Okay, admit it. You crack your knuckles. I’m not saying you do it 86 times a day or anything. But sometimes you just can’t help it … right? Well I do—maybe only once or twice a day. But it sort of feels nice. Anyway, it’s got me feeling kind of guilty. Because I’ve always heard that

Sometimes, life is strange. And you notice interesting patterns in things. Maybe you’ll start seeing the same random number on signs, or in magazines, or on buildings. Or maybe you’ll notice a common theme in the names of the towns and cities you visit. I don’t know … it could be a coincidence. But whatever it

Besides maybe war, poverty, and disease, there’s nothing worse than forgetting the idea for a really great song. Seriously … it’s happened to me more than I’d like to admit. Sometimes, I would be out on a hike, or in the car—or anywhere, really—when I’d think of a cool lyric or melody. But by the time

I like artists—they seem to be open. And by that, I mean open to nature … open to change … and open to learning. The artists I know are really nice. And most of them think “outside the box,” which is why they’re often on the leading edge of new movements. I definitely think we musicians

In music, it’s good to know about notes and intervals. In fact, it’s essential … because this is the stuff music is made of. Together, notes and intervals are like the nuts and bolts of any scale, melody, chord, and progression. Without these patterns, music would be nothing. So with all this target practice, we’ve been growing

So far, we’ve been looking at notes, and intervals, and scales … which are the real nuts and bolts of music. And we’ve played through patterns like the major scale. But sometimes, it’s nice to just sit back for a minute and listen to an actual song. Because that’s really where we’re headed. You see, once