The Hocus of Focus

"Concentration is the secret of strength."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson


Whew!

What a long gig last night. Sweaty, Tiring, and Embarrassing would be three adjectives I'd use to describe it. Hey, mind numbing might also fit in there.

Why the heck was it so bad? For my part, it was because I lost my concentration. Concentration equals consistency, and creates the canvas for high achievement.

What creates concentration? Paying attention, focus, and dedication. Sometimes it's hard to do so. The venue could be empty. The audience could be hostile, or worse, inattentive. (So common on club gigs!) I think a lot of it boils down to caring. Sometimes it's hard. But you've got to care. Heart sounds good.

Play with heart. Focus. And rock on.


Yo! By the way! I'm now on Facebook, and I'm loving it! Add me as a friend! The name's Josh Urban. (But you already knew that.)

A new standard of excellence

I have a new standard of excellence today.

My littlest brother Zakk passed his driving test with...A perfect score! (I was one point away from failing mine.)

He's cool. He's confident. He parallel parks with authority. The car obeys him.

I need to make my guitar playing like that.

Congratulations, Zakk, and thanks for setting a new standard!

The Lowes Show

Hey hey hey!

I hope y'all had a good Mother's Day, and treated your mother right. Thanks, by the way, for that comment with Mr. T rapping in it. Awesome.

"Mother. There is no other. So treat her right. Treat her right."

I've got a new gizmo. It rocks. I went to Lowes - the mega hardware store. AND...Got a cordless drill so I can do this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ynwdz8Xowfw

And this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYd6TOPfBLQ

Wow! I'm excited! Now I've gotta figure out just how to make that bit. Paul Gilbert talks a "bit" about it here (no pun intended!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8je4thXoUFo

(Did you know he was sponsored by Makita drills? How COOL is that?)

I tried the bit, but it looks like thin picks are definitely in order.

I'll check back and let ya know what's up!

The state of the world

Yo, it's Thursday morning in my hometown of Accokeek, and the world is sitting very strange as I see it.

Breaking news! The Catholic Church has officially acknowledged that Mary appeared to a Shepard girl...In the 1600's. Now that's keeping up with the times! I wonder what they'll think of this new cat Mozart?

Speaking of religious nuts, there's a group of folks in California who are praying, and singing a modified version of "We Shall Overcome" to...Lower gas prices.

A person has trained their goldfish to play a sort of underwater basketball. Now that's cool.

Countrywide admits loan officers made errors. Who woulda guessed?

But despite this odd moment in the cosmological sequence of time, there are still constants in the universe. Music theory continues to confuse. But have no fear! Theory Man is here! The alter-ego of mild mannered Josh Urban, Theory Man is strong, smart, and lives to fight confusion and ignorance! In fact, he belongs to the secret soceity of Theory experts. A little known fact: Mr. T is the president. What do ya think the "T" stands for, foo'?

Our next question comes from "Kwame" in...The UK! Hey, has anyone seen "George of the Jungle?" It's got a Kwame in there. "Meanwhile, Kwame and his men were drawing ever closer...Closer, that is, to shoving a coconut up Lyle's...sleeping bag."
Ed's note: Being an editor is fun.

"Kwame" has been a correspondent of mine for a little while, and he's really working hard at being the best he can be on the guitar. Kudos, "Kwame!"

Here's his question:
>>>>>>>>
Hey man, hows it goin?

I've messaged you for help on a few things and you've always been able to offer some good advice, but this time I'm stuck on one of your lessons.

In the crusades 2 and 3 (I haven't got any further yet, I've been learning the names of the notes) you talk about intervals, which is fair enough, but there are some things I don't quite get. First thing is this . . . People say intervals are the difference between notes, but I don't get how you can play the difference between notes. Does it mean (using A as an example) that if you play a minor second (Bb) its just the note next to it, or the other notes that are also Bb like A string 1st fret and so on?

Secondly, in crusade 3, when you are showing how to make chords, you use a few examples. Your first one is a C major chord. And you say that I need a C, a Major third and a minor third. Now I was with you up until this point, and understood the theory, but when I made like a little chart to find out what the major and minor third would be (below) it looked like the minor third was an Eb and the major third was an E.
This made sense to me as well, but then i carried on reading and you said that the major third is an E (which i got) but that the minor third was a G. I'm not too sure how you got that, and I got all confused at that point because I thought that my chart thing worked in theory.

C to C Unison
C to C# minor 2nd
C to D Major 2nd
C to Eb minor 3rd
C to E Major 3rd
C to F Perfect 4th
C to F# Diminished 5th (Also known as a Flatted 5th)
C to G Perfect 5th
C to G# minor 6th
C to A Major 6th
C to Bb minor 7th
C to B Major 7th
C to C Octave

Where have I gone wrong?

Thanks for any help
>>>>>>>>>>>

"Kwame," good work, and good questions.

Question 1: What's an interval?

"The difference between two notes" sounds very zennish, and very confusing. Think of it as a recipe, instead. If we play a C, and add a note a major third above it, that note would be E. From C to E is the distance of a major 3rd. On the guitar, this translates to four frets.

Another way we could phrase our "recipe" is to say: "Play a C, and then play a note four half steps above it." A major 3rd is four half steps, or four frets.

Question 2: Harmonic vs. Melodic intervals

If you play an A on the 5th fret, and then play a Bb on the 6th fret, you've just played a melodic interval. (One note at a time.) If you play an A on the 5th fret, 6th string, and a Bb on the 1st fret, 5th string, at the same time, you've played a harmonic interval. Melodic intervals would make up the melody of the song, and harmonic intervals would make up the harmony (chords) of the song.


Question 3: Where do I start counting?

Q: when you are showing how to make chords, you use a few examples. Your first one is a C major chord. And you say that I need a C, a Major third and a minor third. Now I was with you up until this point, and understood the theory, but when I made like a little chart to find out what the major and minor third would be (below) it looked like the minor third was an Eb and the major third was an E.
This made sense to me as well, but then i carried on reading and you said that the major third is an E (which i got) but that the minor third was a G. Im not too sure how you got that, and I got all confused at that point

A: From C to E is a major third. You would then count from E to G, arriving at a minor third. I think you got confused when you tried to count from C to G, which is a perfect fifth. I feel your pain! But just count from the root to the third, and then from the third to the fifth.

Persnickety Theory Man Chart Correction

As a champion of Justice, Liberty, and the theoretical way, here's a slight correction to your interval chart. The notes themselves would play out correctly on the guitar, but on paper, it's supposed to check out like this:

C to C Unison
C to Db minor 2nd
C to D Major 2nd
C to Eb minor 3rd
C to E Major 3rd
C to F Perfect 4th
C to Gb Diminished 5th (Also known as a Flatted 5th)
C to G Perfect 5th
C to Ab minor 6th
C to A Major 6th
C to Bb minor 7th
C to B Major 7th
C to C Octave

The reason? A minor second must be the second letter above C. C# and Db are enharmonic (the same note) but Db is the correct label. The same logic applies to the other corrections. G is five letters above C, so a flatted fifth must be some sort of a G. If it's an F#, it's a raised fourth. Stupid, yes. But Theory Man must inform everyone of the rules, no matter how stupid they may be! After all, a buncha cats in knee socks invented 'em.

Rock on, "Kwame", and please let me know if this does, or doesn't, answer your questions.

Until next time!

Kaazam!
Theory Man

More great tone

Wow, what a beautiful Sunday!

I was lucky enough to spend it in and around the Appalachian mountains. What a special place. Those mountains are very old, and have a certain gentle and wise magic about them. Add to the fact that I went with my folks, it was a super day, indeed.

Man, streams have great tone. Have you ever noticed the different types? There's the tinkling mountain brook (probably my favorite.) The lowland stream that sounds like a very musical toilet flushing. The placid flow of a large, warm creek. The harsh, fierce, pure roar of the shallow, rocky torrent.

And none of these sound forced. They're all just right, and very comfortable with the tone they're giving to the surrounding environment. Not rushed, but sometimes fast. Not sluggish, but other times slow. But never, ever forced.

How about your tone?

Man, sometimes a walk in the woods is good for you.


"Climb the Mountains, and get their good tidings."
- John Muir

A question from far, far away

Yo yo yo!

Ladies and Gents, our next question comes from a fella far away from the mind-numbing monotony of Suburban America.

I think it's a very relevant question, especially to you rock 'n metal musicians out there. Check it out!
>>>>>>>>>>>>

Hi Josh,

My name is Carlos and i am a guitarist located in Belgium. I've finally decided to learn theory.
I have been reading and studying your lessons and i must say
that you explain things very clearly and funny!
ED'S NOTE: Ha ha! I changed his name to Carlos! What's next? Whelheim from Mexico? It's fun to be an editor.
But i have a problem..
So i learned how to analyze a chord progression with one of your lessons and actually it is quite clear to me, but i wanted to apply the newly learned theory and stood in front of a big wall..

I tried to analyze one of my own songs, but the problem is that you have to know if a chord is major or minor so you can see which place (I-II etc..)
it takes in a scale. the chords is use are mainly power chords.
can you explain to me how i would analyze C5-E5-D5...
I know it sounds stupid, but i can't seem to apply the theory.

Question 2.

You explained chord construction and I think I understand it. M3+m3 is major and so on
but how about constructing chords with other intervals. If I understand right then you use the minor 3rd and the major 3rd interval?
But for example a power chord would be Perfect 5th + the octave of the root?
>>>>>>>>>>

Yo "Carlos!"

First off, thanks for letting me have fun with your name change. Secondly, if your countrymen invented brussel sprouts, please talk them into inventing a good seasoning for them. Ha ha! I'm such a clown sometimes.
Thirdly, and seriously this time, that's a really good question. It's one thing to pick out the function of a minor7(b5) chord, or some other jazzy invention, but not as applicable for most of us as figuring out where the power chords go in a song.

The reason is: Power chords (or 5th chords, as they're technically supposed to be called), don't have a minor or major sound. They lack a 3rd, which defines the major or minor tonality.

And if we're speaking technically, they're not even a chord! A chord, by definition, must have three or more different notes. (So a power chord with an included octave is still just an interval.)

So, to create a power chord, we take a note, and add a note a fifth above it. It's just one interval: P5 (perfect fifth.)

Harmonizing the Major scale in this manner, we take a note, count up five notes, and add that one. C to G would construct a C5 chord.

C major scale: C D E F G A B C

C5
D5
E5
F5
G5
A5
B diminished 5.

WHAT?! What about that last chord? All other six chords consist of perfect fifths. C to G is a perfect fifth, D to A is a perfect fifth, and so on. However, B to F is a diminished fifth.

Therefore, we can draw the following conclusion: All power chords built from the major scale, with the exception of the chord built on the vii degree of the scale, are perfect fifths.
The vii chord is a diminished fifth.

(This rule also holds true for minor scales, except the diminished chord would be built on the ii of the scale.)

To answer your original question of "how does C5-E5-D5 fit", I would say this:

I would treat it as a I-iii-ii in the key of C major. If we add the thirds of the chords, we would end up with: Cmaj - Em - Dm.

For your second question, yes, there are other formulas to build chords. For example, a Csus4 chord (C F G) would be constructed:

P4 + M2 (Perfect 4th + Major 2nd.)

But chords are mostly built in thirds.

Thanks for the question, "Carlos," and please let me know if it does, or doesn't make sense.

Rock on!

Josh

Be my friend!

Yo!

Enjoy this blog? Be my friend on myspace! It's www.myspace.com/thefrontsteps

It's really great to hear from folks all over the world. A shout out to Michelle in Australia, too!
I live in a boring town near Washington, DC, USA. My house ain't borin', and my life is cool, but the town...well, it could use a few things. So it's very cool to hear from folks everywhere. If you guys are into the myspace thing, check it out!

Secondly, I'd like to highlight the dangers of solid-body electric guitars. I was teaching the other day, and I had my Fender Strat balanced on my knee. My clients, especially Bob, will attest to the fact that I've got a problem when it comes to keeping cables and cords untangled. Well, a headphone cable got tangled up in the wheel of my office chair. I leaned over to free it. My guitar almost fell off my lap, but I caught it by moving quickly, and banging it squarely under my chin. The music stand almost hit poor Nick in the face, too. Wow. I was even bleeding slightly.

A self-centered random Josh story? No!

The moral of the story: Do not hit yourself in the face with a Fender Strat. It doesn't sound good, and the message it gives your audience is another good reason for bleached-blonde jokes.

So don't do it!

And be my friend!