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https://www.musical-u.com/learn/6-biggest-misconceptions-musician/
Being a musician is incredibly rewarding, but it can also be a challenge. Folks who haven’t taken the time to study music or learn to play an instrument don’t quite understand the intricacies that go hand-in-hand with being a musician.
Let’s dissect 6 of the most common misconceptions about being a musician… https://www.musical-u.com/learn/6-biggest-misconceptions-musician/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/10-top-tips-for-memorising-songs/
I bet you have done this once or twice…You got on stage and then suddenly in the middle of the verse you went zazuum shashimi with your lyrics because you forgot the words. It is funny and embarrassing at the same time but the show must go on. So, how can you get better at memorizing songs? https://www.musical-u.com/learn/10-top-tips-for-memorising-songs/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/how-to-hear-and-create-time-signatures/
�What is the role and importance of time signatures in music? The time signature is one of the most important regulations of a piece of music. It basically describes how the pulse of music works. If you’ve ever wondered how time signatures work, how to figure them out, and how to choose your own when writing songs, this article is going to help you. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/how-to-hear-and-create-time-signatures/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/songwriting-right-now-latest-tricks/
What are some of the latest trends in songwriting these days? As with any other art form, in music we are constantly refining and inventing new means of expression. We break or simply neglect rules, we let our emotions do the talking, and we search for the next hot thing that once again reminds us of the beauty of discovering a new sound that rattles the walls. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/songwriting-right-now-latest-tricks/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/rock-improvisation-techniques/
What are the fundamental principles behind rock improvisation? What core concepts do you need to know in order to improvise in a rock style? Where should you look to see rock improv in action and learn from the masters? In this tutorial we’ll explain the essential rock improvisation techniques and give examples of classic rock solos you can learn from. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/rock-improvisation-techniques/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/iconic-musician-quotes/
Great musicians create the soundtracks of our lives. They define movements and redefine genres. They are so uniquely themselves that it can be hard for an aspiring musician to see how to get to their level. We’ve put together some quotes so you can find inspiration from the musicians themselves.https://www.musical-u.com/learn/iconic-musician-quotes/

Even so, there is nothing quite so exhilarating and fulfilling as creating music with other people.

Lake Street Dive’s stripped-down covers showcase their ensemble interaction. The Kodály approach to music learning emphasizes making music together. And seasoned pro songwriter Cliff Goldmacher finds his greatest inspiration in collaboration.

But first, let’s have a look at the two most messily human musical instruments: the voice and the brain.

What’s in your head – and how to bring it out.

Imagine a time before you knew how to talk. When you couldn’t reach that cookie on the counter, you pointed and yelled to get someone’s attention. How much easier it became once you were able to form your desire into words!

Now we are very aware and conscious – even when thinking to ourselves – of forming our thoughts into language, whether we outwardly express them or not. So how do we “think music”?

So now imagine that your musical instrument was hardwired to your brain, and could directly “translate” the amazing sounds you are hearing in there into music we could all hear out here.

The process of hearing music in your head is called “audiation”. And you already do have a musical instrument hardwired to your brain – the amazing human voice.

Once you put your attention on audiation, you will be amazed at the powers of this hidden musical master tool.

You don’t have to become a great singer to put your voice to work in helping you both hear music more clearly in your head and translate it onto your instrument. This week our Musical U Resident Pros for bass, guitar, piano, and voice have all put together fantastic resource packs that detail the many uses and benefits for audiation and singing in becoming the musician of your dreams.

Learn more about what audiation and singing can do for you in Audiation and Singing: Resource Pack Preview.

Cover Collaborators

Do you remember (or look forward to) when your musical skills grew to the point where you could cover your favorite song? How you played that song over, and over, and over?

Once we’ve arrived at that point, we can be quite happy with a performance that comes closer and closer to the original that so inspired us.

Or we can take an old – and perhaps unlikely – song in a new direction.

Lake Street Dive is well known for their stripped-down acoustic covers, each of which features a tour-de-force of ensemble musicianship that would be the envy of any classical string quartet. Simply put: they love making music together and it shows!

Groove to Lake Street Dive’s soulful sidewalk version of the Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back” – and gain deep insights into the music-making process – in Before and After: Covering The Jackson 5.

There are many different ways that a musician can approach making great cover songs. But, what if you don’t have a band to work with? Joanne Cooper has a six-step process to making cover songs using Band in a Box that can help you get your creative juices going!

So, you had a great idea for a cover song. Made the arrangement and recorded it. Now what? Before unveiling your musical creation to the world, Stern will make sure that you know the legalities involved in releasing another band’s creative property.

One of the tricks that Lake Street Dive used in their cover version of this classic song was to opt for more vocal harmonies instead of call and response vocals. Where did the idea of harmonies come from in music… and how can you use them? Check out this introduction to an often misunderstood topic: counterpoint:

Now that you know a little more about how to write harmonies using these techniques, how can you approach this in your vocals? O & O has these three tips:

Collaborative Music Learning

While the deeper music education paradigm is still geared to one-on-one lessons, the potential for collaborative music learning has still hardly been tapped. Composer Zoltan Kodály believed that music was among the most important – if not the most – important subjects to learn in school classrooms.

He established music-centered schools and curriculum across his native Hungary, and together with teams of dedicated teachers established the collaborative, ear-focused Kodály approach.

For both children and adults, the highly intuitive rhythmic and solfege syllables and other Kodály-inspired musical tools can make a huge difference in their musical motion forward.

Read An Introduction to the Kodály Method to find out what Kodály is and what it can do for you.

The story of how Kodály developed his approach to music education is a fascinating story. To learn more about how this method was created, and why it is a very natural approach to learning music, watch this video from Jaak Sikk:

Being a musician is a continuous, fascinating journey. Jamie Iglesias had his eyes (and ears!) opened to the world of solfege while studying at Berklee. While Kodály relies on the moveable Do system, Jamie found ways to incorporate both fixed Do and moveable Do into his ear training.

Kodály incorporates hand signs for each of the syllables along the moveable Do scale, which makes it easy to visually show what pitch should be sung. Cantus Youth Choirs has a beautiful presentation of these hand signs, and catchy ways to remember them.

Kodály is principally used for early childhood music education, although it can be applied to all age ranges. But, there is something to consider about how children are able to learn music at a very young age, and the impact that this can have on their overall development. The Improving Musician shares important information about when music education begins.

Collaborative Songwriting

It’s one thing to be in love and find ready inspiration for a song. But, as Cliff Goldmacher says, you can’t just fall in love every time you want to write a song.

Now how do you find inspiration after writing more than 1000 songs? For Cliff – a long time Nashville insider pro – the answer is collaboration.

Cliff loves listening to others muse about what they want to express, and shaping those musings into finished songs. His clients include everyone from up-and-coming newbies to vets like Ke$ha and the Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart. Cliff also produces major label cuts and reaches out to all songwriters with his educational programs. Learn more about his process and how he can help you in yours with Songwriting: Inspiration and Collaboration, with Cliff Goldmacher.

Cliff left a sure track to a law career to pursue his dreams as a musician. While he found a niche as a songwriter in Nashville, there are many different ways to make a living in the music industry. Careers in Music explores the many types of jobs in the complex world of the music business.

The music industry can be an incredibly difficult market to make a living… but there are opportunities for aspiring musicians all over. How do you go about trying to break into the scene? Tom Hess has compiled seven things that musicians do out of order when trying to make their way into the industry.

Many musicians struggle when starting their journey as an aspiring songwriter. They often just don’t know where to begin when trying to write a song. But, fear not! Indie International shares their thoughts on how to learn to write a song.

There are many tools available to the modern musician that can aid in their songwriting. With so many choices, where should you begin? Learn How to Write Songs offers 10 resources for creative songwriting.

Put some “collaborate” on your plate

Are you aching to sit down with another living breathing human being and learn music, make a cover together, create a new song? Perhaps you’re just trying to get your brain, voice, and instrument to work together.

The post Learn Together, Write Songs Together, Cover Together, and What is Audiation? appeared first on Musical U.

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/how-musicians-should-spend-their-10000-hours/
Exactly the right plan for your 10,000 Hours will depend on many factors, including your current background in music, the instrument you play, the genres of music you love, the particular goals you have for your musical life, the learning style you prefer, and so on.

How can you use this tactic in your learning? https://www.musical-u.com/learn/how-musicians-should-spend-their-10000-hours/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/playing-piano-success/
Playing the piano is a fun and rewarding experience. The benefits for your health and brain have been proven by many scientific studies. However, beginners occasionally struggle with the mental and physical pursuit of getting started. Here are 5 tips to help you improve.
https://www.musical-u.com/learn/playing-piano-success/

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 post Audiation and Singing: Resource Pack Preview appeared first on Musical U.