I said “No more bloody essays!”

The instant I threw my pen down after assuredly completing my final undergraduate exam, I audibly groaned “No more bloody essays!”

[*simple yet poignant string underscore begins…]

I didn’t like them, and they didn’t like me - my spelling was only ok, and my attempts to craft a plausible yet tear-jerkingly eloquent answer generally resulted in a pitying grimace from any unfortunate reader. This is all assuming I actually comprehended the question in the first place.

[*strings become warmer, achingly hopeful, a theme evoking happier times emerges…]

Well. Now. Ten or so years later I find myself radiant with anticipation at the idea of writing things. What an odd turnaround. But hey, whilst ‘hermitting’ myself to remain non-viral I find my head filling with negotiably profound thoughts, so just sit down and behave for once and skim read this dross while attempting to watch season 3 of Ozark!

[*intonation issues bar 9…..smile fades as do the happy memories….circle with red pen…. take it from the top]

As a musician, I should probably write about music, mostly. And I probably will….mostly. But should a dangerously dehydrated isolationist (virally-speaking), with delusions of oracle-like prescience, be limited to just music?

“Yes!” you say.

[*3rd take break down….come on, this really isn’t difficult! I wrote it last night a 4am…it’s all semibreves]

“Erm, ok…Ouch!” I reply.

“It’s just, you’re barely qualified to talk about music anyway” you add, pityingly.

…There’s an awkward and lengthy pause involving a tedious existential crisis and some smashed crockery before I realise I’m hearing the voices of an imagined fanbase.

So, having successfully whittled my readership down to the most fully devoted, I have decided to get to the effing point; ‘Music’. A thousand times ‘music’…..aaaand a bit of other stuff. This one’s going to be a short rant about chord progressions.

No no, don’t go. I’ll keep it as quick as possible - the padding is proving rather weighty, sorry. And I too am missing Ozark.

I keep seeing adverts on FB for ‘chord progression generators’, demonstrated by wide-eyed sales-’musicians’ who begin by saying; “If you know nothing about chords, like me, then…..etc.” Now this grinds my gears somewhat. White-hot, toddler tantrum-style fury is a little too much, but, perhaps more due a deficiency of physical contact, there is a gripe, and I find my life to be less straightforward with it in it. The more chilled out amongst you will casually recline in your beanbag and remind me about “inclusivity, man”. Now stop right there [hippy name]! I’m all for inclusivity - That is, that everyone should have access to adequate learning opportunities in music and the arts. I would even go so far as to say that, where possible, the necessary tools with which to achieve highly in their artistic endeavours should be afforded to them. But this ‘chord progression gener-whatsit’ is not advertised as a teaching tool. Even if it was, can you really beat, say, the Piano for its demonstrative capacity with regards to chord progressions in the hands of someone with at least 3 digits?

In the ad, it shows folders containing midi for chords at every degree of a scale. A ‘drag-and-drop’ affair. Congratulations! I mean, I suppose that I do know better than most (though not so well as very, very many) how chord progressions work, but I simply cannot comprehend how dragging and dropping midi at random into your sequencer until you hear something that sounds ‘not awful’ results in you, the ‘drag-and-dropper’, becoming a more accomplished composer. There appears to be no information; nothing to explain harmonic relationships between the chords; nothing on cadence, or strength, or inversion, or anything really. Just midi data. In labelled folders. A means to an entirely unhelpful end. The problem isn’t solved here. The problem is simple: Fred doesn’t know how chord progressions work. “Don’t worry Fred. Here’s a book on harmony - the Piston is very good, but there are countless others - and here’s the chapter on chords and chord progressions - it took me a few goes but I got there eventually with the love and support of my family and friends.” Fred didn’t take my advice, and went on to become a successful accountant with a very attractive wife and high-achieving children. We are no longer friends. Don’t be like Fred. (Be my friend!.. please be my friend!)

In many ways this promo is akin to some other celebrations of ignorance; the one springing rudely to mind is, as a composer, having zero understanding of musical notation - that is, the written language of western music. Some is fine. Some is something (almost by definition). Zero is deliberate in this profession. (To clarify, I’m distinguishing composers from producers/other music writing professions here, before I lose even more of my non-existent readers). Everyone’s musical education is different, I know. Many guitarists for example will explore compositional avenues having only read tabs. What I don’t understand is when some writers of music seem to proudly declare that they don’t read notation by choice as it might “hinder their creativity”. Like learning to work a camera might make you a less visionary film director. Why does this make them proud? How can it possibly hinder your ability to write a language by learning to read it. Just watch Bernstein talking about music as a language in his Harvard lectures, he’s far more persuasive than me. If Lenny can’t persuade you then, make yourself scarce…and tell Fred I don’t miss him.

BANG! Someone entirely surprising just died on Ozark. I better wrap this up.

[*16th take of earlier string underscore begins in earnest]

Why is a FB advert that won’t affect me in any way giving me mild palpitations? Well in truth, most of the time it isn’t. In fact, I only remembered it when trying to think of what to write…but my eyes did narrow slightly in vexation when I did. It seems like an unnecessary shortcut, and a backward step in what is already a fairly slippery industry. Don’t get tempted by this silly non-committal approach. Don’t drag your feet and drop the study of useful musical knowledge (#smooth). Don’t be like Fred!

[*16th take ends perfectly…..with perfect cadence…(V-I)]