Author: musicalitywrld

We’ve been talking in this Musicality Unleashed series about some powerful insights and mindset shifts for tapping into your inner musician and transforming how free, confident and creative you feel in music.

We’ve talked particularly about mental models – and how it’s a foundation of the right mental models which can set you up for success and turn you into the “natural” musician who can learn new musical concepts and skills quickly and easily, and empower you to do impressive things instinctively, like play by ear, improvise, and create your own music.

We’ve talked about solfa and rhythm syllables as two specific examples of those empowering mental models and about song-based learning as a neat way to make it a fun and musical experience to develop your musical mind.

We also looked at creativity and how it’s something that can actually make your music learning easier and more enjoyable when you include it as soon as possible as the vehicle, not the destination.

Okay, so how are we going to bring this all together?

Listen to the episode:

Links and Resources

• Get the Musicality Unleashed cheat sheet
• 1: The Truth About Talent
• 2: The Two Things Most Music Education is Missing
• 3: What Makes a Musician a “Natural”?
• 4: Did You Skip Step One?
• 5: A Better Mental Model for Pitch
• 6: A Better Mental Model for Rhythm
• 7: Don’t Just Learn Songs – Learn Music Through Songs
• 8: Singing Is Your Birthright
• 9: Creativity Is the Vehicle, Not the Destination
• Foundations of a Musical Mind

Transcript

So I’m hoping that you’re feeling a new enthusiasm and excitement about your music learning going forwards!

Take one or more of these ideas and apply it in your musical life and you’re going to see some impressive results.

But I know you might also be thinking “I want *all* of that!” and wondering if there’s some neat way to bring it all together.

And there might even be some people who watched the videos and thought “That *sounds* great but surely if it all really worked this would have been discovered ages ago and everyone would be doing it.”

Well it turns out there actually is an established methodology which brings all of this together in a clear, coherent way – and so I wanted to make sure you knew about it.

There is a musicianship training method dating back over 100 years that takes exactly this holistic approach to putting a solid foundation of mental models in place, all using song-based learning.

You might have heard of it before, especially if you’ve been following Musical U for a while.

But I’m hesitant to name it and share the details – because it has a funny-sounding name, and being 100 years old, there are assumptions that come along with that. You might immediately be thinking “outdated”, “hard to understand”, “not relevant to modern life”, and so on – whether intentionally or just subconsciously.

And before I tell you about it I want to come back for a second to that idea of “song-based learning”. When I talked about it you might have found yourself wondering how exactly you choose the right songs to teach you what you need to learn.

We need a set of simple songs. Songs that are like the music we love. But simpler – in each of the ways we need to simplify to make acquiring our new mental models smooth and easy.

We need a big library of songs of various kinds and complexities that we could use to build our step-by-step training.

In fact, we all have access to just such a library.

It’s called folk music.

Now if you’re like me, “Folk” has always just been a genre. To me it conjures up wonderful-sounding Irish and Scottish music with twangey accents and traditional instruments and moving lyrics.

But fundamentally “folk music” just means “the music that society has ingrained in it”. There’s Irish and Scottish folk music that you’d find in the “folk” section of a UK music shop (if those still existed). But there’s a huge catalog of American folk music, and folk music from every country, in fact.

What’s great is that these are typically really excellent music. Not necessarily complicated, in fact some are incredibly simple, which is ideal for our learning. But they stuck in society’s memory because they were musically effective – they cut right to the core of what matters in music. Melodically, rhythmically, harmonically, even with their lyrical content. So folk music is kind of the heart of all the other genres, and that makes it an amazing choice if we’re building ourselves a new foundation.

So it’s actually folk songs which this approach I’m going to talk about uses. And I wanted to mention that because of this idea, that some things have stood the test of time because they tap into fundamental truths that don’t change. And with a little bit of polish they can be just as useful today as they ever were.

Think of Beethoven’s Fur Elise [SING]

Or Michaelangelo’s David.

Even the Bible. We’re probably not going to read it in the original Greek or Hebrew! But whether you’re Christian or not, it can’t be denied that reading a modern translation provides fascinating learning and principles that 100% apply to modern life.

Things which have stood the test of time have done so for good reason – and their age shouldn’t put us off learning all we can from them.

That applies to using folk music for your song-based learning and it also applies to this overall approach I’m going to talk about. The fact that it’s 100 years old is actually a very good thing!

So this strangely-named 100-year old method I mentioned – it originated in Hungary in the early 20th Century with a Hungarian man named Zoltán Kodály. He believed that music belongs to everybody – not a gifted few, or just those who can afford serious training. He developed a new approach using folk songs to teach the fundamental mental understanding of music, the musical instinct. And this quickly spread throughout Hungary, giving every schoolchild a natural understanding of music and ability to express themselves musically with their voice.

Despite being so successful in Hungary in the first half of the 20th Century, clearly it didn’t go on to become the dominant approach to music education worldwide. Why is that, if it’s so effective?

Well, that’s a story for another day, but suffice to say that for reasons of history and politics and the established institutions of music education, its impact has been limited in a way that’s frankly tragic – because of the immense potential it holds for any musician in any country or age…

The thing that put Kodály on my radar was that I kept hearing about it over the years, and it was often given kind of a legendary status. “Oh, such and such amazing musician – well they’re Kodály-trained.” So I finally looked into it properly myself to see why it had such legendary status among serious musicians.

I took some private one-on-one lessons with one of the top instructors in the UK and it was really interesting… I remember in my first Kodály lesson, I found myself thinking “this is all very basic” – because I knew notation, I was comfortable singing, I even knew a ton of aural skills stuff like intervals and so on.

But in the course of that lesson I came to realise this was a whole new way of approaching music. And by the end I’d done some things with those simple concepts that were actually pretty powerful – like improvising my own melodies to fit a form, like tapping one rhythm while I sang another, and so on. And I came away thinking “Oh, wow, this is actually really fundamental and powerful”.

It took me a while longer to click that this wasn’t just an alternative – it was, in a lot of ways, the missing foundation that all the other stuff I’d learned should have been built on.

Later on I went on a 3-day intensive course where I was surrounded by Kodály instructors and students. And that was fascinating because I got to see the impact it has. These people ranged from amateur musicians, to teachers, to professional musicians playing in national orchestras.

Now I’ve been in tons of situations where musicians get together to learn or perform. And what stood out the most on that Kodály course was the incredibly different atmosphere. These people all had an ease and delight in music. The skills and viewpoint that Kodály training was equipping them with – it just let them *enjoy* music.

There wasn’t that competitiveness or insecurity or one-up-man-ship that’s so common when musicians get together. And they could do some seriously impressive things, in terms of collaborating, creating, playing by ear, and so on. But it was really the spirit that jumped out, the way that having these new mental models let them feel a confidence and ownership in music that just made it all a joy.

Last year I interviewed a chap called Jimmy Rotheram for the podcast – he had adopted the Kodály approach in the UK primary school where he teaches music. And not only did the kids transform musically, it had such a powerful effect on their minds that their school went from being literally among the worst in the country, to being rated in the top 1% of schools nationwide for progress in reading, writing and maths.

Talking to Jimmy what clicked in my head was that Kodály is super successful with children – because it starts from the very basics and gives them the right mental models.

But it’s not just “so simple even a child can understand it” – I’d say it’s “so simple even an adult can understand it”!

So I wanted to make sure you knew about Kodály, and how it is a great way to bring together everything we’ve been talking about in a clear and holistic way.

Like we’ve been talking about – this can be the foundation you’ve probably been missing. But for reasons of history and politics it’s mostly been hidden away in children’s music classes and niche communities with in-person training.

And if you want to seek out a Kodály training course that’s going to be a fantastic way to put a new foundation in place for yourself.

I should mention though that in the real world it’s not easy to get Kodály training. And it’s certainly not cheap, I paid several hundred pounds for that 3-day course, for example. And it was well worth that investment.

But it left me grappling with this weird situation where I was providing affordable musicality training worldwide through Musical U – and proud of what we’d built there. But I had discovered this super valuable missing piece – that was mostly hidden away in the real world with prohibitive prices.

Once I’d seen this I knew we had to somehow incorporate the Kodály approach into what we provide at Musical U.

Because although Kodály training is well-proven and extremely effective, it’s still mostly hidden away…

You can find instructors or courses for in-person training here and there.

But there was no convenient, affordable, instant access way for people to get Kodály training.

So we started to adopt parts of the Kodály approach in our online training at Musical U…

And each new thing we borrowed from the world of Kodály quickly had a massive positive impact on how effective our training system was.

But there were some aspects of Kodály that we couldn’t just “bolt on” to our existing training.

So we decided to go “all in”.

To put together something brand new, based on Kodály principles, and designed specifically to deliver the firm foundation you need for your “musical mind”.

This course has been a runaway success, beyond even what I’d hoped for in terms of delivering students fantastic results – and we’re about to reopen enrolment.

So if you’re interested in an easy and affordable way to get access to this amazing approach then stay tuned for next time where I’ll be sharing all the details!

The post Bringing It All Together appeared first on Musical U.

This episode is part of the Musicality Unleashed series. Learn more and get a bonus “cheat sheet” at musicalityunleashed.com. In this episode, we talk about ways of infusing your musical journey with creativity right from the get-go.

Listen to the episode:

Links and Resources

• Discover Your Own Musical Creativity, with Forrest Kinney
• Circles of Creativity, with Tim Topham
• Finding and Sustaining Creativity, with David Andrew Wiebe

Transcript

Creativity in music isn’t something reserved for a gifted few, and it’s not some advanced skill you need to study for years before you can do.

Creative activities like improvising and composing can be part of your music learning from day one or added in at any time.

If you’re like most music learners, you see creative skills like composing, songwriting and improvisation as advanced skills. Things you’ll be able to do one day once you get “good at music”.

Or you might even have ruled them out completely, thinking you’re just not a “creative person”.

And I understand why you’d think that way. When you see people be creative in music it’s impressive, and it often does go hand-in-hand with instrument proficiency and advanced skill levels.

But why do we pick up an instrument and start learning music in the first place?

It’s to experience that sense of freedom and self-expression, to just play anything you want to and be part of the music you love so much.

Do you really have to study for years before you can get a taste of that?

We get given drills and exercises and told to study other people’s music note-by-note. We’re told that things like playing by ear and improvising either require “talent” or they’re advanced skills that we’ll one day be able to do if we just practice and practice…

It’s no wonder people get bored, frustrated and give up!

Despite what traditional music education would have you believe, playing by ear, improvising, composing, collaborating – these can all be part of your musical life literally from day one.

You can see this just by handing a child an instrument. Do they sit there quietly, waiting for you to give them some sheet music to perform? Of course not! They dive straight in, improvising and having fun.

Sure, the music they produce sounds a bit rough, but clearly there’s creativity there and a freedom to play whatever they want.

So what if those free, expressive skills didn’t have to just be an eventual destination that you hope to one day reach?

What if you started creating in music right from the outset?

This is entirely possible – and actually incredibly constructive. If you do it right those creative musical activities aren’t an addon or a distraction – they can actually be the vehicle through which you learn all that music has to offer…

It’s never too late to start with this kind of creative practice, and with the right kind of training it doesn’t feel super advanced and intimidating. In fact it can be easy and fun.

How do you do it? By putting in place the foundation of mental models we’re talking about in this Musicality Unleashed series – the foundation that’s probably been missing for you and which can empower you to feel creative throughout your musical life.

The post Creativity Is The Vehicle, Not the Destination appeared first on Musical U.

This episode is part of the Musicality Unleashed series. Learn more and get a bonus “cheat sheet” at musicalityunleashed.com. In this episode, we talk about the roadblock of musicians thinking they cannot sing because they are tone deaf, and outline the first steps in learning to sing naturally, confidently, and expressively.

Listen to the episode:

Links and Resources

• What if I’m Tone Deaf?
• About Finding Your Note
• Learning to Sing in Tune, with George Bevan
• Singing as a Tool

Transcript

Ask the average person in the street to sing for you and they’ll say “Nope, I can’t sing, I’m tone deaf!” Sound familiar?

What’s funny is that even passionate musicians, from amateur to professional, will tell you this!

But “tone deaf” means you can’t tell one note from another – so if they were truly “tone deaf” they would be physically incapable of enjoying music, let alone performing it well.

We treat singing like an innate part of us, something you’ve either got or you don’t.

And I understand why you’d think that because singing is an innate part of us, it’s the most natural of musical activities.

BUT real tone deafness is extremely rare – 98% of those who consider themselves tone deaf or unable to sing actually just haven’t yet trained their ears and their voice.

If you were truly tone deaf you wouldn’t be able to tell one note from another, and all music would sound like a drone.

And if you were truly incapable of singing then you also wouldn’t be able to change your pitch when speaking and every sentence you spoke would sound like a monotone robot like thiiiis.

So singing is possible for you – and this is extremely important, whether you aspire to be “a singer” or not, because for any kind of musician your singing voice is the most powerful tool you have to train your ears and unlock your inner musicality.

There are two parts to singing: your voice and your ears. And both can be trained so that you can understand and reproduce pitch.

Over the last ten years we’ve helped over half a million people start singing in tune.

We start with singing a single note, any note.

Then matching pitch with a single note you hear.

Then learning to move confidently, accurately and reliably between notes.

There are other factors (15, in fact) that go into having a “good” voice but once you master just this one skill, singing in tune, you’ll feel and sound like someone who “can sing”.

Once you “can sing”, singing can be a powerful tool, for example when learning solfa to recognise notes by ear or improvise or compose your own musical ideas.

This idea that “good singing isn’t a gift, it’s learnable by anyone” is a mindset shift that can transform your musical life – learn more in the rest of this Musicality Unleashed series.

The post Singing Is Your Birthright appeared first on Musical U.

This episode is part of the Musicality Unleashed series. Learn more and get a bonus “cheat sheet” at musicalityunleashed.com. In this episode, we talk about how you can connect the music theory and ear training you’re learning with the music you want to play and are passionate about.

Listen to the episode:

Links and Resources

• Musicality Unleashed: The Two Things Most Music Education Is Missing

Transcript

Learning music means learning to play songs or pieces – right?

Actually, if you approach music that way you’re drastically limiting your musical potential.

Yet songs *can* hold the key to the most enjoyable and effective kind of music learning there is… How can that be?

Music education normally focuses purely on learning to reproduce songs on your instrument.

That can be satisfying at first but it quickly makes you start feeling like a robot rather than a real musician – painstakingly learning new pieces note-by-note and always worried about playing a wrong note.

At the other end of the spectrum you could focus purely on your “inner musician”, training your ears and brain to understand music on a deep level.

That’s really valuable and often it’s really helpful to rebalance things by including more of that kind of work in your music learning.

The problem is that kind of music theory and ear training is often taught with dry, abstract studies and exercises. You develop the understanding but it’s completely separate to the songs you’ve been learning to play and the real music you’re passionate about.

It can feel like you’re bending over backwards to connect the two worlds: of understanding musical concepts intellectually, and playing “real music”.

So how can you have the best of both worlds?

Learning with songs and real music, and gaining that deep intellectual and instinctive understanding of how music works?

It turns out you can do this, using an approach called “song-based learning”.

With this kind of approach you learn real musical pieces, like songs – but you don’t learn them for the sake of just replicating them note-perfectly.

Every song is carefully selected because it features the new musical concepts you want to understand next.

The music itself is used to teach the concepts so that you actually get to understand what’s going on instinctively even before you’re explicitly introduced to the concepts underneath.

When you do it this way, music theory and ear training aren’t separate activities from learning pieces of music – they all go together, and the whole process of learning music becomes more effective, more efficient, more enjoyable, and – most importantly – more musical!

So any time you’re trying to understand a new musical concept or learn a new musical skill, ask yourself: could I do this through a song? And any time you’re learning to play something new, take a moment to ask: what could this song teach me about music, what can I learn here that will empower me in the rest of my musical life?

Do this and you’ll start to experience the power of song-based learning – and you’ll soon wonder how and why you ever did it any other way!

This kind of song-based learning is the ideal environment for exploring the kind of new mental models we’ve been talking about in this Musicality Unleashed series.

The post Don’t Just Learn Songs – Learn Music Through Songs appeared first on Musical U.

This episode is part of the Musicality Unleashed series. Learn more and get a bonus “cheat sheet” at musicalityunleashed.com. In this episode, we share an intuitive model for counting rhythm: rhythm syllables! Learn why this method trumps the “1-e-and-a 2-e-and-a” method by a mile.

Listen to the episode:

Links and Resources

• Talking Rhythm: The Kodály Method
• Talking Rhythm: Syncopated Rhythms and the Kodály Method
• Musicality Unleashed: A Better mental Model

Transcript

If you’re like most musicians, you’ve wanted to play by ear but found it didn’t come naturally to you. But what you might not have realised is that of the two major aspects of music, pitch and rhythm, it’s actually only the pitch that you really struggle with.

If you’ve been playing music for a while then the chances are good that your ability to mimic back a rhythm are actually really solid.

Try it now – clap or tap this rhythm back [clapping followed by pause]

So you have the rhythm instinct – but could you write that down in notation? Or if you saw the rhythm notation, would you know how to clap it or play it?

There’s clearly a piece missing – and that’s having the right mental model to interpret and understand what you’re instinctively able to do.

You probably think about rhythm in terms of counting beats: 1, 2, 3, 4 or “1 and 2 and 3 and 4” or even “1 ee and a 2 ee and a” and so on.

That’s understandable – it’s the way we’re taught rhythm in traditional music education around the world.

And it’s a fine system.

But clearly it isn’t enabling you to write down the rhythms you could clap back by ear, or perform them from sheet music – at least not without stopping to slowly and carefully think through the 1-e-and-a of it all!

So there’s some kind of mismatch between how our brains are understanding rhythm and how we’re consciously thinking about it.

What if we could put in place a mental model that let us leverage that instinctive understanding of rhythm to actually know exactly in terms of notation and note durations, what’s being played?

That would empower us to write rhythms down or read them from sheet music easily, as well as enabling greater freedom to improvise or compose our own rhythms.

It turns out there is just such a system, called “rhythm syllables”.

In this mental model you have particular spoken patterns which correspond to particular rhythmic patterns.

For example that pattern I clapped before (clap) would actually be “ta ti-ti tika-tika ta”

It may sound like nonsense syllables – but there’s a carefully-thought-out system to it all, and when you’ve learned it and practiced a bit, any rhythm you hear automatically just gets translated in your head to the corresponding rhythm syllables and that lets you easily write them down.

And the reverse works too: you can look at the notation, know the rhythm syllables and then be immediately able to speak, clap or play the right rhythm.

This is compatible with counting rhythms so although it can be used independently, for most musicians it’s an amazing sidekick for counting which suddenly gives greater insight and understanding of all the rhythms we understood instinctively but couldn’t make sense of intellectually.

Learning rhythm syllables gives you a new mental model which can empower you in a new way in music. We’ll talk more about mental models and putting a new foundation in place in the rest of this Musicality Unleashed series.

The post A Better Mental Model for Rhythm appeared first on Musical U.