[Harp-L] Theory, Communicating, and Pandora

["Jonathan Metts" <jonathan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Many of us agree that music theory is important to understand, if only so 
you can better communicate with other musicians in a common language.  In 
the same vein, I have found Pandora's podcast to be extremely informative in 
learning about the structure of music.  There are episodes about chords, 
dynamics, drum patterns, time signatures, major and minor, bass patterns, 
guitar riffs, recording vocals, even hip-hop lyrics.  If you start with the 
first episode and work forward to the most current, all the music theory 
terms are introduced slowly and explained very well, but one of the great 
things about these ten-minute lessons is that they rely very little on music 
theory nomenclature.  There is an upcoming episode about the blues scale!

Where this stuff is most useful, in my opinion, is if you are ever in the 
position to call out a song to a band (or at a jam) when you have not 
previously rehearsed it.  This is something we learned and practiced at the 
first Rockers in the Rockies, and I have learned even more about it from 
Pandora's podcasts.  If you are interested in leading a band, even for one 
song per set, you will benefit greatly from these audio lessons.  Of course, 
they are totally free!  You can subscribe to the whole podcast or download 
individual lessons in MP3 format from this site:

http://blog.pandora.com/podcast/

I have no affiliation with these guys.  It's just that everytime I listen to 
a new episode, I think "wow, the people on Harp-L should hear this stuff!" 
and today I finally remembered to email the list about it.  I wonder if they 
will ever do an episode about the harmonica, and whether one of our list 
members might be the guest on that one.

Jonathan Metts