Keys, Codes and Modes A Visual Method and Graphic Approach to Understanding Music

"Keys, Codes and Modes" offers an alternative way to visualize, learn and understand the inter-workings of music. This guide presents a graphic and progressive approach to musical principals. It is perfect for experts trying to hone their skills, and for beginners trying to understand the basics. Making music work starts with the foundations— and they are all covered in this book!

Building from simple concepts to complex progressions, "Keys, Codes and Modes" is an excellent tool for an aspiring musician to contextualize their musical world. Shapes, circles, compasses and the numbers on a clock face are used to express the complicated concepts found in music.

Ben Ryan is a creative spirit, with concentration and focus on music, art, writing and the guitar. He is a technology innovator and inventor with families of U.S. patents. He is a resourceful, multi-disciplined, full-time student of life. As a musician, he has played since he was seven, including piano, trumpet, voice and guitar.

In the early 1970s he spent nearly a year in New Orleans, experiencing the food, the life and the music scene there. He worked at WYES-TV as a production specialist. He was involved as a producer with a special-feature program highlighting the "Jazz and Heritage Festival." Soon thereafter, he lived in the West Village of New York City. He joined the staff of the world-famous: Cafe Wha?. He made the most of that time with all New York had to offer, friends, food and familiar places such as the coffee houses, art lofts and music studios.

Later on, he spent more than a decade as a pioneer in the burgeoning computer-generated graphics industry. From the very onset working with a General Electric Division, partnering with NASA on the simulated flight and animation program, exclusively for the Apollo Space Program, Mr. Ryan demonstrated and realized management and corporate leadership.

His work has been viewed globally, corporately and governmentally, including a major presentation to the Senate sub-committee on new communications technologies. He was an instrumental leader in the transition of Northrop Aircraft from conventional artwork techniques to the computer-generated methodologies, protocols and processes. Soon after, he started his own successful production company–creating custom graphic solutions and computer generated presentations–long before PowerPoint–in downtown Los Angeles, California with numerous Fortune 500 Companies as clients.

Most recently, he has been involved with the development of patented musical accessories. In addition, he spends his time on the development of new methods for understanding the "big picture": how music theory and the guitar fit together. His writing and Illustrations use visualizations and graphics to illustrate complex concepts simply.