Category: Music Lecture & Seminar Topics

by Gary Powell

We think we listen to music from left to right like we read. When we whistle a tune, most of us whistle from left to right. Melodies undoubtedly move from left to right. That’s how it’s always been.

So, when the disc-jockey on the radio plays “name that tune”, playing a half second of the song’s most uninteresting part, why do we still recognize it? It’s hardly moving in any direction, yet we might instantly recognize it and win a couple of movie tickets.

What’s at play here is your very personal brain’s recognition of a complex combination of musical elements: elements like instrumentation, texture, timbre, chordal voicing, chordal inversion, equalization, ambient sound, room reverberation AND….. whether or not you were hearing this song while getting your first kiss!

Music is deep. It almost defies explanation………………………….ALMOST!

Analogy might be the best instructor here. And, each of these analogies below has a rich musical heritage that is expressed in musical terms. This is the nature of learning music. Read music, don’t read music, educate yourself or shun study altogether. The music doesn’t ask or need to be understood. But, if the following statements make any sense to you whatsoever, you may possibly be interested in becoming a musician.

It’s a dynamic snapshot that may or may not predict its next picture.

It’s the only place where you are in the present, the past and the future at the same time.

The vertical gives meaning to the horizontal and the horizontal gives context to the vertical.

It’s a flag of a dozen layers of fabric stitched atop one another where one can clearly see all the patterns at the same time….all the while it passes by on horseback while your back is turned.

It has the passion of fire, but consumes nothing.

It’s something your mind can understand even when you cannot.

(Copyright 2005 Jesmax Music, BMI)

by Gary Powell

The musical landscape has been flattened, the crooked has been made straight and“Trick or treat?” is now only“Treat?”.

“The more we move toward issues of the heart, the further we move away from the tools which would benefit us most in expressing that heart.”- Gary Powell

If dropped into any shopping mall in America there would be no way to discern in what city you were spending your money. There are libraries full of smart and dusty books which explore the homogenization of our culture. Below is what that looks like in musical terms.

The chain is mediocrity. GET OFF IT!

Song Prologues…………………………..out!
   Repetitive Choruses…………………….in!

Mode Changes…………………………….out!
   Upward Key Changes………………….in!

Dynamic Melody Lines………………..out!
   Step-Wise Melody Lines………………in!

Chord Substitutions…………………….out!
   Chord Predictability……………………in!

Dynamics…………………………………..out!
   Compression……………………………..in!

Four Bar Phrases……………………….out!
   Two Bar Phrases……………………….in!

Harmonic Vocabulary…………………out!
   Vulgar Vocabulary……………………..in!

Ring Cycles…………………………………out!
                  Navel Rings……………………………….in!

Most do not see any of this as an obstacle to our higher selves. However, our minds are smarter than we are and they are a bit disenchanted with the current administration. It seems our brains reach their pinnacle when we are involved in a unified campaign WITH them. Right now they are feeling the fatigue of working solo.

(Copyright 2005 Jesmax Music, BMI)

by Gary Powell

Culture, politics, belief systems, family and psychology are all having their way with us as artists. Untangling all of it as a young person is nearly impossible. Most of us think we are in control of our self-aggrandized destiny, especially when so many others agree with us. Little do we know the depth of personal deception we live under. No matter one’s age, it’s time to see the glass as both half-empty and half-full!
It’s time to make a plan! In fact, you are going to need two plans: a business plan and a philosophical plan. If your philosophical plan is EGOCENTRIC, in other words, if the rest of the world revolves around you, it’s time to change THAT before that same world grabs you by the neck, slams you on the deck, then drops a rather large piece of reality on your head!

Unfortunately, when one’s philosophical plan is egocentric, by default, so will be the business plan. Nothing will effect your efficacy as an artist or business person more than what is already between your ears right now. Education cannot supercede it. Willpower cannot subdue it. And LUCK, better described as what you unconsciously attract to yourself,


WILL ONLY MAKE IT WORSE! And guess what?
The glass is not even in your hands!

by Gary Powell

“We were taught to sing before we were taught to listen.” – Gary Powell

“Oh you have such a beautiful voice”, says your Aunt Jessie and Uncle Max after your first home-produced talent show. Years later, you hear it from an anonymous blue-haired lady at church, then next, from your dentist whose daughter sings in choir with you and even sometimes in the same key.

“What a wonderful voice!” they all say. Even your parents, who have never sung a note in tune in their lives say, “Oh honey, you have such a lovely voice”. You see, Aunt Jessie and Uncle Max were our first press agents. Maybe they were right, but…maybe they only knew how to catch fish! There is a bigger problem however and it is this: We were taught to sing before we were taught to listen.

Enraptured in our own vocal magnificence, it is difficult to go backward towards listening again. It is a step, however, that must not be skipped if a singer wants to progress as …an instrument. It’s an instrument capable of expressing the full experience of life like no other. Here’s where you start to appreciate its full breadth of expression.

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