ===================== 6. Skill-Testing Question What note sounds just like an Eb, but is not an Eb? The answer can be found in Lesson 3 of Gary Ewer's Easy Music Theory. =========================== That's it for this month's Easy Music theory Newsletter. Questions or comments? We're all ears at emtinfo@easymusictheory.com. Don't forget about the Easy Music Theory Survival Guide, at http://www.EasyMusicTheory.com/survival.html If you want to unsubscribe from this newsletter, send an email to unsubscribe@easymusictheory.com, and we'll take care of it. =============================== Gary Ewer's Easy Music Theory represents the finest in music theory instruction. If you play an instrument or sing in a choir, you can expand your musical horizons by learning music theory. Get all the information at http://www.EasyMusicTheory.com =============================== Why not forward this email newsletter to a friend? Until next month... study and practice! You can do it! This newsletter is copyright (c) 2002 Spring Day Music, a division of Corporate Impact Inc. Contact us at 902-830-3994, or emtinfo@easymusictheory.com Newsletter editor: David EwerMusic education content: Gary Ewer and David Ewer Gary Ewer's Easy Music Theory(tm), Easy Music Theory(tm), and Gary Ewer's Easy Music Theory on CD-ROM!(tm) are trademarks of Spring Day Music Did you know you can watch Gary teaching music theory? Gary makes music theory easy! Buy Gary Ewer's Easy Music Theory on CD-ROM, and you'll get more of the teaching you've come to enjoy from Gary, plus all-new worksheets (these are great!), new quizzes, and answer sheets. But the greatest feature of the double-CD-ROM course is the awesome videos of Gary teaching each lesson. Don't miss out. Click here to learn more, or click here to purchase now. It's completely guaranteed! www.EasyMusicTheory.com Spring Day Music 902-830-3994 emtinfo@EasyMusicTheory.com ©2001 Spring Day Music. All rights reserved Gary Ewer's Easy Music Theory is a trade mark of Spring Day Music, a div. of Corporate Impact Inc. Contact us at emtinfo@EasyMusicTheory.com