Category: Uncategorized

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/5-things-guitarists-dont-hold-back/
What is the one skill that guitarist should develop more than anything? Guitar Domination discusses how nothing is more important your musical growth than aural skills. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/5-things-guitarists-dont-hold-back/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/9-ways-learning-an-instrument-strengthens-your-brain/
Playing music isn’t just fun, but it can have fantastic benefits to your brain. Learn more in this exploration from the Musical U team. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/9-ways-learning-an-instrument-strengthens-your-brain/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/how-to-use-circle-fifths/
What is the Circle of Fifths? While this magical musical master tool is a mystery to many, you won’t believe how much learning this simple concept will improve your understanding of music. Get started today! https://www.musical-u.com/learn/how-to-use-circle-fifths/

The answer will vary from musician to musician, but at the top of many lists will be expert advice and feedback, an ability to self-critique, and an understanding of how music is written.

This week on Musical U, we’re giving you a little bit of each. Vocal coach Judy Rodman offers valuable advice to singers, music teacher Cristian Contreras explores what is means to teach effectively, and the Musicality Podcast delves into the often-intimidating practice of recording your own singing voice and listening back.

But first, we have a master guide on the backbone that your favourite hit songs are built on: chord progressions!

A Chain of Chords

Behind almost every unforgettable tune is an unforgettable chord progression.

However, chords aren’t just strung together in any order – there are underlying secrets that make certain combinations and series sound incredible, while others fall flat.

In Musical U’s Introduction to Chord Progressions, we’re giving you a crash course in chords and how they’re put together to form the songs you love. Songwriters, this guide is for you, too – we have seven simple tips to get you writing progressions with punch in no time.

When understanding and writing progressions, there are so many chords and keys to remember. If only there was a shortcut to help put it all together! Fortunately, we have a way of organizing chords in the same scale together into a chord family. Chelsea from The Chord Reserve explores chord families and the benefits of grouping chords this way.

A fantastic chord progression can take you to a new world, a place where you can experience all the emotions that our favorite music brings out in us. For your listening pleasure, Marco Cirillo has recorded six chord progressions that will take your breath away. We hope that this inspires you to dive deeper into progressions and the power that they can bring to any piece of music.

One last note: let’s refer back to one of our favorite subjects: the magical circle of fifths. This musical tool will unlock countless mysteries of music and allow you to express yourself with ease. Consonus Music explores how one teacher uses the circle of fifths to teach composition.

All Things Vocal

Judy Rodman has seen every angle of the world of singing: starting off as a professional jingle singer, she proceeded to land a recording contract, get herself into the Billboard #1 spot, write a hit for LeAnn Rimes, and become one of Nashville’s most sought-after vocal coaches.

In All Things Vocal, with Judy Rodman, she gives a fascinating account of her rich career, how she honed the skills needed to thrive in the industry and expert advice for everyone from beginning singers to seasoned chanteuses.

Judy’s fascinating musical journey all started with a gig singing jingles. While we often think of jingles as something trivial in our current world, the practice is still very much alive. Are you interested in trying your hand at becoming a jingle singer? Voice Council gives five tips for becoming successful in the field.

Judy has been a star on both sides of the microphone in the musical capital of Nashville, Tennessee. While making it big in this famed city isn’t as easy as the famous television show makes it appear, you can give yourself a leg up with these helpful suggestions from Trip Savvy.

Judy had a turning point in her career when she began to coach other vocalists. We talk a lot about music teachers on this site, but we don’t regularly talk about the difference between a teacher and a coach. Vocal Process discusses the difference between the two, and how you can make the best decision for yourself no matter where you are in your musical journey.

Teaching Music the Right Way

Being a good music teacher doesn’t happen by accident – it requires constant self-education and self-critique.

In 5 Habits of Effective Music Teachers, Cristian Contreras explores what it means to be an exceptional and inspiring teacher. Some of these may surprise you; good teaching does not mean having all the answers, or sticking with tried-and-true repertoire. What it does mean is an adaptive, dynamic approach to the profession.

Being a music teacher is not an easy vocation, and we are fortunate to have so many wonderful music teachers amongst us. Like all musicians, music teachers have their insecurities about their musical abilities and are always in pursuit of excellence on their instrument. Teaching With Orff discusses “The Imposter Syndrome”, and how you can gain confidence as a music teacher.

Part of being an effective teacher is keeping up with the latest in technological innovations that upgrade the way that we teach. One of the most popular creations in the last couple of years has been Google Docs, a cloud-based way of utilizing basic office apps. But that couldn’t have any application in music, could it? 88 Piano Keys developed a method to organize lesson notes within Google Docs that may change your mind.

Changing times have also changed the way that many people learn, and it is imperative to change with them if you want to make the biggest difference. Teachers Magazine explores two different students’ learning journeys, and gives some valuable information to make sure that you are helping your student.

Listening to Yourself Sing

Recording your own singing voice can be a surreal experience – chances are, what you’ll hear back on the recording is quite different from what you hear inside your own head.

So why this drastic difference in sound, and what can you do to get yourself used to listening to recordings of your singing?

In About Your Voice Sounding Weird, we explore the physics behind this phenomenon, a tool that can help you hear a great approximation of what other people hear when you sing, and how to objectively judge your singing voice.

If you have ever sung into a recording device, you have experienced the phenomenon of hearing your own voice for the first time. Inspired to Sing dives a bit further into this subject, with recommendations on how to get over your uneasiness.

No matter how much you don’t like listening to a recording of yourself, there are many benefits to taking this deliberate step in your musical journey. You will learn a great deal about how you perform, and this will help you improve the next time you go into the practice room. Audrey Hunt explains what you should do after hearing a recording of your voice.

While many of us cringe at the thought of hearing our recorded singing voice, can you imagine not being able to listen to your own voice? Recently, America’s Got Talent featured an inspiring young woman who sings with the voice of an angel, despite being totally deaf. We hope that the story of Mandy Harvey inspires you to gain the confidence to sing!

New Paths in Your Musical Journey

In his tips for effective teaching, Cristian Contreras discussed the importance of continuous practice, self-critique, and improvement. This applies equally to teachers and students, and we hope that this week’s offerings have inspired you to explore new avenues in your musical journey, be it recording your voice or writing your own chord progressions.

The post A Chain of Chords, All Things Vocal, Teaching Music the Right Way, and Listening to Yourself Sing appeared first on Musical U.

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/10-things-piano-players-do-differently/
Piano players are special breed of musician. Have some fun and explore that 10 things that piano players do differently in this special tribute to these musicians. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/10-things-piano-players-do-differently/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/4-reasons-youre-old-musician/
Music is a beautiful thing. No matter your age, you can add the joy of music to your life and experience the fulfillment of playing an instrument. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/4-reasons-youre-old-musician/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/how-to-be-an-effective-bandleader/
Every band has a leader. The most famous bands in the world have all had strong leaders that led to their success. To learn about how to develop these characteristics, this article should get you on your way. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/how-to-be-an-effective-bandleader/

If you sing, it’s likely you’ve recorded and listened back to your voice. Chances are, you were surprised by what you heard, and thought “Is this really what I sound like?”. In this episode of the Musicality Podcast, we explain why recordings of yourself sound different from what you’re used to hearing, and how to get comfortable with listening to recordings of your own singing voice.

Listen to the episode:

Links and Resources

• Interview with Judy Rodman
• The Benefits of Recording Your Music Practice
• HearFones, a tool for vocalists to hear themselves
• How To Love Your Own Singing Voice

Transcript

Does your voice sound weird?

A lot of people who’d like to sing don’t because they fear their voice will sound weird, or bad. A lot of musicians even, will avoid singing because they think they don’t have a good voice.

This is a natural worry, since our voice is such a personal part of who we are. They can be truly unique, and for the great singers of history that’s a good thing. Nina Simone, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong – these voices are unmistakeable.

But that’s not the kind of “unusual” most of us are worried about.

In episode 11 of the Musicality Podcast we talked about how powerful it can be to record yourself and listen back, so that you can become your own teacher in a way. For instrumentalists and singers alike this is an amazing tool to have in your music practice toolkit.

The catch is that for singers, this can be a really hard exercise to do. Because a lot of us go into it worried that we’ll sound bad – and then when we listen back to the first recording we think “oh wow, do I really sound like that?!”

It’s like a confirmation of our deepest fears, that if we sang for other people they’d think we sound weird or bad.

But here’s the thing: the reason your voice sounds odd on a recording doesn’t necessarily mean it will sound anything but fabulous to other people.

There is a specific scientific reason our voice on a recording sounds odd to us, and knowing that can help you get past those first few awkward recordings – and the apparent weirdness of your voice will fade away. Trust me. This happens to every person, including me.

Before I say more though, I do need to acknowledge something which I’m sure a lot of you are thinking… Yes, it is possible that your voice actually does sound weird or bad! I’m not pretending that’s impossible. But the point is that the weirdness you hear on the recording is an auditory effect and one which fades – so you can’t possibly judge straight away. And if your voice is weird-sounding, then you know the best way to fix it? Recording yourself! That way you can pinpoint whether you have trouble with pitch and tuning, or your enunciation is off, or any one of 16 different factors that can affect whether you sound good when you sing. We have a module inside Musical U called “Good Voice” that walks you through these and how to address each one.

So I’m not pretending you’re definitely an incredible singer – at least not yet! But I do want to explain why you need to record yourself and listen back at least a few times before you make any judgements about your voice.

So, why does your voice sound weird on a recording?

The answer is physics. Specifically, the physics of how sound is transmitted through the air versus through your body.

The big part of why you may flinch the first time you hear your voice on a recording is simply that it’s unfamiliar. The sound you’ve been hearing as you talk each day, as you sing to yourself in the shower, and even as you were making the recording – it is actually different to the sound captured on the recording, and the sound that other people hear when you speak or sing.

This is because when we use our voice the sound travels out into the world around us through air conduction: the molecules of the air vibrate and carry the sound wave. That’s how other people or a microphone hear the sound. But as our vocal folds vibrate the sound also travels around our body – specifically through bones in our skull to our own ears. Bones conduct the sound very differently to the air, dampening different frequencies, and that means that our ears are picking up a mixture of two very different versions of our voice while other people and microphones are hearing just one of the two versions.

So you are very used to how your voice sounds when that sound comes both through air and through the bones in your skull. But when you hear it purely through air for the first time, you hear something quite different!

This is where the “hearfones” invention mentioned on our recent interview with Judy Rodman comes in. This is a clever device that helps send more of the air-conduction sound back around to your own ears, so that what you hear is much closer to what other people hear or what is captured on a recording. It’s an instant way to get the same effect as listening to yourself on a recording.

Whether you use hearfones or a recording though, the main thing to note once you understand that the sound is genuinely different (through no fault of your own!) is that the instinctive reaction you have to it is almost certainly coming from the unease of hearing your own voice sound so unfamiliar, rather than any real quality judgement. It’s unnerving to hear your own voice sounding different – a bit like if you looked in the mirror and then your reflection stuck its tongue out at you! It would be you, but also not you, and that’s uncomfortable.

So what can you do about it?

Well, the good news is that the solution is simple. There’s no way to get everyone else and microphones to hear you the way you’re used to hearing yourself – but you can easily get used to hearing yourself the way everyone else does.

It literally just takes a bit of courage to brace yourself for the discomfort, do the exercise of recording yourself and listening back a few times, and you’ll find that unfamiliar feel quite quickly disappears.

Then, once you can listen to the recording of your voice and feel comfortable that yep, that’s your voice too, then you are in a position to start making judgements about what sounds good or bad, and using the exercise in the powerful way we discussed back on episode 11.

So that’s why your voice sounds weird the first few times you hear it on a recording. Take courage that it doesn’t sound nearly so weird to other people! And if you want to learn to evaluate and improve your voice, there are few better ways than recording yourself. So brace yourself for the slight discomfort and weirdness, try it several times spread over a few days, and make friends with how your voice really sounds. I’m confident you’ll discover that it’s not nearly as weird as it first appeared.

The post About Your Voice Sounding Weird appeared first on Musical U.

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/tim-tophams-tools-for-creative-teaching/
What new methods would you like to begin using when teaching music? Tim Topham Creative Piano Teaching talks about how to teach differently in this packed interview with Musical U. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/tim-tophams-tools-for-creative-teaching/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/how-to-sing-harmony-like-a-pro/
Do you have trouble hearing or singing harmonies? If so, Meghan Nixon from HowToSingSmarter.com has these 4 fun and effective ways to learn how to sing harmony. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/how-to-sing-harmony-like-a-pro/