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Learning barre chord positions can be a right royal pain in the harris.

It’s something I’ve found to be quite difficult to get across to many students, so here it is.

The free online Barre chord dictionary.

Every Major and Minor Barre chord covered using the four most common Barre chord shapes.

Tags: Barre chords, chords, Free, guitar, online, tuition | No Comments »

Want to transpose your chord progression into another key?

Then here is a little tool that should help.

This tool can be used to learn key signatures, modes, chords within key and relative minor.

Other uses could be when transposing chords using a capo.

Again I’ll write some more about using this tool for other uses.

Using the ClockFace:

The two inner circles have notes written on them.

The inner coloured circle is the ‘key’ in which your chords to be transposed are.

The outer circle from that are the notes from the ‘Key of C’

If you look at the buttons under transpose there are letters next to each button.

Pressing a button will change the ‘inner circle’ - so pressing the D button will change the inner circles notes to those of D Major - while the outer circle stays as C Major.

You can then look for you chords in relation to ‘C’ - Try it out.

The Outer circle has letters printed on it - ‘m’, ‘M’ and ‘dim’

‘m’ = minor

‘M’ = Major

‘dim’ = diminished

These relate to the chords.

The inner circle from that has roman numerals printed in it, ie ‘I’, ‘II’, ‘III’, ‘IV’ etc

These relate to the degree in the scale.

To use this tool for modes use the roman numerals:

I = Ionian/Major

II = Dorian

III = Phygian

IV = Lydian

V = Mixolydian

VI = Aeolian/Relative Minor

VII = Locrian

Tags: capo, chords, key signature, keys, transpose, transposing | No Comments »

Guitar:

Open Chord: D Minor

Piano Chords: D Minor

Staff View: D Minor Chord

Chord Spelling: D F A

Tags: chords, guitar, open chords, piano, staff view | No Comments »

Guitar,

Open Chord: A Minor

Piano,

Chord Spelling: A C E

Tags: chords, guitar, guitar chords, minor, open chords, piano, piano chords | No Comments »

Been a while since I last posted but I’ve been reading a lot lately.

Whilst I was reading my computer music magazine I came across this cool bit of news.

Cakewalk are now offering their classic synth and effects vst plugins for download.

First up:

Cakewalk SFZ+ Professional

“rgc:audio’s revolutionary SoundFont player sample-playback engine, packed in a professional VST/DXi instrument.

Outstanding sound quality, stereo built-in effects, adjustable CPU/quality settings to adjust it to your hardware, fully multitimbral operation, multiple stereo outputs, several loading modes including direct-from-disk streaming and a beautiful interface make sfz+ the perfect choice for SoundFont users and professional composers.”

Get it here free

Also,

Square 1 Synth

“The warmness and classic sound of the vintage analog synthesizers, combined with the fidelity and precision of a VST instrument.

A simple synthesizer, oriented to the serious music enthusiast. High quality sound with a warm and easy layout, perfect to learn synth programming: all controls in one panel for instant access, clear and distinctive sections. The built-in effects add depth to the sound and convenience to the sound programming.”

Download it here for free

Also available are Cakewalks Audio FX 1 and 2

Cakewalk Audio FX 1

“Cakewalk Audio FX 1 is a series of four dynamic real-time audio processing plug-ins including Compressor/Gate, Limiter, Expander/Gate, and Dynamics Processor. Audio FX 1 plug-ins use 32-bit, floating-point processing, providing you with fast, precise, mono and stereo audio effects. Audio FX 1 can be used as real-time effects during playback, or used to render audio tracks as off-line edits. So you get maximum editing flexibility whether you’re mixing tracks at home or in the studio.”

Download for free here

Cakewalk Audio FX 2

“Created by precise measurement and analysis, Audio FX 2 uses advanced processing algorithms to apply the classic sound and warmth of several different vintage guitar amplifiers and analog tape decks to your digital audio. Best of all, these plug-ins allow you to get all of the good things associated with vintage gear, such as their distinctive sound and warmth, without the problems and undesired effects that older equipment often have.”

Download for free here

Tags: cakewalk, cubase, effects, free vst plugins, FX, plugins, reaper, sonar, synthesizer, synths, vst | No Comments »