For my assignment, I picked Difference A Day Makes by Jim Guthrie to listen to.

I talked with my music teacher about why i picked this piece, expressed my appreciation for the the musician, and how I grew up growing up listening to country and tracks like the ones Barry Manilow made.

Listened to the song, while taking notes:

• I don’t know how to take notes on music.
• The chords structure sounds a little repetitive on the “difference a day makes” stanza

After listening, he showed me the notes he took (transcribed to the best of my ability, they were very messy):

A: Fmin, D♭maj, A♭, C7 B: D♭, Fmin, D♭, E♭7, A♭ A¹ → break → A² → B → break → A³

• C7 sells that it is in Fmin, called a full cadence
• Tonalization, make a new chord the scale

He suggested that I should try to regularly pick out sections of a song so I can make maps of how songs are structured. I can use those maps later to have an easier time with structure when creating songs. It would also make me a more attentive listener.

We then listened to Roma Fade by Andrew Bird, which he said I might like because it has similar Americana influences with a darker tone and meaningful lyrics. He pointed out that writing lyrics is more about writing memorable phrases and what the words mean individually than meaning across the entire song. My music teacher said: “How do I make this phrase as sharp as possible, cut you in the core?”

I said that while I can read what a bridge is and listen to examples of bridges, that there doesn’t seem to be one definitive answer for the structure of a track. I asked if determining the sections of the tracks was more a matter of argument (such as in literary analysis) than a matter of truth. He said yes, but furthermore it applies to all aspects of music theory, even for example saying what key a chord might be in.

I also asked about how he knew what all the notes were. He took a class to train aural skills/ear training in college, which he said essentially boiled down to the teacher playing C, then some other note anywhere else on the piano, and asking what note it was. However, he said that it’s very useful to train just relative pitch.

He gave no assignment, but said we would start getting into the rabbit hole of how chords and lyrics are related in the next lesson.