Macon

Piano chord charts are used to help you keep track of chord changes. And the cool thing about them is that you can use them for improvisation and composition. Here's how.

Let's say you have an 8-bar phrase to play. There are no chord symbols yet so you don't know what chords you'll be playing. You just have 8-bars in front of you. The first thing you need to know is the time signature. For our purposes here, we'll keep it simple and use 3/4 or 4/4 time.

Now let's select 4/4 time for our 8-bar phrase. Now we know the meter but what about the chords? Here's where we can jot down chord progressions for either improvisation or composition. For example, you may want to begin something in the Key of F Major. Having made that decision, you know that you have 6 chords to use right away. These are F Major, G minor, A minor. B flat Major, C 7, and D minor.

All that's left to do now is begin your piece in the Key of F Major. We usually start with the F Major chord itself so you now know that your first bar or 2 will be the F Major chord. But now a problem arises - how do you fill up the rest of the space? By using an 8-bar phrase to begin with, you don't have to worry about filling up a lot of space and taking forever to complete a section of music.

For instance, let's suppose we want to chart out an 8-bar phrase for improvisation purposes. We know what chords we will be working with. Now it's just a matter of fooling around on the piano and playing with the chord choices. You may want to place a chord change at every 2-measures. You can even use 2 chords for the entire 8-bar phrase such as F Major and B flat Major.

The whole point of the piano chord charts is to have a tool that will help you navigate what chords to play and when to change chords.

Edward Weiss is a pianist/composer and webmaster of Quiescence Music's online piano lessons. He has been helping students learn how to play piano in the New Age style for over 14 years and works with students in private, in groups, and now over the internet. Visit www.quiescencemusic.com/piano_lessons.html now and get a FREE piano lesson!

When I look back at the fundraising I did throughout my amateur athletic career, I recall the effort I put into designing a great portfolio with a cover letter that I sent out to large corporations. That portfolio would be mailed out to some executive with the hope I would catch an organization looking to make a contribution to my fundraising goals.

Let's examine that fundraising method by taking a close look at how YOU allocate your personal donations to various causes. If you receive a piece of mail that describes a cause and what your donation can do, how willing are you to just up and scrawl a check for $1,000? How about $100? Even $10? That's exactly my point - you have no personal connection to that cause, and therefore you can't justify donating your hard earned money for fundraising.

Take a look at where your own donations go to and chances are you have some connection with that organization's goals. For example, your kids may have gone to summer camp at the same place for seven summers and they have nothing but fond memories. If that summer camp is fundraising for the upcoming camp year, you might be more inclined to donate because you have a personal connection to the cause.

I want to underscore the importance of developing personal relationships with your potential supporters. I would never have been able to raise $50,000 every year for 6 years without devoting time to personalizing the relationships I built with potential sponsors. It doesn't take much, either. Here are a few quick tips to make your sponsor relationships more personal:

"Stay in contact - Keep an e-mail list of people who have donated or have shown interest in donating. Update them on news from your organization or events that you are planning. Keeping people close to you on your organization's journey to meet a certain goal is going to pay dividends in the long run.

"Face to face - When the opportunity arises during your fundraising event, you need to take the time to meet with the people who are supporting your organization. Devoting even three or four minutes to thank them for coming and to inform them personally of where their money is helping and how passionate you are about the direction of the organization is important to securing future funding.

"Thank you's - After every event or after a donation of any kind, you need to make an effort to thank those who have taken an interest in your organization. You can destroy all of the good work you have done in building a fundraising relationship by failing to acknowledge the kind support of a sponsor or donor.

These are basic ideas of how you can maintain a minimum amount of contact throughout the calendar year. An impersonal organization that has little contact with his or her potential supporters is going to come up short time and time again when fundraising. Part of your fundraising plan - especially if you are a small organization with a low profile - should include making personal contact a priority. Take this step, and you will see an immediate jump in your fundraising success.

Jayson Krause implemented and perfected a fund raising strategy that raised him nearly $50,000 a year for 6 years. Now he has put together everything he knows about the art of fund raising into an empowering new book at http://www.fundraise50k.com