The Music Lesson, Part 2

Transcript

Hi there! It's really good to see you again. I have to admit I was not expecting it to be in this context.

Well, I just sort of assumed that you would, you know, pick up with the tutor that you had originally been scheduled for. Well, I mean, don't get me wrong, I had an amazing time with you last time I was here, but I just. ..

I don't feel like I gave you a full proper music lesson last time. We sort of got sidetracked. Not that I'm complaining, it was something else.

I just. .. I've been hoping that you'd want to see me again, I just didn't expect that you would want me to continue teaching you.

Well, I mean, no, no, I can be professional. Believe me, I'm not assuming that just because, you know, things got spicy last time. I'm not assuming that it's gonna happen that way every time.

You know, there's no presumptions here. I'm not. ..

I'm not. .. I don't feel entitled to anything, and it is really, you know, it is really important to me to do a good job at this job.

So yeah, I promise you do not have to worry about me, you know, throwing myself at you or, you know, trying to make this about something other than the music lesson that you have paid for. So yeah, I just. ..

just in case you had any misgivings about that. Well, I'm glad you had a good time last time, too. As long as you know that you don't have to hire me to get me to come over here, that you've definitely won me over as it is, and if you ever just want time with the two of us, then yeah, you don't need me on the clock for that.

But, you know, if you're really, really keen on learning music and you really think I'd be a good fit for you as a teacher, then I will absolutely do my very best. And yeah, I promise to focus and be as professional as I can. I gotta say, I am really very genuinely happy that you're treating yourself to lessons.

You deserve this. Yeah, being able to make music is so empowering, and it can be really, really good for your. ..

just your, you know, overall mental well-being and your emotional well-being. Like, making music has gotten me through some difficult times in my life that listening to music alone just couldn't, you know? It's been such a blessing, and so I'm.

.. I'm really, really happy that I get to share it. I'm really happy to be, you know, having anything to do with you getting to experience it, so thank you.

I'm really genuinely honored that you would want me to come back and teach you more and more. I will. ..

I will do everything I can to honor that, you know? That's. ..

it means a lot to me. So, shall we. ..

shall we have a seat and pick up where we left off last time? Excellent. Okay, perfect.

Yeah, let's. .. let's hop onto the bench and get these keys warmed up, shall we? There we go.

Oh, yeah, I. .. I'd almost forgotten how snug this bench is.

No, no, no, I'm totally, totally okay with you sitting that close. It's. ..

like I said, it's perfectly fine. Okay, so. ..

so what. .. what.

.. what. ..

how far did we get last time? We talked about what a note is. We talked about the vibration patterns behind music and how octaves fit within each other perfectly.

We talked about the major scale. Remember, we talked about the seven. ..

seven steps. We talked about using the first, the third, and the fifth to build chords, right? So, today, since we've already talked about the major scale, we'll talk about minor scales.

So, a minor scale is what happens when you play the same pattern as the major scale, but instead of beginning on the first note, we're gonna begin on the sixth. We're gonna go down a third, and we're gonna start here. We're gonna play the same notes, but we're gonna start here.

And that's called a natural minor scale. There's actually two other kinds of minor scales. We'll get into that in just a second here, but.

.. but this doesn't actually affect your basic minor chord. Your basic minor chord is still the first, the third, and the fifth, just like the major chord is first, third, fifth.

Minor chord is first, third, fifth. You don't need to worry about the scale to play the chord, but the scales themselves are used when you're writing the melodies that are going to be going over top of those chords. So, the first of the two variations is called the harmonic minor.

And to do this, we play the natural minor just as it is, except we raise the seventh by one half-step. So, where a natural minor sounds like this. ..

harmonic minor sounds like this. .. with a raised seventh.

So, that's a harmonic minor. So, we have natural minor, we have harmonic minor, and we have what we call a melodic minor. Now, this is actually different going up versus coming down, by which I mean you only play it this way going up, and you play natural minor coming down.

So, to play a melodic minor, on the way up, you raise both the sixth and the seventh. So, it sounds like this. And then, when you come down, and again, you you don't hear what happens to the sixth or seventh when you're just playing the chord, because the chord is just one, three, five, and maybe one again, right?

Okay, I want to. .. I really want to stress that I'm not.

.. I'm not presuming anything or asking for anything, I'm just checking here, because the last time your hand was on my thigh like this, it sort of took me by surprise. So, I just want to clarify that you're not trying to get me to stop the lesson, right? I'm interpreting that correctly.

I am super comfortable with you keeping your hand there if you want it there. I just want to make sure that, you know, I'm not making you feel rejected if I keep making music for you while you keep it there. Okay, okay, good.

That's what I thought. I just. ..

I wanted to double-check, because, I mean, you know. .. Yeah, anyway, I can control myself.

As I said, I'm. .. I'm a professional.

Yeah, I can keep it together. It's okay. Anyway, okay, where was I? Yeah, minor scales.

So, once you've internalized major and minor scales and major and minor chords, that is an enormous majority of what you're gonna need for basic songwriting. So much of the music that has ever been written throughout history uses major or minor or a combination of the two. There are other modes you can play in, but we're not going to do anything that advanced today.

You're highly unlikely to need them anytime soon. Yeah, if you. ..

if you have songs you want to write, I recommend you start with your major and minor chords and your major and minor scales. And when we're learning to understand the structure of chords, it's important to understand the relationship between, like, the distance between notes in the scale. So each of the seven steps in a scale we refer to as the degrees of the scale.

And each degree has its own proper name. So I guess if I'm going to be teaching you chord structures, I should start by teaching you the proper names of the degrees of the scale here, if we're going to be doing chords. They're not super important, but I'd like to get it out of the way, because it gives you another way of looking at the way chords go together.

So while we've been talking about the scale in terms of numbers, right, that go 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and then 1 again, right, going up, we're thinking in terms of going up, flowing to the right, right? The degrees of the scale are actually named sort of moving outwards from the middle, so I'll explain what I mean by that. So the root note of a scale is called the tonic.

That's the note the scale is built on. In the C major scale it's a C. That's our tonic.

The most important degree in the scale, because it sets the tone for everything, hence the name. And then the second most important degree in the scale is the fifth. Remember we talked about open fifth chords last time? So the fifth note is called the dominant.

Don't laugh, I didn't name it. So yes, if you're going up five from your root, that's the dominant. If you go down five, that's the subdominant.

So we have a tonic in the middle, dominant is up here, subdominant is down here. So if the tonic is C, subdominant is F. Even though that F is closer to a different C, it's the subdominant of this one.

It's interesting how that works. So in between the tonic and the dominance and subdominance, you have the mediant and the submediant. Right, the mediant is as far above the tonic as the submediant is below.

The dominant is as far above as the subdominant is below. And then immediately above and below the tonic we have the supertonic, and going down in a minor scale we have the subtonic, but in a major scale we have what they call the leading note. I don't know why they make it that confusing, but they do.

So the names end up being tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant, leading note, and tonic again. Sorry, it's just that. ..

God damn, that's a disarming smile. Sorry, sorry, I just. ..

I can't tell from the way you're squeezing my thigh now whether you're enjoying the lesson or completely distracted from it. You want me to keep going? Okay, no, no, I appreciate it.

Oh, no, no, no, no, it doesn't bother me at all. Please, by all means, you can you can grab me as hard as you want. Whatever makes you comfortable, right? I'm totally okay with it.

And I realize that memorizing the names for things can often be the most tedious and least enjoyable part of this. It's just that these are concepts that become more useful the more advanced you get, and it's better to get them on the ground floor just so they're not brand new information later on when you need them. Especially if you're writing songs of your own, these sort of things can be very helpful in choosing chord progressions and what have you, but we're not going to worry about that today.

Today we're just going to look at, like, the basic structure of chords. Now, the names in order for the purpose of the scale are not all that important, but when you're building your chords, tonic, dominant, with a mediant in between, tonic, subdominant, with a submediant in between. That's where the names come from, is whether you are ascending from the tonic or descending from the tonic.

So when you're making chords, we talked last time about the first, the third, and the fifth, right? The tonic, the mediant, and the dominant, right? The first, the third, the fifth.

When we're only using one of each of those, first, third, fifth, that, we call that a major triad. You can add more, but if we're just using the three, that's a major triad. But yeah, so when you're making triads, building on the tonic is called the root position.

If we move the tonic to the top, and we build on the mediant, that's called the first inversion, with the dominant in the middle. And then when we bring the mediant to the top, and we leave the dominant on the bottom, that's called the second inversion. But in the root position, the dominant is on top.

I'm so sorry. I feel like I just got warmer in here. I apologize.

I'm a professional. I can focus. And I mean, this is music.

I really don't want to deprive you of a proper, like, music education just because my mind is wandering. I'm so sorry. Well, you're very sweet.

I know how important music can be in someone's life, even if you're not, you know, a professional songwriter. Like, I'm someone who knows how healing and therapeutic it can be to have the ability to express myself musically, even if I'm just doing it for myself, you know? I know how much of a positive difference these kind of skills can make in your life, and so, like, I really genuinely want to help you with that.

The last thing I want to do is give you the impression that I'm not taking this seriously. Like, I really, I want you to experience the joy of making music as fucking fully as you possibly can. Like, don't get me wrong, you know, I find you fucking irresistible, but at the same time, you know, I really care about doing a good job for you, and I just.

.. Okay. Okay, well, if you're grabbing me there, then I have to assume that you're okay with me at least taking a break from focusing on anything else.

Oh, god damn. I may be a professional, but damn it, I'm only human. And you are amazing.

Oh, yes, of course I want you. Oh my god, of course I want you. I just.

.. I just. ..

I wasn't completely sure before now whether you, you know, whether you wanted to. .. Um, okay.

Oh, god, that's amazing. Well, of course I'm this hard for you. Um, I know the last time you were here, you.

.. Um, you climbed right down onto your knees without any prompting, and. ..

Oh, god, you spoiled me. And I was really hoping the next time I saw you that you might let me return that favor. We don't have to stop the lesson, but I, um, I would love to continue from my knees between your beautiful thighs with my with my hands and my mouth all over you.

Would that be okay with you? Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh, yes. Oh, god, I'm so fucking happy you wore a skirt today.

It's almost as if you wanted to be ready for me. Oh, my god. Okay, okay, okay.

Oh, my god. Oh, god, I fucking love the way you croaked me through my pants. Okay, okay, now it's your turn.

It's your turn. Okay. I am a professional, and I'm here to do a good job for you.

Let me just get right down on my knees here. Uh, I don't imagine you mind if I, um, teach without this unnecessarily restrictive shirt on. Yeah, there we go.

Okay. Now, you remember the breathing exercises we talked about last time I was here? I got to, uh, go over them with you, but I don't think you got to practice them with me because, oh, fuck, because your mouth was all over me.

God, you're amazing. Oh, your thighs. Oh, fuck, baby.

Oh, god, your thighs are so warm. Fuck, yes, I love touching you. Um, what was I saying? Yes, breathing exercises.

Um, most people just breathe with the upper part of their chest, especially when they get excited. The trick is to be feeling yourself from your belly first, and then your chest. You want your lungs to be as full, deeply, deeply full as they can possibly be, and before you let go, you want to hold it just to give yourself a chance to absorb all that beautiful oxygen.

Before you. ..