The first of our theory guides has arrived: The Great Scores Guide To Intervals.

We have made a video, that functions as an introduction to intervals and covers the very basics you need to know. Intervals can be a bit daunting to learn, so we thought we’d make it easier by introducing these to you with a video:

The guide itself consist of three separate parts (which you can purchase together at a reduced price or separately).

Part 1: The full 21 page guide to intervals, explaining anything you’ll need to know about intervals, including:

• how to recognise them,
• the difference between major, minor, diminished and augmented intervals,
• tricks and tipps on how to work out intervals
• an extensive list of the opening of famous tunes with which to associate intervals so that you can recognise them easier
• intervals larger than an octave and unusual intervals such as double diminished intervals explained
• enharmonic intervals explained
• inverted intervals explained
• the tritone (the devil’s interval/diabolus in musica) explained and demystified

Part Two: 18 pages of worksheets with answers. Especially useful if you are doing music exams or ABRSM theory exams and you need to practice a bit more :-).

Part Three: our 15 page Interval-Finder: a compendium of all basic intervals (major, minor, augmented and diminished) in all 12 keys, in case you ever get stuck or need a quick reference.

We hope you enjoy our guide.

LJ

We’d like to feature one of our writers, Charley Waitt, through a performance of his composition Dreaming.

This is a beautifully atmospheric piano piece, the sheet music for which is available here. We offer this composition in two different levels of ability, so if you think the version on the video is too hard, try Level 2 (the video for which we will also be featuring soon).

Enjoy!

One of our customers from Sweden, Christopher, made a video recording of our jazzy version of Silent Night (Level 3). We liked it so much, we thought we’d share it with you:

Well done, Christopher!

“Hey. Do you want to trade fours?”

Or they might well reply:

“You’re asking for a bunch of fives!”

But on the jazz bandstand this is a very common technique used to introduce a little variety into a piece.

Once members of the band have finished their improvisation, you would normally return back to playing the actual theme of the song. You call this the “head” or “head arrangement”. But on some occasions players may slot in “trading fours” (or indeed trading twos or eighths) before playing the head to finish the performance.

Now trading fours involves the following: the lead player (saxophonist for example) improvises four bars, then a different player (pianist for example) improvises four bars. The lead player does another four bars and the 2nd player another four, etc.. All of this is done over the form of the piece, so you could do several choruses of fours. The shape of this is in the form of a musical conversation, so the two players usually react musically to the phrases in the four bars the other player has just played. Quite often the lead player in the group will “‘trade” fours with the drummer, as this means the texture of the whole piece changes. This would mean that while the lead player is playing his four bars, the whole band would still be accompanying him, but the drummer would usually play his four bars solo (though the pianist and bassist may but in little stabs here and there).

Now you could also trade 8 bars or 2 bars with someone, but 4 bars are most common, as is usually “feels” like the right length. This would obviously again depend on the speed of the piece, so you may want to trade “8’s” on a really fast piece, but “2’s” on a slow ballad.

How would you know when the lead player wants to start trading fours? Well there may be a prior agreement that you want to trade fours on a specific piece. Sometimes however, it is better to be spontaneous. If the lead player, after, say the piano improvisations, will start soloing again rather than returning to the main tune, then this would usually indicate to the rest of the band that it’s time to trade fours. The lead player might then, through a little nod indicate which player he wishes to trade fours with.

Of course there are many silly variations of this one could some up with. Trading fours around the band for example, or trading odd numbers - though this is tricky and has great potential for a train wreck (the performance falls apart) as well as sounding a little contrived and not fitting onto the lengths of a “standard” (32 bars). The scenarios I outlined above however are the most common.

We would like to thank you all for your custom over the past year.

You can look forward to more sheet music, improvements and new features to the site that we will be rolling out throughout 2010.

The first change is that our site is now available in Norwegian:

www.greatscores.com/no

So, to our new and future customers from Norway we say:

Velkommen til Great Scores!

The official UK Singles Chart began in 1952, so there are no listings for 1950 or 1951.

1952 Al Martino “Here in My Heart”

1953 Frankie Laine “Answer Me”

1954 Winifred Atwell “Let’s Have Another Party”

1955 Dickie Valentine “Christmas Alphabet”

1956 Johnnie Ray “Just Walkin’ in the Rain”

1957 Harry Belafonte “Mary’s Boy Child”

1958 Conway Twitty “It’s Only Make Believe”

1959 Emile Ford & The Checkmates “What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?”

1970 Dave Edmunds “I Hear You Knocking”

1971 Benny Hill “Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West)”

1972 Little Jimmy Osmond “Long Haired Lover From Liverpool”

1973 Slade “Merry Xmas Everybody”

1974 Mud “Lonely This Christmas”

1975 Queen “Bohemian Rhapsody

1976 Johnny Mathis “When A Child Is Born (Soleado)”

1977 Wings “Mull of Kintyre”

1978 Boney M “Mary’s Boy Child”

1979 Pink Floyd “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)”

1980 John Lennon “(Just Like) Starting Over”

1981 The Human League “Don’t You Want Me”

1982 Renée and Renato “Save Your Love”

1983 The Flying Pickets “Only You”

1984 Band Aid “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”

1985 Whitney Houston “Saving All My Love for You”

1986 Jackie Wilson “Reet Petite”

1987 Pet Shop Boys “Always on My Mind”

1988 Cliff Richard “Mistletoe and Wine”

1989 Band Aid II “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” (I think in this case the original was not bettered…)

1960 Cliff Richard & The Shadows “I Love You”

1961 Danny Williams “Moon River”

1962 Elvis Presley “Return to Sender”

1963 The Beatles “I Want to Hold Your Hand”

1964 The Beatles “I Feel Fine”

1965 The Beatles “Day Tripper” / “We Can Work It Out”

Day Tripper

“We Can Work It Out”

1966 Tom Jones “Green Green Grass of Home”

1967 The Beatles “Hello, Goodbye”

1968 The Scaffold “Lily the Pink”

1969 Rolf Harris “Two Little Boys”

Welcome to our second installment of UK Christmas Number One Singles - this time we’re taking a look at the nineties, when The Spice Girls, Cliff Richard and Queen were still fighting for the top spot (seems like a long time ago now).

1990 Cliff Richard “Saviour’s Day” (Strange, my memory must be failing me, as I thought Millennium Prayer was his last Christmas Number One.)

1991 Queen “Bohemian Rhapsody” / “These Are the Days of Our Lives” (To quote wikipedia: “Bohemian Rhapsody reached number one again in 1991, after Freddie Mercury’s death, achieving total sales of 2,176,000 and becoming the UK’s third best selling single of all time—beaten only by Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and Elton John’s “Candle In The Wind 1997″.)

These Are the Days of Our Lives

1992 Whitney Houston “I Will Always Love You” (Originally released by Dolly Parton, Whitney Houston covered this tune for the movie Bodyguard, in which she starred alongside Kevin Costner.)

1993 Mr Blobby “Mr Blobby” (No comment!)

1994 East 17 “Stay Another Day” (The band’s lead singer Tony Mortimer had written this song about his brother’s suicide, and had not intended it to be a Christmas tune at all, but the record company thought otherwise, added some bells and released it just before Christmas.)

1995 Michael Jackson “Earth Song” (along with “We Are the World“, “Man in the Mirror” and “Heal the World“, Michael Jackson is here trying to show his more socially conscious side.)

1996 Spice Girls “2 Become 1” (This was the first ballad the Spice Girls released as a single.)

1997 Spice Girls “Too Much” (The sixth consecutive number-one single in the UK for “girl-power”.)

1998 Spice Girls “Goodbye” (The first single without Geri Halliwell for The Spice Girls, and the beginning of the end for the group.)

1999 Westlife “I Have A Dream” / “Seasons in the Sun” (Seasons in the Sun is actually a very loose English translation of the song “Le Moribond” by Jacques Brel.)

“Season’s in the Sun”

Check out the original English version by Terry Jacks here: