When speaking, we use phrasing to emphasize ideas, capture our listener’s attention, and tell a story. The same holds true in music, and more specifically, in improvisation! Learn how to use phrasing to add structure, interest, and musicality to your improv. http://musicalitypodcast.com/57
Links and Resources
About Improvisation: http://musl.ink/pod51
About Improvising Rhythm: https://www.musical-u.com/learn/about-improvising-rhythm/
About Improvising with Scales and Chords: https://www.musical-u.com/learn/improvising-with-scales-and-chords/
How to “Just Play”, with Nick Mainella: http://musl.ink/pod52
How to Improvise for Real, with David Reed: http://musl.ink/pod54
Let us know what you think! Email: hello@musicalitypodcast.com
Find your musical voice as David Walliman joins us on Musicality Podcast. Learn more about his approach to learning music and improvising in this fascinating interview! http://musicalitypodcast.com/56
In this episode we’re speaking with David Wallimann, who has one of the most popular guitar channels on YouTube with over 100,000 subscribers there. As always when we’re interviewing an expert in a particular instrument, we recommend staying tuned even if you don’t play that instrument – because very little of what we cover is really instrument-specific.
As well as his popularity as a guitar educator, David is a composer and recording artist who has collaborated with the likes of Dweezil Zappa. And as you’ll hear in this episode he is just a lovely down-to-earth guy whose perspective on learning music and improvising is refreshing and seriously perceptive. David has his own guitar courses available at GuitarPlayback.com as well as a free Music Theory DNA course for guitarists at GuitarInfusion.com – something we suspect you’ll want to check out after hearing him describe it in this episode.
In our conversation we talk about:
– How to break free of fretboard patterns and “improvisation by numbers” with a counterintuitive exercise.
– The big problem that puts people off music theory and the surprising impact it can have on your musical creativity.
– The huge benefit you get from putting ego to one side and embracing your own uniqueness in music – both for improvisation, and for your musical life in general.
We loved chatting with David and are really glad to feature his unique perspective as part of Improv Month. As you’ll hear us say in this episode, we do think that guitar players tend to have a very particular relationship with music theory and with improvising – but David’s take on it all is something that would be valuable for any musician to take on board. We certainly hope you’ll enjoy hearing about it.
Listen to the episode: http://musicalitypodcast.com/56
Hi, this is Christopher Sutton, the Founder and Director of Musical U, and I’d love to share with you what’s new at Musical U this month.
This month was Improv Month at Musical U, meaning everything was themed around the topic of improvisation! We still have one week left in the month, but let’s run through everything that’s happened so far…
This week, we’ll be releasing one more module. It’s our Improv Practice module, that has a bunch of backing tracks you can use to practice all of the exercises in those other modules, and our full Improv Roadmap, that leads you step-by-step through these modules, and other exercises to help you learn to improvise from step one, through to being a capable and confident improvisor.
The final thing to mention is that this coming Saturday, we have a very special guest, Nick Mainella, presenting an online masterclass for us on the topic of improvisation. This is free, and provided online. If you haven’t already, please register to attend this masterclass and learn what Nick has to share on the topic of improvisation.
That was Improv Month at Musical U. I hope you guys have been enjoying it as much as I have!
This last week is going to be a fantastic one. We still have our guest expert roundup post with a whole bunch of pro improvisors and music educators sharing their favorite improv, and of course we have that masterclass you won’t want to miss.
Thanks for joining me for this look inside what’s new in Musical U this month. We also, I should mention, have a big special promo coming up this weekend, to round off Improv Month. That’s going to be a great opportunity to join Musical U if you’re not a member already. I would love to see you in there. Be sure to check out our Facebook page, and take advantage of that promotion!
Who are your favorite improvisers? Why is it that we can listen to their recorded solos over and over? Why do aspiring soloists and scholars transcribe and memorize every detail? What gives these spontaneous creations the same long-lasting meaning and greatness that we might ascribe to a Beethoven symphony? http://musl.ink/respackphrasform
Then, we look at our own improvisations.
Maybe we’ve learned some good licks or riffs. Or figured out which scale patterns work best over that chord progression. It was fun at first, but after a while it all seems shapeless, mechanical. Is there something wrong with us?
Were we condemned to be born as mere mortals, never to enjoy the crucial spark of inspiration and talent exuded in the eternal musical expressions of our improvising hero-gods?
The good news: now that we know that all the hours of practicing licks, riffs, and scales are not enough, there really is another step to take to make your improvs sing.
Just as we shape our verbal communication with words, phrases, sentences, questions, answers – and larger structures such as paragraphs, stories, topics – we can shape our musical expressions with phrasing and form.
Phrases are short sections of melody with a beginning, middle, and end. While meaningful in and of themselves, they’re too short to make a whole piece of music. They need to join together with other phrases in larger sections and forms to make that happen. As improvisers, an understanding of phrasing and form gives us to shape our solos into whole musical works – much like a composer or a songwriter.
In this month’s Instrument Packs Musical U’s Resident Pros for guitar, piano, and bass introduce the concepts of phrasing and form – with videos, PDFs, and MP3s that lay out structured sequences of exercises to help you mold and shape your improv into the satisfying, whole musical expression that you crave.
http://musl.ink/respackphrasform
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/
Many musicians stick exclusively to improvising with scales, leaving them feeling frustrated and creatively stunted. This episode reveals how to integrate the idea of chord tones and harmony into your improv to really tell a story with your playing! http://musicalitypodcast.com/55
Links and Resources
Interview with Improvise For Real’s David Reed: http://musl.ink/pod54
About Improvisation: https://www.musical-u.com/learn/about-improvisation/
Patterns and Playgrounds: https://www.musical-u.com/learn/patterns-playgrounds-4-ways-approach-improvisation/
About Chord Tones: http://musl.ink/pod21
About Finding Chords in Scales: http://musl.ink/pod27
Let us know what you think! Email: hello@musicalitypodcast.com
Who are your favorite improvisers? Why is it that we can listen to their recorded solos over and over? Why do aspiring soloists and scholars transcribe and memorize every detail? What gives these spontaneous creations the same long-lasting meaning and greatness that we might ascribe to a Beethoven symphony? http://musl.ink/respackphrasform
Then, we look at our own improvisations.
Maybe we’ve learned some good licks or riffs. Or figured out which scale patterns work best over that chord progression. It was fun at first, but after a while it all seems shapeless, mechanical. Is there something wrong with us?
Were we condemned to be born as mere mortals, never to enjoy the crucial spark of inspiration and talent exuded in the eternal musical expressions of our improvising hero-gods?
The good news: now that we know that all the hours of practicing licks, riffs, and scales are not enough, there really is another step to take to make your improvs sing.
Just as we shape our verbal communication with words, phrases, sentences, questions, answers – and larger structures such as paragraphs, stories, topics – we can shape our musical expressions with phrasing and form.
Phrases are short sections of melody with a beginning, middle, and end. While meaningful in and of themselves, they’re too short to make a whole piece of music. They need to join together with other phrases in larger sections and forms to make that happen. As improvisers, an understanding of phrasing and form gives us to shape our solos into whole musical works – much like a composer or a songwriter.
In this month’s Instrument Packs Musical U’s Resident Pros for guitar, piano, and bass introduce the concepts of phrasing and form – with videos, PDFs, and MP3s that lay out structured sequences of exercises to help you mold and shape your improv into the satisfying, whole musical expression that you crave.
http://musl.ink/respackphrasform
Learn more about Musical U Resident Pro Sara Campbell: https://sarasmusicstudio.com/
Who are your favorite improvisers? Why is it that we can listen to their recorded solos over and over? Why do aspiring soloists and scholars transcribe and memorize every detail? What gives these spontaneous creations the same long-lasting meaning and greatness that we might ascribe to a Beethoven symphony? http://musl.ink/respackphrasform
Then, we look at our own improvisations.
Maybe we’ve learned some good licks or riffs. Or figured out which scale patterns work best over that chord progression. It was fun at first, but after a while it all seems shapeless, mechanical. Is there something wrong with us?
Were we condemned to be born as mere mortals, never to enjoy the crucial spark of inspiration and talent exuded in the eternal musical expressions of our improvising hero-gods?
The good news: now that we know that all the hours of practicing licks, riffs, and scales are not enough, there really is another step to take to make your improvs sing.
Just as we shape our verbal communication with words, phrases, sentences, questions, answers – and larger structures such as paragraphs, stories, topics – we can shape our musical expressions with phrasing and form.
Phrases are short sections of melody with a beginning, middle, and end. While meaningful in and of themselves, they’re too short to make a whole piece of music. They need to join together with other phrases in larger sections and forms to make that happen. As improvisers, an understanding of phrasing and form gives us to shape our solos into whole musical works – much like a composer or a songwriter.
In this month’s Instrument Packs Musical U’s Resident Pros for guitar, piano, and bass introduce the concepts of phrasing and form – with videos, PDFs, and MP3s that lay out structured sequences of exercises to help you mold and shape your improv into the satisfying, whole musical expression that you crave.
http://musl.ink/respackphrasform
Learn more about Musical U Resident Pro Steve Lawson:
Today we’re excited to welcome on to the show someone we were particularly hoping to feature as part of improv month: David Reed, the creator of Improvise For Real. http://musicalitypodcast.com/54
You may have heard of this popular method for learning to improvise and it’s one of the few we feel is totally aligned with the ear-led approach we recommend at Musical U and which we’ve been talking about on this podcast lately.
In this conversation we talk about:
– David’s own musical beginnings and two big pivotal moments – one which let him finally really enjoy the learning process and the other which involved totally reframing his mindset about how music fit into his life.
– We discuss the traditional approaches to music education and to learning improvisation – and the limitations these ultimately place on musicians.
– And we talk about how learning to improvise the right way can be like the difference between blindly following directions versus using Google Maps to immerse yourself and explore the world you’re navigating in rich, clear detail.
This episode’s going to be particularly useful for two groups of people. Those who feel like improvisation is kind of a side-topic, and are not necessarily particularly interested in it. We think you’re going to discover you may have dramatically underestimated how learning to improvise could help you in music.
And those who are interested to improvise, and have maybe tried one or two ways before – and found themselves a bit bewildered or disappointed by the experience. David does a fantastic job of describing how learning to improvise should be and how rewarding and straight-up fun it can be if you approach it in the right way.
Listen to the episode: http://musicalitypodcast.com/54
Let us know what you think! Email: hello@musicalitypodcast.com
Rhythm is an under-appreciated component of music – and we’re here to put it in the spotlight for improvisation month! Learn all about improvising a rhythm, how to do it, and the musicality benefits it yields. http://musicalitypodcast.com/53
Links and Resources
About Improvisation: http://musl.ink/pod51/
About Active Listening: http://musl.ink/pod35/
More Ways of Knowing Music, with Jeremy Dittus: http://musl.ink/pod46/
Ella Fitzgerald’s “One Note Samba”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbL9vr4Q2LU/
Let us know what you think! Email: hello@musicalitypodcast.com
Today, we have the first of our interview series for Improv Month here at Musical U. To celebrate the launch of our new improv Roadmap that helps you learn to improvise from scratch, we’ve put together a month packed full of material all about improv. http://musicalitypodcast.com/52
In our first episode for improv month we talked about how to approach learning to improvise and how it’s something core and fundamental to any musician, it can take on many forms across many genres.
At the same time improvisation is something that is most commonly associated with jazz music in particular. And so, we were keen to kick off improv month talking to someone who’s expert in how you learn to improvise jazz.
Nick Mainella is the host of the “10 Minute Jazz Lesson” podcast which really lives up to its name! As jazz fans but not jazz musicians ourselves, we have been really enjoying listening to this show and we would highly recommend it for anyone who’s interested in learning to play jazz.
The way Nick discusses improv on his show was so well aligned with the way we teach it at Musical U we knew we had to have him on the show, and we wanted to start improv month with this interview because as you’ll hear, so much of learning jazz improv is in fact applicable to any genre and style of improvising.
In this conversation we talk about:
– Nick’s own upbringing and what he did to compensate for *not* having a natural ear for music.
– The specific exercises he finds most useful for learning to improvise.
– One powerful memory he has that helped set his mindset right for improvisation for years to come, and which he passes on to his students if they’re at all shy or nervous about improvising.
– And why someone who wants to play jazz might actually be best served by first studying the blues.
It was so much fun to talk to Nick about jazz and improv and he dropped several really valuable nuggets of wisdom in this conversation – simple things that you can go away and apply yourself and really benefit from.
Listen to the episode:
http://musicalitypodcast.com/52
Links and Resources
The 10 Minute Jazz Lesson podcast: http://10minutejazzlesson.com/
60 Days to Crushing the Blues course: http://10minutejazzlesson.com/crush-the-blues-in-60-days/
The Riff Everyone Plays Wrong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edIEmVcR5Xk
Donna Schwartz Music: https://donnaschwartzmusic.com/
About Active Listening podcast episode: http://musicalitypodcast.com/35
About the Power of Solfa podcast episode: http://musicalitypodcast.com/7
The 10 Minute Jazz Lesson podcast: Learning Vocabulary: http://10minutejazzlesson.com/2016/04/22/episode-012-building-your-vocabulary/
Let us know what you think! Email: hello@musicalitypodcast.com