What is the Breakdown?
Just like most people, I was not excited about learning - studying music. I was more excited about playing music. Grabbing my guitar and making sounds. Taking lessons seemed to be boring and laborious. I didn’t get much out of it. I hope I’m not alone with this feeling.
Why bring that experience up you ask? Because I would like to present to you what changed my life and gave me a new outlook.
It was simple, “Understanding why I was learning all these rhythmic and chordal concepts. How did they help me create music? Or was this all just one big exercise that would just end at graduation?”
Well I found that my outlook on the subject matter was wrong and if I changed the way I see it, I would understand. At the university I attended, the majority of the music staff was based in formal classical music. Popular music was new to the school. Of course each student was required to take theory and other courses taught by the formal teachers, who heavily focused on classical music. This became my biggest problem and biggest blessing.
Out of my own ignorance, I believed that the skills being taught only had to do with classical music and they did not pertain to anything "I" wanted to do.
Boy was I wrong! It took me a while to figure it out, but eventually it became very clear,
MUSIC IS MUSIC, period.
Everything that I learned was found in Rock, Blues, R&B, Jazz, Country, Hip Hop, Electronic Music and all other styles. Each style used the same chords (with a few deviations), chord progressions, scales, everything.
What I was missing was what I now call, the "connective tissue".
What's the "connective tissue", Mr. Claritan?
What I was missing was learning these important skills and connecting them to the music I am interested in today.
In the previous lessons, we studied whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, ties and other ways to see music with musical notation. But so far, we have not seen this in action. That’s exactly where I got lost back in my university years.
The breakdown section is designed to show you how what you learned works in music. You will be given tracks to explore with the breakdown of what it looks like compared to your lesson.
WHY?
Because we want you to understand that you are not wasting your time. The simplest rhythms can be used to make incredible music. You can start now being creative, you don’t need to wait another moment. You have just been given something powerful. Use your mind and go for it.
Don’t limit yourself to one style of music. The more you can create, the higher potential of success you are going to have.
Of course we are going to walk you through and explain everything. Give you hints, tidbits and insights on how to alter your thinking, so you can see the process of creating music clearly.
We know these thoughts and ideas are going to help you move forward.
Take your time, learn all the information correctly once, and move on.