Brad Harrison Music

Use Your Pencil! Tip #9(25:34) of my Sight Reading Guide.

There is a spectrum from true sight reading to reading music you know well.

Sometimes you have one or two rehearsals before a performance, and you're still basically sight reading on the gig. This preparation time is a great opportunity to use your pencil to make sure you avoid errors.

I don't know why, but students are always to hesitant to use the pencil to mark up their music. But it's such an important tool!

Write in that # or b. Add the counting.Circle the key signature, repeat, dynamics, or rest.


Don't let little errors haunt you. Mark up your music, fix the easy stuff, and you'll effortlessly get it right the next time!

3 days ago | [YT] | 63

Brad Harrison Music

Make your warm-up even more valuable and productive!

You've got to warm-up, otherwise you'll probably sound bad and play poorly. But warmup can be a lot of things depending on your needs and instrument. Play long tones, scales, exercises...but whatever you do, don't just jump into music/songs/pieces. That's not a warmup! That's just playing!

Pay attention to how you sound and how you feel and get ready to play well and sound great.

But you can make your warmup even more valuable by adding techniques you're working on into your warmup. Maybe a new awkward scale, but slow with the metronome to practice the scale and practice counting. Or play long tones with dynamics. Or arpeggios with different kinds of articulation. Or some sort of awkward fingering in various rhythmic densities.

You can practice two or three things at once this way. It was a huge efficiency upgrade for my practice routines. Whatever I was working on(scales, lip slurs, multiple tonguing), I would add that into my warmup and do it for 5-10 minutes every day. 

Check out this video for some more ideas.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 68

Brad Harrison Music

Thinking of my recent video on Blues Improvisation and I'm wondering if a better title is "The Six Levels of Blues Improvisation" or "Why Learning the Blues is Like Learning Chess" to highlight what I thought was a really useful metaphor. Thoughts?

Also, how did we like this video? I'm thinking of doing a bunch more jazz and improvisation videos if people are interested. Let me know what you think!

1 month ago | [YT] | 33

Brad Harrison Music

I had a first lesson with a student today who has been playing for a few months but was mystified by note names. "So, it's just the alphabet? It's that easy?" You bet, my dude. It's that easy.

Be careful teaching mnemonics, folks! They're memorable, but they cause plenty of confusion if you don't make sure the person understands the underlying patterns of note naming.

1 month ago | [YT] | 54

Brad Harrison Music

Many people are resistant to metronome practice. But it's the most wildly useful tool that so many musicians wildly underestimate and underuse. Here's how to use it...

2 months ago | [YT] | 45

Brad Harrison Music

Just passed 200k subs! Thanks for the support!

2 months ago | [YT] | 75

Brad Harrison Music

Do you play better alone in the practice room than on stage or in front of your teacher?
It could be a form of stage fright (whether it feels that way or not). Or, maybe there's room for improvement in your preparation.

2 months ago | [YT] | 19

Brad Harrison Music

There is no other single project that did more to increase my skills as a musician than this. It was like gaining superpowers.

If you don't know your major scales, all of them, notes and fingerings, you really need to learn your major scales. You won't regret it. They make literally everything better.

2 months ago | [YT] | 55

Brad Harrison Music

Here's a sample of the blues resources that channel members and patrons get access to.
This is just in C, but members get all 12 keys. 

It includes the chord changes, blues scale, an exercise to learn all the changes, and 10 different scale types for each of the three main chord changes.

And be sure to check out the new video on blues improvisation!
https://youtu.be/BI8HpvkXWeM
www.patreon.com/BradHarrison
youtube.com/channel/UC5EEcOixvGwVFVsHXWYehHg/join

4 months ago | [YT] | 70