When musicians write a song, they have to ask themselves a few questions. For example, does our song have a main melody? And if so, where do we repeat it? How many times? Do we need to add a second, contrasting melody, like a chorus? What about some buffer or break between the two melodies?

Of all the Disney Pixar movies, what do you think is the best one? A lot of people would say “Toy Story,” while others would say “Cars.” And I’d have to agree that these films are pretty great. I mean, it’s like Pixar has the Midas touch—because nearly every one of their projects is pure

!!!WARNING!!! Okay, okay, I know. As an artist, you’re probably anxious to cut to the chase. You might be thinking, “let’s put our skills to use, and start making some music already.” And to be honest, I’m right there with you. But have patience, my child. These next couple of lessons focus a bit more

Okay … pop quiz: What are the two (2) coolest states in America? Are they: a) Hawaii and Rhode Island b) Texas and Massachusetts c) Tennessee and Lousiana Well, if you ask me, the answer is “option C,” without a doubt. And I’ll tell you why. Because these states have their priorities straight. (On music,

In our last song, “Pachelbel’s Canon,” we added even more chords to a progression to create some very cool sounds. By rearranging the major scale pattern, we ended up with something beautiful. And it’s a simple trick, really. All we did was take a few major and minor chords, switch them around a bit, and

Now that we’ve played through a few chord progressions, we’re definitely getting better. Our brains are bigger and our hands have gotten a lot of target practice moving back and forth between chords. But after a while, life would get pretty boring with only three primary chords, right? So to keep things interesting, musicians often

I’ll be the first to admit it—IKEA is an excellent store. The Swedish furniture giant may have its critics, but I’m definitely a fan. Why? Because it’s unlike any other shopping experience around. Walk into any of the company’s locations and you know you’re in for an adventure. Sure, IKEA has tons of cheap crap.

After playing through each major scale progression, you might have noticed something cool. For some crazy reason, Mother Nature totally loves us. Instead of throwing us some curveball, she decided to make things easy. When it comes to chord progressions, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Because they’re really just based on the same,

Chord progressions are really easy to play. And that’s because they’re based on the old, familiar scale patterns we already know. Using the C major scale, for example, we can come up with a chord progression that sounds awesome. We simply build one chord on the tonic (1) note … and another on the major-second

The way music works is amazing. Little patterns like scales and chords form bigger patterns called chord progressions. And then chord progressions turn into even bigger patterns called songs. By recycling the same basic notes and patterns, we can create some pretty awesome stuff. In fact, it’s all so simple that it makes my want