5 Levels

Key background concepts: 

• Fluency & literacy rather than performance – using our inner rhythmic and tonal senses rather than audiation or decoding
• The structure of rhythm & tonality – stable, organic and flexible
• Internalisation / embodying – inner senses of rhythm, proprioception, tonality with deep feeling / meaning to form natural, connected, efficient movements that speak (rather than mechanical movement)
• Meditative skill: calm clear focus on the model whilst letting go – defusion or recognising and no longer believing pressurising thoughts about results/rewards – some thoughts (gremlins) are very disempowering – to enter a state of groundedness and permissiveness
• Self assessment: there are 2 areas to asses – the clarity of our moment-by-moment focus on the model, and our ability to let go of gremlin thoughts

*****

Level 1

Rhythm

• Regular common-time and 2x3-time matrix structures
• Knowing and feeling where you are every moment
• Chanting mantras (no counting).
• Attack and flow, accentuation (loud/late/long) –  energy
• Elasticity – rubato, lilt, swing, feel
• 3 ways of experiencing rhythm –  gestural, percussive & lyrical
• Different tempos, dynamics, articulation to affect the story
• Duple and triple rhythm cells (and rests) (“vocabulary”)
• Experiencing each cell as a complete unit like a word unfolding in the matrix
• Exploring how our conditioned rhythmic sense is affected by verbal language / "karaoke", mimetic musical sense – hence the need for this training (or retraining – this blockage becomes stronger when tonality is added)
• Basic notation

Tonality

• Why the keyboard map is such a great structure for tonal fluency / literacy
• The red and blue groups of the keyboard map
• Navigating where you are using structure and spatial sense (not visual / kinaesthetic)
• Tagging the key names
• Four 3-key and 4-key blocks – improvise and write/read on 1, 2 or 3  lines
• Notation using treble clef only
• Tonal intention comes from rhythm first – attack, flow cadence
• Sonority – making the tone feel “supported”, float, bloom, bite, explode etc. (timbre in the dynamic sense)
• Embodied connection of brain to your instrument or voice (almost prosthetic) for natural expressive (non-mechanical), efficient technique – based on rhythm first and also inhabiting / moving through the structured tonal space
• Tonal centre – intention, feeling the "home and away" sense, again from rhythm first – the poetic cadence of the groove

*****

Level 2

Rhythm

• 3x2, 3x4 and 3x3 matrix structures.

Tonality

• 12 major and 12 minor harmonic blocks in 5 sets – symmetry and structural principles
• Awareness of major and minor tonality and root/tonal centre within the harmonic block structure

*****

Level 3

Rhythm

• Quadruple rhythm cells - notation

Tonality

• 12 diatonic blocks & key signatures - notation on G (treble) clef staff
• Relative major/minor pairs of harmonic blocks
• Plug 6 harmonic blocks into each diatonic block – family
• Auxiliary notes

*****

Level 4

Tonality

• Butterfly areas – keyboard map
• Butterfly areas – notation both treble and bass staves
• 29 key areas 
• Mapping the whole keyboard –reading a triple “bass” clef staff
• The grand staff

Rhythm

• Subdivision
• Multiple layers

*****

Level 5

Rhythm

• Irregular matrix patterns
• Syncopation
• Spread chords
• Grace notes
• Cross rhythms

Tonality

• Distant / chromatic relationships between diatonic / harmonic blocks
• Chromatic auxiliary notes
• Pentatonic
• Whole tone and diminished blocks
• Counterpoint

 

And beyond - Study of music theory and performance practice in various styles and genres will be easy and rewarding.