Often, when we first learn music rhythms fall squarely on the beats. But many styles of music – jazz, ragtime, most of today’s popular styles, even classical – contain “syncopation”. These rhythms emphasize notes in the unexpected places. http://musl.ink/respacksync
In this month’s Instrument Packs we looked at how to practice syncopated rhythms on your guitar, piano, or bass.
http://musl.ink/respacksync
Learn more about Musical U Resident Pro Nina Rosenberg:
http://www.aninrose.com/
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AninRoseMusic
On Twitter: https://twitter.com/aninrosemusic
→ Learn more about Instrument Packs with Resident Pros
https://www.musical-u.com/learn/introducing-musical-u-instrument-packs/
What would you say is the most fundamental musical element to learn on your instrument? Scales? Chords? Think again. Let’s start with the lowly interval – simply the space between any two given pitches. http://musl.ink/respackintervals
Scales, melodies, chord progressions all happen when we move from one note to another.
Interval training is often considered the backbone of ear training – and for good reason. How can we comprehend the rich possibilities of melodies and harmonies without a strong perception of how one note relates to another?
Yet often traditional interval training can be difficult, dry, and, well… boring.
As Christopher Sutton described in About The Ear Training Trap, unless you relate your ear training to your actual musical life, it’s easy to loose enthusiasm. The solution is to relate your ear training and music theory to playing your instrument.
In this month’s Instrument Packs Musical U’s Resident Pros for guitar, piano, and bass introduce the concepts show how each one of these instruments has a unique relationship to intervals. But beyond basic fingering patterns, the creative minds of our Resident Pros reveal the musical magic that brings intervals to life.
In other words, the intervals are released from their theoretical cages and we experience just how beautiful, mysterious, and powerful they behave in the wild: http://musl.ink/respackintervals
Learn more about Musical U Resident Pro Dylan Welsh:
https://www.dwelshmusic.com/
On Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwelshmusic
→ Learn more about Instrument Packs with Resident Pros
https://www.musical-u.com/learn/introducing-musical-u-instrument-packs/
Today we’re speaking with Ben Parry, the Artistic Director of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain http://musicalitypodcast.com/64
But as you’ll hear that’s just one of many musical roles he has, including formerly being a singer and arranger with the world-famous a cappella group The Swingle Singers, and directing the London Voices choir which has performed on many of the Hollywood film soundtracks that we all know and love.
We recently had the pleasure of attending a workshop Ben presented at the London A Cappella Festival and he had such a great way of getting people of all ability levels quickly singing some quite complex music, we knew we had to invite him onto the show to share his ideas with you.
In this conversation we discuss:
– His own journey from classical church music to cabaret and a cappella, and how it’s all informed the way he helps people sing now.
– Why having a choir get their tuning from a piano can be a really bad idea.
– The pros and cons of using intervals versus using scale degrees (such as solfa or note numbers)
Ben is clearly a man who has thought deeply about singing in all forms and brings his unique experience and perspective to all his roles to the benefit of his singers. We loved having the opportunity to pick his brains, and whatever kind of singer you might be – whether you’re a vocal pro or just do karaoke at the pub, or you sing with your local choir or in a barbershop group, or you’re only willing to sing in the shower but you wish you could do more – we know you’re going to really enjoy this episode.
Listen to the episode: http://musicalitypodcast.com/64
You may be putting in the practice hours, but are you getting the results that your hard work deserves? In this episode, we take a look at the concepts of deliberate practice and purposeful practice, and how to integrate the two in order to make the most out of your practice time. http://musicalitypodcast.com/63
Have you ever felt frustrated or disappointed by the results you get from your music practice? Like you’re just not making the progress you feel you should, for the time and effort you’re putting in?
What if there was a way to get dramatically better results without spending dramatically more time?
The answer is what has become the “gold standard” for how to acquire skills quickly: deliberate practice.
Deliberate practice is a particular way of spending your practice time which can be applied to almost any skill. It applies in fields as varied as medicine, sports, and of course music.
It was developed by Professor Anders Ericsson who we spoke with on our last episode, in collaboration with his research team over the years, and has become a universally respected model for how we should think about getting the most from our practice time.
There are a number of aspects to deliberate practice which we’ll be talking about but if I had to sum it up in a nutshell it would be: practice the hard things. Of course by definition that’s going to require more effort from you, but this change alone can transform the results you get from your music practice.
The biggest cause of wasted practice time is that we fall into the bad habit of letting practicing really just be “playing”. Meaning we have our agenda of what we’ll work on in each practice session but those are actually just things you intend to play through, generally several times in a row. Unless you are in a lesson with a teacher the chances are you play, you make mistakes, there’s plenty of room for improvement – but then you just play the same thing again or move on to the next item.
Playing is not practicing. And it’s certainly not deliberate practice.
Listen to the episode! http://musicalitypodcast.com/63
Let us know what you think! Email: hello@musicalitypodcast.com
There are probably few things more painful to listen to than a singer who is out of tune. Today we’ll look at 3 simple exercises you can use to refine your vocal pitch control and practice singing in tune. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/3-singing-exercises-to-improve-your-vocal-pitching/
When people start out singing, a common problem is not knowing how to use their muscles to produce different notes. A good way to overcome this is to free up your voice rather than restricting it to certain notes (like with a piano where you press a key and the note just sounds).
Getting more precise
As you get comfortable moving through different parts of your range, you will probably find you open up your voice to singing more notes than before, expanding your range. Then it’s time to start focusing back within certain boundaries.
Singing scales
Finally, it’s time to get even more precise, using semitones and tones. The exercise is similar to before: we will sing through an octave in your range, but this time progress by steps, either semitones or tones. That means singing 13 semitones or 7 tones.
Your singing practice may move on to more advanced exercises, but remember to practice these fundamentals too. Singing a complex piece is no use if it sounds out of tune to the listener! It’s a great example of the musical principle that the details can be just as important as the overall sound!
This episode was a really exciting one for us because we got to speak with Professor Anders Ericsson, the leading academic researcher on the topic of “talent”. http://musicalitypodcast.com/62
If you’ve been listening to the Musicality Podcast for a while, then you know we have a particular perspective on “talent”, and we’re often asking our guests their opinion on how important talent is to become a great musician and learn the skills we associate with being a “natural” in music, like playing by ear, improvisation, song writing and more.
So for a long time we’ve been wanting to speak with the man who’s done more serious research on this topic than probably anyone else.
Professor Ericsson has been researching talent for over 30 years and has become famous for two things: the so-called “10,000 hour rule” for becoming an expert, and the idea of “deliberate practice”. We actually did a whole episode of this show on the 10,000 hour rule, and deliberate practice is an idea that runs through all of our teaching at Musical U. So you can imagine what a treat it was to get to talk to the man himself!
He recently published a book titled Peak sharing the biggest findings from that research, co-authored with Robert Poole, and if you enjoy this episode then you must check it out, it is packed full of more information, explanation and examples of everything we talk about today.
We were determined to make the most of this conversation and we asked Professor Ericsson the big questions we knew that you would be interested to hear the answers to…
Questions like:
– Is there such a thing as musical “talent”?
– If you don’t have talent for music, will that affect what you’re able to accomplish?
– Do you need perfect pitch to become an expert musician?
– What’s the most effective way to spend your practice time – especially considering the vast abundance of tutorials and other resources available at our fingertips online these days?
His answers were just as fascinating as we’d hoped. We were looking forward to this interview for ages and it did not disappoint.
We should mention there’s a brief section towards the end where we have some noisiness on the audio. We apologise for that, we had real technical issues on this one but Professor Ericsson was really gracious and patient and in the end it turned out really well apart from that one glitchy section.
We hope you’ll enjoy this episode and feel encouraged and inspired by the proven truth about musical “talent” and what it really takes to develop your musical skills.
Listen to the episode: http://musicalitypodcast.com/62
Let us know what you think! Email: hello@musicalitypodcast.com
Today we’re joined by Dave Isaacs, a man known as the “Guitar Guru of Nashville”. Dave has been teaching music for over thirty years and provides online courses at JamPlay.com. Dave is also a performing artist, releasing ten CDs of his own and continuing to perform with an Americana trio called Renfree Isaacs. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/follow-your-ear-with-dave-isaacs/
Dave wrote a terrific guest post on song writing and arranging for the Musical U website last year and we were keen to pick his brains on songwriting advice – but in this conversation we also go deep into his own journey as a musician, the interplay of theory, instrument skills and your musical ear, and how he discovered the improviser’s mindset.
Dave shares:
– The trick to breaking into improv if it’s always seemed intimidating, and how he discovered this almost by accident.
– His two big tips for songwriters looking to improve.
– What causes many musicians to stall or plateau after learning for a few years, and how you can best tackle that and get moving again.
Dave has had a particularly interesting journey as a musician and it’s left him with true wisdom when it comes to the right mindset for teaching and learning music. We hope you’ll find this conversation as enlightening and inspiring as we did.
With the seemingly endless fountain of resources available for the self-taught musician, it can be hard to weed out exactly how to approach your learning journey. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/about-having-a-roadmap/
In this episode, we discuss the idea of the musical roadmap, how it can lend structure to your learning, and how we use them here at Musical U to give members a way to keep themselves moving forwards in a way that is tailored to their musical goals.
Over the last eight episodes, we’ve covered a lot of ground: we first looked at the right mindset for improv, then dove right into how to use rhythm, scales, chords, harmony, structure, and form to really get your spontaneous playing off the ground. In this episode, we give you an overview of how you can approach the task at hand – learning to improvise!
Listen to the episode: http://musicalitypodcast.com/59
Let us know what you think! Email: hello@musicalitypodcast.com
Today we’re speaking with Brenden Lowe, the man behind JazzPianoSchool.com and the Jazz Piano School Podcast. Jazz and piano can both be intimidating things for aspiring musicians and they put front and center their belief that “Anyone can learn”, as well as encouraging self-expression from the outset – so clearly a good match for our philosophy here at Musical U! http://musicalitypodcast.com/58
Jazz Piano School has a unique approach to teaching and we were keen to hear more about how it works and how improvisation factors in.
In this conversation we talk about:
– The astonishing number of jazz tunes Brenden could play after $12,000 of traditional jazz piano lessons and why he was completely unsure how to improvise or be creative.
– The “lego bricks” approach to improvising that makes it easy to learn, step by step.
– The unique 4-step system they use at Jazz Piano School to connect theory, technique, improv and repertoire at every stage of learning.
This was a really fun conversation and Brenden has a great way of explaining things that cuts straight through that intimidation factor. Whether you have any interest in jazz or piano, we think you’re gonna dig this.
Listen to the episode:
http://musicalitypodcast.com/58
Let us know what you think! Email: hello@musicalitypodcast.com