Don’t Start off with a Dictionary

In this post, I’d just like to shut down one of the excuses for those that want to start music, but don’t REALLY want to, this one being the complexity of music theory. Music IS full of confusing terminology and concepts, after all.

If an article reads, “The Nashville Number System is a method of transcribing music by denoting the scale degree on which a chord is built.” it’d be pretty easy to pack up your bags and leave the Music Express for people who have the time and energy to memorize everything, but that would ruin your chances to becoming the rock legend that you aspire to become! Too many people want to start off playing like Jimi Hendrix or Van Halen, (or Neil Peart for the drummers) but they didn’t start off shredding and doing solos.

 For example, you don’t give a newborn baby an 8 oz steak. There’s no way that it would be able to eat it. You start the baby off with food made for babies, and then over time, it can work itself up to other foods, and eventually, STEAK! . All famous musicians had to start with baby food just like everyone else. Maybe starting off with the definition of a key is or looking up chord charts is where you need to start, but if you keep working at it, and stop yourself from getting scared away by confusing concepts, you can grow and become a great musician! Maybe we can jam together someday!

Until next time, keep rocking!

Joel Miller

Howdy Ho!

Hello any and all viewers of this blog!  Welcome to The Rhythm to Rocking! My name is Joel Miller and I’m a DIY musician.

I’m sure that at some point, music was looked at as something that you had to pay expensive classes to learn, you had to sell your soul to get good gear, and that you can’t do it by yourself. Well I am very glad to say that this is no longer the case! Most of everything that I know about music has been learned through friends/peers, experience, and the World Wide Web. I’ve learned about playing instruments, setting up sound equipment, doing home recording, etc., all from the safety and comfort of my own home.. Mostly. What I’m trying to get at is, the idea of playing and making music by yourself can seem a bit weird, foreign, or scary, but we all have the information to do it at our fingertips. I will be bequeathing to everyone who stumbles upon this the knowledge and experience that I have gained over the years, whether it be seen as valuable or not. This will hopefully be a place where musicians from all walks of life can come and give and take input about whatever they’d like, but my main goal is to try and use what I’ve learned to maybe help some other people out express themselves through music. Thank you, and goodnight!