Taylor Sappe

BMI affiliated published songwriter since 1979
Private Music Instructor at DeMelfi School of Music and "in-your-home" instruction
Record producer and A&R for Captain Blue Records

Photo by Ken Gallagher

My Blog

This blog is non-interactive. However, if you would like to post something, email it to me. If I find it useful to the readers of this blog I will post it.

12/7/11: There are two kinds of crap we all must deal with at some time in our lives: Necessary and unnecessary crap. Our lives would be much sweeter if we all had a plan to deal with the necessary crap and eliminate the unnecessary crap from our lives. Prioritize your crap and get rid of the avoidable stuff that brings you grief.

10/14/11: Never sacrifice quality for quantity.

9/19/11: There is no greater reward to a music teacher than a student who practices.

1/23/11: Many students are so afraid to make mistakes that every time they make one they feel that they have to stop and go back and correct it. Although this is sometimes necessary when you don't have a clue how to play something, but once you know what to play, your goal should be to play it through without stopping. We have a natural tendency to not want to make mistakes, so when we make one, it causes a distraction that results in tension. This tension causes you to make more mistakes, which causes more tension, and the mistakes keep getting worse, so remember this phrase: "The less afraid you are of making mistakes, the fewer mistakes you will make."

A great promotional tool for recording musicians

1/6/11: I have tried many different services for internet promotion and although some of them work well I have recently found one that works better than all of the others I have yet to see. As a producer, I am currently using this service to help promote KelC, and it has resulted in many new fans for her by getting her airplay right next to some very famous recording artists, just like getting played on a major commercial radio station only to millions of listeners all over the world. Just that alone is worth more than the cost of the service, but they also provide you with useful reports that show you how much airplay your got, how many new fans you got from each song that was played within a given week, where those fans are located, the age group and gender of the fans and much more.

If you go directly to this site and create an artist account you will immediately start paying for airplay credits. However, if you click here, you will receive 200 free airplay credits and can try it first to see if you like it before spending any money at all. The link I gave you is an invitation link provided by KelC. Both you and she will receive 200 free airplay credits when you open an artist account. There is no obligation to continue after using your bonus credits.

Practice tip: Compete with yourself

9/24/10: Whether you have a competitive nature or not, as a musician, the best way to compete is with yourself instead of others. No matter how good you get, there is always someone out there who will humble you, so don't try to be competitive with others in music.

Always know your limitations and strive to exceed them. No matter how good we get, we all have our limitations. Recognizing your own limitations  is essential in understanding that there is always room for improvement. Every time you begin a practice session, set a goal to break through your previous limitations. Just a small breakthrough is fine, but as you do this with each practice session you will eventually notice larger breakthroughs.

New discoveries in music

7/29/10: I have been involved in making music for 57 years and I still find myself learning something new about music. Not a day goes by that I don't make some new discoveries, insignificant though they may seem, and a year doesn't go by without discovering something really significant. This year alone, I have made these discoveries, although some of you will probably already knew of these:

1. Standard tuning on a guitar is all of the notes of the Pentatonic Minor Scale.
2. A minor 11 chord is all of the notes of a pentatonic minor scale and can be played against any note of the pentatonic minor with the same root as the minor 11.
3. A 6/9 chord us all of the notes of the pentatonic major scale and can be played against any of the notes of the pentatonic major scale with the same root.
4. This past week I learned the proper way to use the damper pedal on a piano.
5. The key of C has no sharps or flats in it's key signature. If you start at C and go through a cycle of perfect 4ths above, the major scale starting with each new root adds one flat to the sequence. For example, F is a P4 above C and has one flat in it's key signature; Bb is a P4 above F and has two flats; Eb is a P4 above Bb and has 3 flats and continues all the way to the key of Cb, which as 7 flats. If you move in a cycle of 5ths above C, you add one sharp with each scale built on the new root. For example, G is a P5 above C and has one sharp; D is a P5 above G and has two sharps, A is a P5 above D and has 3 sharps, etc., all the way to the key of C#, which has 7 sharps.

   

I can't

6/24/10: So often I hear the words "I can't" when teaching a student. My take on that is that if you believe that you can't, then you can't. I put this to the test several years ago with a keyboard student when I was teaching out of my home in Hazleton. I gave him something that I had heard him play well often, and told him to think to himself "I can't" while playing it. He did and he messed it up.

The whole point is that if you believe that you can't do something and are unwilling to try to do it, then you will never do it. But if you believe that you can, although maybe not at the moment, you will eventually do whatever it is that seems difficult to do.

The only way to break your limitations is to eliminate "can't" from your vocabulary.