In my most recent lesson with Benedict, he taught me about the ‘major minor’ chords (minor triad with a major 7th sometimes plus a 9th) that often show up in Bond soundtracks. So very interesting that with my first listen through Raye’s brand new album, it comes up several times! It’s almost as if she did it on purpose for my education- so thanks Raye! Anyone else had a listen and can find the major minor chords?

Hi everyone! Despite being on holiday right now, I went back to Oxford over the past few days to get some coursework done. It was a pretty intense few days, so I'm quite behind on my admin! My apologies if this has affected you in any way. Just so you're aware, my exams will probably start around mid-May and will hopefully finish by early June. There may be one or two weeks without lessons for those of you who are having them. Honestly, I'm quite looking forward to the exams, or more specifically, the period after their completion! Just wanted to keep everyone updated. Thanks for your patience!

Ben has got me to practice this technique. As I understand it you pick a particular measure in a piece that you are having trouble playing. For 5 minutes you just keep repeating the piece non stop. I think after 5 mins you then go down to 4 then 3 and finally 2. I take the last note from the previous measure play the challenging measure and finish on the first note of the following measure. Hopefully Ben will read this and correct any false assumptions/errors I have made.

Putting this question here in case it helps someone else, or in case anyone else knows the answer! @Benedict King, a minor 7th tetrad (triad with 7th) in a major key has a flattened 7th right. E.g. in C major, the II in Dm7 which is D,F,A,C. But in a minor key, would the tonic tetrad still be a minor 7th? I am so used to minor tetrads always being m7. I would expect though it to be a major 7th because the 7th in a minor key is not flattened, e.g. in C minor the 7th is B not Bb, so surely the I tetrad in C minor is Cm#7. Or how else would you notate that? CmM7?! This can’t be right!

Hi all! We've got a musicianship seminar coming up this Saturday at 14:30. This will be on: How to analyse the harmony of a new piece before you start learning it. (It will also cover recognising and playing common chord progressions--they're linked). Are you coming? Let me know in the poll below. If you can't make it, please do ask a question or submit a recording in the comments below. We'll address it in the session, and you'll be able to see it in the recording. P.S. One million brownie points to whoever gets the joke in the title of this post...