The major pentatonic scale is one of the most useful and universal, and has the advantage of being easier to learn and use than the full major scale most musicians start with. When it comes to playing by ear and improvising, the major pentatonic is a perfect place to start.
In this month’s Instrument Packs at Musical U our four Resident Pros taught easy, practical ways to put the major pentatonic to use on guitar, bass, piano and when singing. Building on our training modules which teach members to recognise the major pentatonic scale and each of its notes by ear, as well as last month’s Resource Packs on Beginning Improvisation, these new tutorials help make the connection to instrument skills and practical use of the pentatonic when playing and creating music.
Pentatonic scales are popular among guitarists due to their versatility for improvising solos over a wide range of chord progressions. The trouble is that most guitarists end up feeling stuck and limited, playing solos which sound and feel robotic, time after time. Dylan Welsh reveals a fresh approach that can help you break free of those constraints and get to know the pentatonic scale in a deep and meaningful way on guitar:
Including:
-What is the Major Pentatonic? What makes it different from the regular Major scale?
-Three ways to practice the scale to really internalise it all across the fretboard.
-How the major and minor pentatonic scales are related.
=Why and how to sing along as you practice the scale.
-Practice MP3s for the scales in two keys, plus some call-and-response exercises to practice playing pentatonic riffs by ear.
Getting “fretboard freedom” is a goal for many guitarists and in this tutorial Dylan teaches a versatile and effective approach which not only teaches you where to find the notes across the whole neck but also forges a strong connection between your fingers and your ears, allowing you to find the notes you imagine in your mind or hear in the music you that want to play by ear. Although the focus is the major pentatonic (and that’s a great starting point), in fact, Dylan’s method can be extended across any type of scale.
Audiation may be a strange and unfamiliar word, but it means something you probably do every day: hear music in your head. Learning to harness this skill and develop it can benefit you in a wide variety of ways on your instrument. Taken a step further, learning to sing what you hear or audiate creates a valuable bridge between your mind’s ear and what you play.
In this month’s Instrument Packs our Pros introduce a range of ways audiation and singing can benefit you in music, along with simple exercises you can start using today to hone your audiation and use your voice to transform your playing.
Guitar
Building on his teaching in the Beginning Improvisation and Major Pentatonic Resource Packs, Resident Pro for guitar Dylan Welsh explains the usefulness of audiation and singing for a range of tasks you’re already doing in your guitar playing:
Including:
Why singing and audiation are important for guitarists, even if you don’t feel confident in your voice.
How to use audiation and singing to learn new melodies by ear.
How to use the same technique for playing chords by ear.
How audiation can help you memorise new songs faster.
Using audiation and singing to improvise in a way that breaks free of fretboard patterns.
Practice MP3s for playing melodies and chords by ear, and improvising.
As Dylan puts it: this is a powerful tool for pretty much anything you’re doing on guitar, so if you want better results faster, it’s time to audiate and use your voice.
Bass
If there’s a bassist who’s truly free of the improvisation-by-numbers that traps many musicians it’s Steve Lawson, and in this month’s video tutorial he explains how singing can be the key to getting there yourself:
Including:
Why sing every exercise you do on bass.
Different ways to practice singing and audiation using scales, including a Dorian mode example.
How this leads to you improvising in a whole new way.
Example songs and basslines you can practice with.
Using your voice to help you figure things out by ear.
Finding the right notes by ear becomes much easier when you use audiating and singing as stepping-stones and the more you practice with the exercises Steve teaches, the sooner you’ll be able to play the right notes first time, every time.
Piano
As Resident Pro for piano Sara Campbell points out in her video, pianists sometimes struggle because their fingers are so far from their ears! Bridging the gap through audiation and singing can help you gain the “instinct” for which notes your fingers should be playing.
Including:
Audiation: What is it? How can you do it? And most importantly, how can audiation be useful for pianists?
Audiation and singing exercises that you can use to sharpen your skills.
Demonstration of specific ways to use your voice while learning to play a song by ear on the piano.
Tips, tricks and cool stuff you can do with singing and audiation.
MP3 Practice Tracks for singing exercises based on scales and tunes.
From simple scale-based exercises to more advanced song-based practice, Sara explains a step-by-step method to make singing and audiation an easy and natural part of your piano practice and gradually build that inner sense of where the right notes live on the keyboard.
Singing
Audiation is essential for singers in a number of ways, as Resident Pro for singing Clare Wheeler explains.
Including:
Audiation lets you bring theory to life, judge and match pitch, stay in tune,
and harmonise by ear.
How audiation can be the difference between an amateur and a professional choir starting a piece.
One simple exercise and a valuable insight to practice matching pitch dead-on, first time.
How to stay in key and not drift during a piece.
The usefulness of memorising a single reference pitch.
How to start learning to harmonise by ear when singing
As musicians and music lovers we all audiate in one way or another, even if it’s just when an annoying song gets stuck in our head! Clare shows how even this is an opportunity to improve as a singer, and the myriad other ways audiation can transform your accuracy, confidence and creativity when singing.
Coming up next month…
Next month our pros will be tackling scale degree recognition and sharing ways to develop your solfege note-recognition skills using your instrument.
Interested in getting access to these resources and much more, with an Instrument Pack membership? Just choose that option during checkout when you join Musical U, or upgrade your existing membership to get instant access!
The major pentatonic scale is one of the most useful and universal, and has the advantage of being easier to learn and use than the full major scale most musicians start with. When it comes to playing by ear and improvising, the major pentatonic is a perfect place to start.
In this month’s Instrument Packs at Musical U our four Resident Pros taught easy, practical ways to put the major pentatonic to use on guitar, bass, piano and when singing. Building on our training modules which teach members to recognise the major pentatonic scale and each of its notes by ear, as well as last month’s Resource Packs on Beginning Improvisation, these new tutorials help make the connection to instrument skills and practical use of the pentatonic when playing and creating music.
Building on the easy and accessible approach to piano improvisation taught in last month’s Resource Pack Sara Campbell shows how the major pentatonic can be a great way to explore easy piano improv. Through a mix of clear finger-pattern exercises and great-sounding improvisation exercises, Sara shows how you can quickly and easily master this valuable tool.
Including:
– Major Pentatonic Scale basics: how to figure it out in any key.
– Two Pentatonic Scale warmup exercises to help you get familiar with all 12 pentatonic scales.
– A fun boogie-bass improvisation exercise.
– Various patterns you can use to explore the sound of the pentatonic.
– A handy tip for knowing when to use the pentatonic to improvise.
– MP3 practice tracks for the warmups and improvisation exercises.
– Quick reference sheets for the two warmup exercises showing the scales in all 12 keys.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed when considering improvisation on piano or how to master scales across all 12 major and minor keys. Fortunately, Sara knows exactly how to crush that barrier and make learning pentatonic improv fun, easy and effective from the very beginning.
Nashville songwriter, producer, educator, and music industry insider Cliff Goldmacher has built a catalog of over 1000 songs. With songwriting collaborators including Keb’ Mo’, Ke$ha, Lisa Loeb, and Mickey Hart, Cliff’s has engineered and produced major label cuts and national advertising campaigns. Cliff’s love of collaboration makes him a natural born teacher, and he has taught through major industry workshops, Lynda.com, his own video courses for songwriters, and a TEDx talk.
We were thrilled to have the opportunity to speak with Cliff about his musical beginnings and how his songwriting process, and career have grown.
Q: Good morning Cliff! And welcome to Musical U. In preparing for this interview I read up on your history, past interviews, and listened to your music. You have such an amazing career. You’ve been active in so many aspects of our industry from education to composition and so many other things that you’ve done.
What started your journey? How did you get going?
First of all, thank you, Adam, for doing some homework.
You know, my beginning in all of this was sort of accidental. I began with a degree in political science, I took the law school entrance exam, and decided to take a year off. I thought it was going to be a time of applying to law schools, then going to law school and joining polite society.
I had been classically trained at piano for about ten years, from 8 to 18, then I quit when I went to college. Then I taught myself to play guitar and found that I loved it. Just found that I loved it and couldn’t get enough of it and just wanted to do it more and more. A lot of the stuff from the engineering side to the guitar side is just self-taught, but I did have a musical background, for which I’m very grateful but it’s not essential. I have some friends who are serious hit songwriters that don’t know a lick of theory, but I am grateful that I have it.
So in that “year off”, I lived in France and got a little gig in a French café and played six nights a week. I thought, “Huh, I like this. If I go to law school now, I will probably not go back to music. However, if I try music and it doesn’t pan out or doesn’t make me happy the way I think it will, law school will still be there.” That was 25 years ago.
Wow. From law school to music composer extraordinaire.
Or, as I like to call it, playing guitar for drunk people.
Q: Yes. That’s amazing. I watched a video where you talked about that first song that you wrote. That was a great story. Would you be able to tell that story for our readers? It was a song that you wrote for a girl that was on the east coast.
Oh, my. You really did do your homework! I didn’t know that I ever discussed that. Yes.
Adam, for most people – when you’re beginning as a songwriter – your creative process is completely haphazard and entirely inspiration based. I had gone to study on the east coast, I went to school in California, but I had an internship in Washington D.C. and I took the guitar with me.
I was missing my girlfriend, which is why we do anything. I was in love and I was moved to write her a song, so I wrote this song and it really came out of nowhere. It wasn’t something I had planned to do, it just kind of happened.
It was a gift… I’m a thousand plus songs in now and I still really do think of songs as gifts.
This one was just a gift to me that then I was able to give to someone else.
That’s how it started. If I’ve learned anything over the years it’s that you cannot count on making a living at this. You can’t count on falling in love every time you need to write a song. You actually have to learn how to make your inspiration and there are a lot of devices that you can use to become consistently creative – but back then it was just raw inspiration.
Q: So how do you get inspired? What are some of the ways that you find that motivation when you might not be having it on that day?
That’s a great question because the more that you write, the more that becomes an issue.
I started out writing songs by myself, for myself. After I moved to Nashville, I started writing with other songwriters. We were songwriters, not artists, so we were writing songs in the hopes we could find an artist to record the song that we had written.
At this stage in my evolution, I write with artists who are also songwriters – for their records.
Early on, inspiration was strictly based on what I was feeling. Then when I sat down with a co-writer our inspiration was either whatever was in the room that day – or was there an artist that we were hoping to write something for, and how we could craft it for that artist.
But the greatest part about writing with an artist and for an artist is that my inspiration comes from being a very good listener: my job when I sit down with an artist is to shut up. Just get a sense from them, “What is it that they’re interested in? What moves them?”
It’s amazing to me. It’s constantly humbling what someone I have never met will trust me with in terms of their life story. Anything from the loss of a loved one to the deepest love they’ve ever felt – you just never know what you’re going to get.
On the other hand, it could be something quite simple. I’ll give you an example. I had a collaborator once sit down, and she said to me, “Look. I’m a little bit tired of singing about love.” I looked at her and I said, “That is the first line of your song.” And it was.
An inspiration can be exactly that simple. It can be as simple as an offhand comment in the course of the first 20 minutes that you sit down and chat before you dig into writing. Or it can be sort of more of an evolved thought that they bring in. But one of the things that I very rarely do anymore, is come in with any preconceived notions of how the song is going to go because ultimately, since I’m a songwriter and not an artist, it’s really up to the person that I’m writing the song with and for to guide that conversation. Now, I will make suggestions, I will listen to what’s being said and help form those thoughts, but it’s very rare that I come in with a thought that, “This will be the song for today.”
That’s a very long answer to your short question. Inspiration has a lot to do with the process of collaborating.
That was an amazing answer. We spend so much of our life seeking that inspiration, and now you’re able to do that by working with these artists. That’s a great insight into how to be a professional songwriter.
Well, it’s a joyful process for me – I really do love the active collaboration. It’s something that I came to a little bit slowly. I was/am a little bit of a control freak, and so when I initially started writing songs I could not imagine including anyone else in that process. But one of the benefits of writing many, many songs is that you start to learn what you’re good at and what not so much.
One of the things I’ve learned is that I write melodies kind of like I sing: fine. My melodies are fine, and when I sit down with someone who has a real gift for melody not only does the melody sound better, but the lyrics sound better. That is the benefit of knowing what your strengths are and knowing where you should defer to your collaborator.
Q: Talking about working with these artists, I imagine you have some behind-the-scenes stories. What’s the most surprising thing that you ever experienced in the studio working with these artists?
Every artist is different. I’ll give you an example because, apparently, I want you to like me and I’m going to name drop now, but I had an opportunity to sit down with Mickey Hart, the drummer for the Grateful Dead and write some songs with him for his project.
Now, this is a guy who has been full time in music for 50 years, 5-0 years. The thing that was the most surprising to me – for people who don’t know what his creative process is like – is how actively engaged and how passionate he is about this 50 years down the road. It’s like it was his first experience sitting down to write. He was focused, he was interested, he was completely immersed in the process, and this is a guy who’s almost 70. That, for me, that was deeply inspiring, and something that most people might not expect.
I think there’s this image of the industry as a bunch of people who do a lot of drinking, a lot of drugs, and then trying to find inspiration in that. This guy was all business and really, really focused, and really joyful in his process. It was great.
Wow. Getting to work with Mickey Hart – I think that’s a story that all of us would love to be able to tell. Thank you for sharing it.
Totally my pleasure. Not something I ever expected. That’s the benefit of being in the industry long enough to have relationships with people who have relationships. I was brought in on this project because I happened to have a piece that they were missing, and so I got included. It was great. It was very flattering.
Q: I’ve heard you were playing some of the songs that you’ve written, and so I know this is difficult because our songs are like our children – but what is a favorite song that you’ve written?
It’s a reasonable question and it’s totally impossible. Instead, let me tell you my favorite story around one of my favorite songs.
I was put together with an artist who had just signed what they call a “development deal”. What that means is that the label likes what they’re hearing, but they’re not ready to commit to a fully funded album project. They’re willing to put this artist together with some other writers and maybe try a couple of recordings and see how it all works out. That’s what a development deal essentially is.
Through a mutual friend, I was put together with this artist, a guy named Spencer Day, and Spencer had signed a development deal with Universal Records and we sat down and we chatted for about 20 minutes, and we wrote a song. I’ve done this, by now, literally over a thousand times. We both felt good about this song, but you know, I feel good about a lot of songs.
Spencer brought it back to the label, the label liked it, he did it in his showcase for the label, everything looked like it was going great, and then Spencer called me and said, “Listen, I have some bad news. It turns out that the label is no longer interested and they dropped me.” And he said, “And I would fully understand if you didn’t want to write with me anymore now that I don’t have a record deal.”
To which I replied, “First of all, that’s not how this works. We’re going to write together because I think we’re doing good work. Period. End of discussion.”
Spencerhas the quality that artists have to have if they’re going to have any success at all: he picked himself back up after receiving a devastating blow.
When you think you’re that far in and then the label says “no”, that’s devastating. He decided he would make the record himself, which is brave. He recorded our song, but here’s my favorite part: while he was making the record in the studio next door was a record exec from another record company, from Concord Jazz, and this particular exec, a good friend of mine now named Nick Philips, said to Spencer, “I love what you’re doing. Would you consider signing with our label?”
From “I lost my deal” to “I’m going to make the record myself” to “I signed a record deal with Concord, they released our song as a single, and it went to number one on the jazz charts.”
We wrote it for the right reason. We did this because we were moved to do it and karma decided to give us a little nod this time, but it’s totally unpredictable. The industry is completely unpredictable and given that that’s the case, you better be doing this because you love it.
Q: That’s a wonderful song, Cliff. So many of our followers want to become singer-songwriters, want to go down this path. If you had one piece of advice that you would give to the beginning songwriter, what would that be?
I think the hardest thing to remember when you’re starting out – because you’re so passionate about what you’re doing – is what a long road this is. If you’re lucky, you’re going to be doing this for a long time.
Now, that’s a blessing and a curse. Because what that means on one level is, “Hey, you get to do this and you’re passionate about it for a long time.” But the flip side of that and the thing they don’t talk to you all that much when you’re starting out is, “It’s going to be a long time before any of your stuff starts to land.”
The piece of advice that I would have given to myself is, “The success will come if you stick with it and you’re patient.” Because there are kind of milestones … This is something we’d talk about a lot when I lived in Nashville full time, but there are milestones in a songwriter’s career and about two years into living in a major music city, whether that’s Nashville or New York or Los Angeles, that’s when it hits the fan. That’s the moment where you realize, “Okay, I moved here because I was a hero in my town and everybody thought I should move to one of the big cities to do music.”
And then you realize what your place in line is. At about two years, you realize exactly how much more you have to learn and how much better your craft has to become before you can get anywhere. That’s devastating. That’s really hard because you’re excited about this thing and you’re beginning to realize just how long it’s going to take.
The next moment is in about five years when good things start to happen. Where you’ve gotten to the point where you’re actually writing consistently better songs, maybe all of a sudden a publisher gets interested in your writing, or any number of things will start to happen that are encouraging. That’s a long time to wait before things start to get good, so to speak. I only halfway joke when I say that the first 20 some odd years in the industry are the hardest.
The piece of advice that I would give is to be patient – and, really, it’s a lot easier to be patient when you love what you’re doing.
Thank you so much, Cliff. It’s so important to remember patience: since all we usually see is the end product without knowing or understanding the years of process that go into creating it. I’m looking forward to hearing more about your take on today’s and tomorrow’s music industry next time we talk.
Transform your own music career
These days, Cliff Goldmacher is reaching out beyond music industry circles to help anyone who’s ready to transform their songwriting. We especially love his free no-nonsense tip sheet “A Dozen Quick Fixes to Instantly Improve Your Songs“.
After more than 25 years in the music industry, Cliff knows a thing or two about what it takes to make a career out of what you love. Ok, so you haven’t put in quite a quarter century yet, but you know you have some good songs, and you know you love what you do. Head on over to CliffGoldmacher.com, where you can learn about Cliff, and about what he can do to help you move forward in your own music career.
There are almost as many approaches to learning music as there are musicians. Every teaching style has a philosophy behind it, and this philosophy influences what is taught and how it is taught. The interactive, collaborative, and highly kinesthetic Kodály method of learning music was developed by Hungarian composer and educator Zoltán Kodály in the early 20th century. It combines several powerful techniques for developing the core skills of musicianship.
Because it focuses on the expressive and creative skills of musicianship (rather than the theory or instrument skills) the Kodály approach is very closely related to the world of musical ear training.
In fact, it could arguably be seen as an approach to ear training, since it is primarily your musical ear which Kodály develops.
Let’s learn more about what Kodály can do for you.
Though originally designed with young children in mind, the principles of Kodály are universal. Musical U has many free solfa resources. You’ll also enjoy these free Kodály-style rhythm and syncopation exercises.
There is a worldwide network of organizations that are promoting the Kodály method today. For more information about Kodály music learning and to find a class near you, visit:
• The Organization of American Kodály Educators
• The British Kodály Academy
• The International Kodály Society
The Kodály method is for everyone; musicians of all levels and walks of life can find something in this spirited and hands-on approach to learning music.
The major pentatonic scale is one of the most useful and universal, and has the advantage of being easier to learn and use than the full major scale most musicians start with. When it comes to playing by ear and improvising, the major pentatonic is a perfect place to start.
In this month’s Instrument Packs at Musical U our four Resident Pros taught easy, practical ways to put the major pentatonic to use on guitar, bass, piano and when singing. Building on our training modules which teach members to recognise the major pentatonic scale and each of its notes by ear, as well as last month’s Resource Packs on Beginning Improvisation, these new tutorials help make the connection to instrument skills and practical use of the pentatonic when playing and creating music.
With our singing Resource Packs we’re always keen to help our singers develop their vocal creativity and feel more free and confident in what they sing. This month Clare Wheeler introduced the major pentatonic in a way that makes it feel immediately familiar and manageable, leading smoothly and easily into some great ad-libbing improv exercises, building on last month’s creative warmups.
Including:
– How to work out the major pentatonic scale from any starting note.
– Three examples of songs with pentatonic melodies.
– How to start by singing pentatonic melodies by ear and using that as the basis for improvising.
– Why learning the major pentatonic gives you the minor pentatonic too.
– MP3 practice tracks for the major and minor pentatonic and two backing tracks to practice singing melodies and improvising over.
It’s easy for singers to make the mistake of thinking scales are just an exercise to be used when warming up before singing real music. Clare shows why scales can actually be the key to freedom and confidence in creative singing and how to use the major pentatonic as a great way to get started with them.
A song cover is a curious thing. An artist is free to take the original structure and lyrics of a song, play around with genre, instrumentation and countless other parameters, and mold it into something completely different. EDM becomes jazz, synthpop turns into punk, progressive rock morphs into reggae… there is no limit to the genre-bending possibilities of a cover.
Motown is often erroneously referred to as a genre. I say erroneously because there is a loose understanding within the music world that Motown is not a genre; it is a record label. It is an important, influential record label that had, for a period, a distinct sound. If Google can become a verb and be included in an actual dictionary, I’m not sure why Motown can’t be considered a genre, but sadly, I don’t make the rules.
The Original: “I Want You Back” by The Jackson 5
Founded in 1959 by a Detroit automobile worker named Berry Gordy, the Motown label would grow to host powerhouse talent such as The Supremes, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, and Stevie Wonder. In 1969, it signed a newly-formed group named The Jackson 5. Composed of five brothers, Jermaine, Tito, Jackie, Marlon, and Michael, the band would go on to be the launching pad for the future King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Their first single with Motown was “I Want You Back”:
Song Structure (Original):
Showcasing many of the hallmarks of the Motown sound, “I Want You Back” is up-tempo and danceable, with a discernable gospel influence in the call and response sections of the vocal arrangement.
A relentless four-beat drum pattern is the engine of the Motown sound, and this pattern drives “I Want You Back”. Prominent, memorable instrumental riffs are another cornerstone of the sound, and this is introduced right out of the gate with the iconic bass line.
Throughout the song, there is a laundry list of Motown’s other trademarks, such as heavy use of syncopation, high-pitched, rhythmic octaves in the guitar, and a distinctive trebly sound, intentionally mixed to boost the song’s effectiveness over the radio.
The form is not straightforward, with several sections ending in 2/4 bars. The final section after the breakdown reintroduces the chorus, but mixes in short reprisals of the call and response section, each one preceded by a 2/4 bar. While this makes the overall structure of the song a little hard to pin down at first, it adds an element of excitement and keeps the listener engaged.
Formed in 2004 at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Lake Street Dive’s members found in one another a shared affinity for pop and swing era jazz. These influences are evident in the group’s entire discography, from their first release in 2006 to their latest album, 2016’s, Side Pony.
“I Want You Back”was included on the group’s 2012 album, Fun Machine, and showcases their ability to make a big impression with a very stripped-back arrangement. “I Want You Back”features Rachael Price on lead vocals, Mike Olson on trumpet, Bridget Kearney on upright bass, and Mike Calabrese on percussion.
Song Structure (Cover):
Cutting the tempo of the song from The Jackson 5’s 105 bpm (beats per minute) to 65 bpm, Lake Street Dive takes a mellow approach to the cover. This lengthens the song considerably, but their treatment never feels like it drags, largely due to subtle changes to the form.
While The Jackson 5 version has multiple short sections spaced around its verses and choruses, Lake Street Dive basically distills everything to an eight-bar phrase, giving the song a solid, steady sense of direction.
Lake Street Dive’s mellowed-out, jazzy take on the song retains all of the soul and energy of the original while giving it a new feel that suits their style. Listen along with the song while reading the following walk-through, keeping your ears open for how the instruments interact and overlap!
Intro
Bridget Kearney opens the song with its distinctive bass riff and she keeps it true to the original. After four bars, Mike Olson enters with the trumpet, playing an adapted version of the guitar line present in the original.
Verse one
Rachael Price comes in at [0:29] with her ever-captivating vocals, accompanied only by the bass.
Chorus
Mike Calabrese joins in with percussion at [0:58] as the trumpet harmonizes the descending passage in the bass. At the end of each of the phrases in this chorus, all four members join in, singing four-part harmony.
Verse two
The trumpet plays along with the bass riff in this section beginning at [1:28], but also begins introducing improvised fills at the ends of phrases. To support Price’s lead vocals, the rest of the group joins in with vowel-sound backing vocals.
Chorus
The group treats this chorus at [1:56] the same as the first, but Mike Olson continues to add more ornamentation to his trumpet fills.
Instrumental
Here at [2:26], the group does its own take on the call and response idea. While the trumpet provides the call melody, the bass actually plays both the call and response lines. Instead of using the original’s material, however, Kearney improvises her responses, opening up the section into a miniature bass solo.
Chorus
In this chorus at [2:54], the group sticks to the arrangement established in the first chorus, while the trumpet continues to add complexity in the fills.
Final Chorus
In this last chorus at [3:24], the group stops playing their instruments for the end of the first phrase, finishing it a cappella. They bring the song to a close abruptly after the final phrase,ending with one statement of the response: “I want you back.”
Differences and Similarities
While Lake Street Dive change the fundamental feel of “I Want You Back”, they also manage to retain some of the signature aspects of the original version. The first, and possibly most recognizable of these is the bass line. Interestingly, this bass line becomes even more of a feature in Lake Street Dive’s version than in The Jackson 5’s.
Lake Street Dive
In the original, the opening bass riff occurs in the intro and in the background of the verses and choruses, but because there is so much going on, it occasionally gets lost in the mix. In Lake Street Dive’s version, the changes they’ve made to the form and the sparseness of the arrangement bring this bass line to the forefront of the song.
Similarly, because there are so few elements competing for attention, Rachael Price can be subtle in her ornamentation of the melodic line where Michael Jackson had to find a way to stand out against the thick instrumentation of the original.
The Lake Street Dive cover also retains the impression of soul music, though they approach their vocal harmony differently than The Jackson 5. The Jackson 5 backing vocals occur only when Michael Jackson isn’t singing the main line. At no time do they harmonize with him. Instead, the main purpose of the backing vocals is to provide the call and response element and fill in the space between Michael Jackson’s phrases. Lake Street Dive, on the other hand, performs no vocal call and response at all, opting entirely for four-part harmony.
Currently signed to Nonesuch Records, Lake Street Dive is steadily gaining momentum. To find more of their soulful covers and a growing body of original material, their Youtube channel is well worth exploring.
Your Turn
There are as many ways to cover a tune as their are musicians who accept the challenge. Take a leaf from Lake Street Dive’s book, for example, and try mellowing out a fast tune by cutting the tempo and finding new ways to keep it interesting.
You know you’re itching to put your own unique spin on that song you love. You can change the key, arrangement, structure, and even the genre of the song to make it all your own. Go ahead and grab an instrument, and play the tune in your own style!
Improvisation is a wonderfully fun musical activity but it can be challenging to learn. Here are twelve effective ways you can develop and improve your own ability to improvise music.
You can download a handy printable version of the 12 ways to become a better improviser by clicking here: https://www.musical-u.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/12-ways-to-be-a-better-improviser.pdf
Now whatever instrument you play, genre you prefer, or level you have reached, let’s dive into the twelve ways you can become a better improviser!
1. Start From the Beginning
2. Nurture an Attitude of Fun
3. Focus on Fundamentals
4. Redefine “Mistake”
5. Hear It Before You Play It
6. Listen Back
7. Play Slower to Improve Faster
8. Play the Long Game
9. Make Improvising a Game
10. Blank Slate Not Required
11. Avoid Isolation (Sometimes)
12. Be Brave
Whatever stage you have reached in learning to improvise, I hope that one or more of these tips helps you to push yourself further and become even better. Remember: keep pushing your comfort zone, and keep it fun!
We musicians are all too familiar with the restless drive to grow and learn. No sooner have we conquered one song, one skill then we’re on to the next – always striving for that mastery.
But what if that mastery stubbornly eludes us?
Think you’ll escape by quitting music? Musical U’s Adam Liette is case-in-point that once you are a musician, you are always a musician. And that’s a good thing!
And what about that Locrian metal riff, crazy recorder cross-fingering, or high vocal note that always seem just beyond your reach? Gregg Goodhart, aka The Learning Coach, has combined neuroscience, psychology, and years of hands-on experience to help you achieve amazing results from your practicing that you never thought possible.
There’s nothing like a new scale to open your ears and hands up to new sonic possibilities. And sometimes, it’s best to just kick back and relax (relish it – it won’t last long!) with some sultry Latin pop.
Always a Musician
The Musical U team is packed with musical drive and experience. Our Communications Manager Adam Liette is no exception. A heavy metal guitarist and former Army trumpeter, Adam discovered his love for country music while playing guitar in a touring military band in Afghanistan.
Though his military and business careers have put performing music on the back burner, Adam brings the same love of learning and growing to his teamwork at Musical U where he runs our social media, promoting our new articles each week on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more.
“I like to think that we are not just helping people learn music, but helping them achieve a fuller, more complete life!” – Adam Liette
Adam also reaches out to other music educators and amazing musicians with similar missions, providing our audience with a steady stream of fascinating guest posts and interviews. We enjoyed getting to know Adam a little better in this interview, and know you will too when you Meet the Team: Adam Liette.
Dorian Demystified
Learning new scales can really open up your musical awareness and ability.
Wait. You’ve twisted your fingers around your 15 major and 15 minor scales (45 if you count natural, harmonic and melodic minors!). Isn’t that enough?!
The coolest thing about the Dorian mode – apart from an intense, driving sound that makes it one of the most popular minor scales in jazz, R&B, metal, many rock and pop songs, and traditional Celtic music – is that you already know it!
The Dorian mode is very popular for constructing guitar solos and creating some fantastic melodies. Getting started on the mode can be difficult, especially when trying to connect various scale shapes on the fretboard. Spy Tunes provides a super series of videos on beginning to use Dorian in your guitar playing.
Modes do not just impact the melody, but the entire harmonic structure of a piece of music. Incorporating the unique color of Dorian into the chord progression behind a melody will add so much to your music. Check out this exploration to see the chords and scales that fit within the B Dorian harmony.
While it is popular with guitar players, Dorian can be applied to any and all musical instruments. This lesson from Sean Wilson Piano shows how to practice the Dorian scale on the keyboard, and has some great information for all instruments on which chords to use when playing in Dorian.
The Learning Coach
When he became a classical guitar teacher in a public school, Gregg Goodhart was driven to help his students maximize their potential – and move beyond it! Through applying the lessons of modern neuroscience and psychology, he has developed systems that raise the bar on learning across every discipline.
Last time we spoke with Gregg, he explained this new paradigm of confidence and peak performance. This time Gregg shows how applying the lessons of learning science can actually cause us to acquire the “talent” we thought was out of reach.
Practice sessions, and how the musicians approach their practice, can be the difference-maker in developing your capabilities as a musician. As times and technology have changed, it has become both more complex and easier to track your daily practice. Jason Heath of Contrabass Conversations talks about the evolution of his practice routine and how to use new tools for keeping yourself on the right path.
Many of us have been taught to practice the way that we would perform a piece of music. Shouldn’t our practice be organized in a similar manner? Better Practice App talks about how to organize your practice into set lists to make more efficient use of time and better prepare for a performance or lesson.
Yes, practice can be… boring. And who actually likes playing scales?
We understand! Some of the things that we need to do to become more proficient on our instruments aren’t always fun. But, what if you can find ways to make your practice more musical? Check out this video from Sean Daniel Music on how to implement little tips that will make practice more enjoyable.
We are all so busy trying to manage our lives and maintain our daily practice routines! So, we need to be as efficient as possible when we finally get the chance to work on music. Samurai Guitarist talks about some strategies that you can implement immediately to improve your daily practice:
Get Your Swoon On
Sometimes every musician can benefit from a vacation. But that’s not always in the budget, is it? Here’s the next best thing: kick back and listen to a new genre from a different part of the world.
A few weeks ago, we opened your ears to traditional Latin music and rhythms. Now see what happens when Latin rhythm meets pop stardom and captivates audiences worldwide: Open Your Ears to Latin Pop.
Latin pop music has distinct rhythmic qualities that set it apart from other genres of music. Naturally, this requires the percussionist to work at particular skills and competencies in order to drive the rest of the band. How is one to get started on the various types of rhythm incorporated in Latin music? Check out this page from Online Drummer with links to various types of Latin rhythms.
Latin music has inspired musicians from many different genres! This includes jazz musicians, who have infused the elements of Latin music into their charts for a celebration of musical styles that must be experienced by every musician. Jazz Education Network shows how to incorporate Latin percussion elements in jazz band.
With so much music out there to inspire your next creation, how can you take the style of Latin Pop Music and apply it to your instrument? Easy Piano Styles lays out the basics of how to play Latin rhythms on the piano. Have fun incorporating this into your repertoire!
As Latin Pop Music has continued to gain a greater following, the style has been blended with many other styles of music to create unique new blends of music. Creative Guitar Studios shows how to incorporate the sound of Latin pop music into jazz, to create a fusion that is truly fun to hear and play!
Well, I see that vacation didn’t last long! As soon as you heard those irresistible Latin rhythms, you were off figuring out how to add them to your musical toolbox. Learning, improving, creating more wonderful music – it’s what we do! So dive into Dorian, learn how to learn better, and remember the lesson from our own Adam Liette: once a musician, always a musician.
https://www.musical-u.com/learn/beginning-improvisation-resource-pack-preview
For singing this month we did something a little different. We took the theme of improvisation but applied it to that all-important preparation skill: warming up.
Guest Pro Nina Rosenberger put together this inspiring tutorial on some more interesting and unusual ways to warm up your voice and start playing around with vocal ideas:
Including:
– Why do we warm up?
– Physical warmup and breathing
– Vocal warmup using different syllables and words
– “Sing it away” exercise
– The importance of keeping true to your own vocal style
– MP3 tracks for warmup with instructions and demonstrations
Nina manages to transform what is often a boring and repetitive part of singing practice into something truly musical and actually enjoyable! By using these specific exercises as well as the overall ideas that can be applied in other ways, you need never suffer through a dull warmup again. Learn more here: https://www.musical-u.com/learn/beginning-improvisation-resource-pack-preview
I had been classically trained at piano for about ten years, from 8 to 18, then I quit when I went to college. Then I taught myself to play guitar and found that I loved it. Just found that I loved it and couldn’t get enough of it and just wanted to do it more and more. A lot of the stuff from the engineering side to the guitar side is just self-taught, but I did have a musical background, for which I’m very grateful but it’s not essential. I have some friends who are serious hit songwriters that don’t know a lick of theory, but I am grateful that I have it.
Now, this is a guy who has been full time in music for 50 years, 5-0 years. The thing that was the most surprising to me – for people who don’t know what his creative process is like – is how actively engaged and how passionate he is about this 50 years down the road. It’s like it was his first experience sitting down to write. He was focused, he was interested, he was completely immersed in the process, and this is a guy who’s almost 70. That, for me, that was deeply inspiring, and something that most people might not expect.
Now, that’s a blessing and a curse. Because what that means on one level is, “Hey, you get to do this and you’re passionate about it for a long time.” But the flip side of that and the thing they don’t talk to you all that much when you’re starting out is, “It’s going to be a long time before any of your stuff starts to land.”
When he became a classical guitar teacher in a public school, 