I have just added this on Sound on Sound Forum and thought that it would be a good idea to have it here.

As a keyboard player, I hate the way chords and bass notes are expressed as the chord first slash the bass note. For example a Gm7 with a C bass is Gm7/C.

I prefer my own system whereby the bass note for my left hand is on the left and the chord in my right hand is on the right. So I would write the above example as c-Gm7. Visually and logically my brain takes these in naturally without having to cross them over. This has always worked for me but I am sure those guitarist out there would disagree, especially as most of them leave out the other notes. They will probably want the Gm7 to be their first thought and then as an after thought think about the possibility of playing the C bass - only kidding. Seriously from a keyboard point of view I have found this is far easier.

I  don’t know about you but I do not like music catagorised into little boxes. I like to listen to music for its passion, excitement, drive, rhythm and melody etc. I don’t care if that happens to be Rock, Dance or Classical.  I like Imogen Heap’s description of her own music where she lists various genres and in the middle of the list states “I don’t care”.

We all seem to like different things in music and like the idea that a friend or partner likes similar bands or songs. As a musician, it is often said that we have natural abilities built in to us. My Dad used to say this to me and I disagreed on the basis that it was all hard work and determination to learn. However, over the years I have often wondered what gave me that drive and determination to learn an instrument in the first place.

A recent study seems to confirm this but also that there is something in us that makes us like certain types of music. A study carried out on 4,000 twins show that a person's genes can affect which genres of music they prefer.  The strongest influences were found in people that like hip-hop, rap, classical music and pop and it seems that about half of our musical taste is predetermined for us.

Well, there you have it - the music you like is in your Genes - you were born to love Ice Berg, Eminem, Lady Ga Ga, 50 Cent, Black Eyed Peas, and Beethoven.

Here is just a bit of music theory to start the day - The Dorian mode – what is it? Well it is a scale or rather it is a mode based on a scale – let me explain further. Lets take the easiest of scales C major which as you know is C D E F G A B C. The D Dorian mode contains all the notes of the C major scale but starts on D  -  e.g.  D E F G A B C D. Another example would be the G Dorian mode. This would be all the notes of the F major scale starting on G -  e.g.  G A Bb C D E F G. Do you get the idea now?

The Dorian mode is symmetric in its pattern of tones going up or down. it is made up of  a whole step, a half step, a whole step, a whole step, a whole step, a half step and a whole step. You could also say it is a Tone, Semitone, Tone, Tone, Tone , Semitone, Tone.

The sound of the Dorian mode is brighter than the natural minor scale and is used quite frequently in solos.

How useful is it ? – Well it makes more sense when you have a least two chords. For example if you were going from Dm7 to G7 – the B in the G7 implies a Dorian mode, because in Dm the B would be Bb.

Try doing some solos over these chords using the Dorian mode.