It’s all change for me. I’m no longer blogging about learning and development in the workplace. My new focus is on music composition.

My new blog and website, Instrumentality, records my own, personal, completely mad, musical adventure.

The prime purpose of the website is for me to record my learning journey. I also hope that others interested in songwriting, instrumental composition, playing instruments or just music generally, will find some of my journey interesting.

Here is a summary of the first 10 posts on the Instrumentality blog. I share these because there are going to be quite a few of you learning professionals out there who are also musicians. If that’s not you, I apologise and promise this is my one and only crossover post.

Lockdowns are for learning
How the coronavirus lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 provided an opportunity for an acceleration in personal learning which in turn led to the Instrumentality project.

Four chords seem enough for most people
New research shows that your typical Billboard hit has an average of four chords. Is that too many or too few? Does it matter?

How harmony changes everything
If you’ve come up with a melody you like, it’s easy to think that the creative process is now over. But a melody only takes you half the way there.

How tasty is your timbre?
Timbre is the tonal quality of a sound. Some instruments have a naturally wonderful timbre so we had a listen.

I bought a new guitar
How many guitars does a guitarist need? One more. In this case a Martin 000C.

In praise of the major seventh
Some chords don’t get enough outings. One of those is the major seventh. Here’s how it sounds.

It started with a drone
The drone is the most ancient of all musical forms. Why is it so powerful? Can you create a piece of music with a single note?

Minor keys dominate global top 20
I analysed the top 20 tracks in the Apple Music Global Top 100 on February 25, 2021. Here’s what I found …

That critical second chord
The second chord in any progression can have a big influence on where that piece goes. Here are some unusual examples.

The lazy person’s tour of the triads
Six, three-note chords form the foundation of nearly all Western music. If you’re a keyboard player, you need move only one finger at a time to find them.