What Exactly Is In The Musicality Book? (Inside The Book)

If you’ve been hearing about this new Musicality book and wondering what exactly it’s going to cover, your wait is over!

Today I’m going to go through the book chapter by chapter and share with you exactly what you’ll find inside.

It has been so exciting seeing so many of you registering early interest in the Musicality book over at musicalitybook.com

Thank you to everyone who’s signed up there so far. It’s been really fun for me to share these little sneak peeks into the book with you on these “Inside The Book” episodes.

And I just want to say thank you for all of the excitement and support. It has been an enormous project. In the first “Inside The Book” episode, I talked a bit about that, how this has turned into a mammoth thing, and I’m so eager now to get this epic book into your hands.

This one here, this is my first preview copy. We’re actually working on the real cover design right now this week, and I don’t think it’s going to be as black as this! I don’t think it’s going to be as plain as this. But I won’t say any more, just that now we’re hoping to have that design.

Actually, I might do a survey of you guys once we’ve narrowed it down to a few options. I would love to get everyone’s feedback and make that decision together, but stay tuned for more about that.

I can’t wait to see what the actual book is going to look like. If you go to musicalitybook.com right now, today you’ll see the mock-up of the book cover, but it’s not actually going to look like that. Depending on when you watch this episode, though, the real cover might be live, that page might have it, and I’m excited to see it myself.

With all that being said, I know that a lot of you who are excited for the book have also been really curious to know more about what is going to be inside, particularly if you’re a longstanding member of Musical U or you’ve been following our stuff for years.

You might be curious, like “why a book? What’s in the book? How’s it different? What is it going to do for me? How is it going to help me?”

And this week we’ve been working on the pre-order page for the book. And depending on when you watch this episode, that may already be live at musicalitybook.com.

Right now, there’s just a very simple page with an email opt-in to learn more about the book, but we’re going to have the pre-order page up. I’m not going to say when, but very soon!

As I wrote the little synopsis for each chapter to go on that page, I found myself getting more and more excited, and it made me want to share that with you today, sooner rather than later, so that you’re going to know exactly what you can expect when this book is released.

So in today’s episode, I want to just run through that chapter-by-chapter breakdown for you and share with you a little bit about exactly what’s in each chapter of the book.

So let’s jump on over to that. And here we go.

So kicking off, as we tend to do, with an introduction. And in the introduction chapter, you’ll learn about where this book came from, the extensive experience of the full Musical U team and author Christopher Sutton’s (that’s me!) own journey from frustrated music learner to discovering how to unlock his own true musical potential through musicality training.

You’ll also get guidance on how best to go through the book, depending on your personal goals and priorities.

And just to say, because we’re not peeking into that chapter, I’ll say it as a side note here. I think I mentioned actually in the first “Inside The Book” episode, it was tricky.

With the first draft of the book, when we first put it together, it felt really dry and textbook-like. And it took me a while to realise it’s because when we’re at our best at Musical U, we’re doing things in a really personal way. And I realised actually, this couldn’t be a dry textbook. It had to have some of that personal energy, some of that storytelling, some of that explanation on a personal level of where all of this stuff came from.

And so originally, I wasn’t going to be the named author of the book, and it was all going to be written in kind of the abstract. But as it’s developed more in that direction, it’s become so much more vivid and enjoyable to read, I think.

And so I’m excited to be the author. But to be clear, it says in that Introduction chapter just how much credit is due to the entire Musical U team. Not just the current team, but team members in the past, and everyone who’s contributed to our stuff over the years. So I just want to highlight that although I’m named as the author here, this project, this book has come from the extensive experience of so many people, not least our head educator, Andrew Bishko, and everyone on the Education team.

So hat-tip to them. And just to know, even though it’s written in my voice, it is very much a team project.

So then, on to Part I. The book split into three parts.

In part one, we cover six fundamental topics and skills. These are the foundation on which everything else is built.

Get these right and everything will flow more easily. Without these, everything you do in music will be far harder and slower than it needs to be.

And just to say, as a side note, when looking at the table of the contents for the book, it kind of gets more and more exciting as you go, I think. So we start out with these kind of broad foundational skills, and then by the end of the book, we’re getting into the really juicy stuff, like improvising and writing songs and so on. And that is the natural progression of things in terms of explanation and building on each other.

But something else that’s mentioned in the introduction, when it says here, you’ll get guidance on how best to go through the book.

We really carefully designed it so that it’s as flexible as, you know, our longstanding members will know we love to make our training.

We know that not everyone wants to start at step one and go through step-by-step to step 100. Not everyone wants to cover every topic.

And so we’ve actually managed to write the book in a way that you can really pick and choose. So Part I covers these foundational skills, and they’re things we do recommend everyone skill-up on because they make everything else easier and faster.

But just for your awareness, I’m going to run through, like 18 or 19 chapters here. You don’t need to read them all in order. You can really select what’s most exciting to you, what’s most appealing. And then, of course, they do cross reference, and if you do go through it from a to z, you’ll get the most out of it. But it’s definitely a book that you can dip into, pick and choose, and come back to multiple times to fill in other pieces for yourself.

So:

Chapter one, Musicality.

We begin by exploring what musicality means. We all have some understanding of what’s implied by that word and what it means to be very musical or to have great musicality.

But if we are to develop our own musicality, we need to define exactly what we mean by that word and the specific ingredients which contribute to having greater or more advanced musicality.

Through sharing a range of definitions from a variety of musicians and music educators, we paint a picture of what musicality can be. This is then distilled down into 15 specific skills, ranging from playing by ear through having good rhythm, singing in tune, creating your own music, reading notation, understanding music theory, and more.

We introduced the concepts of “The Complete Musician”, Three Musical Cores, and the H4 Model Of Complete Musicality, equipping you with an easy and clear way to both assess your current musicality and clearly define what your ideal future musicality would be.

Chapter two, Musical Mindset.

It’s clear from working with tens of thousands of adult music learners that developing the right mindset for music learning is one of the highest-leverage things you can focus on. The average adult learner is constantly tripping themselves up with limiting beliefs, misconceptions, and wide ranging lack of clarity about their musical journey. With the right set of mindsets, anything becomes possible for you.

In this chapter, you’ll set your “Big Picture Vision”, which becomes your north star, guiding everything you do in your music learning going forwards. You’ll discover the four Pillar Beliefs, which run through everything we do and teach at Musical U, and how each one of them can empower you as a musician.

We debunk the “talent myth” once and for all, to make sure you know with certainty that anything you’ve dreamed of in music can indeed be possible for you. And we introduce four special mindsets you can adopt, which each remove blockers and limitations and ensure you keep moving forwards quickly and joyfully in your music learning.

Chapter three, Audiation.

The first of the practical skills we cover is the ability to vividly imagine music in your mind’s ear. When you can conjure up clear and detailed music in your head, it becomes a powerful and versatile tool to be used throughout your musical life.

In this chapter, you’ll learn about this important skill, the myriad ways it helps you in different areas of music, its connection to musical memory and to singing, and you’ll learn the three levels of audition ability and how you can develop each in turn.

And quick side note here. Anytime I talk about audiation publicly, I feel like I need to kind of acknowledge and wave to the Music Learning Theory crowd. People who follow Edwin Gordon’s approach.

He coined this term audiation, and I just want to acknowledge there is a particular definition of audiation and a particular way of teaching audiation in that realm, in Music Learning Theory that is very structured and detailed in a particular way.

We do it a bit differently at Musical U. We’ve come to find that treating that word as just the auditory equivalent of visualisation is really helpful for people to just know “it means imagining music in your mind”. And we’ve come up with our own ways to gradually develop your audiation ability.

So I just want to say, even though we’re using that word, which some people are a bit possessive of and protective of, no disrespect or shade to how that crowd use the word and what they do, we do it a bit differently.

And in this chapter, we’re talking about audiation as that general idea of imagining music, and then we break it down in our own way and show you how to learn it and get more sophisticated with it.

Chapter four, Singing.

Singing is every human’s first instrument, and although most musicians don’t necessarily consider themselves to be “a singer”, and the prospect of singing can stir up a lot of emotional resistance, we found that singing is a universal accelerator for your music learning.

Fortunately, there is no need to become the next Pop Idol superstar! The level of singing ability required to reap the significant benefits is far lower than you might imagine. In this chapter, we present the four reasons you might currently think you can’t sing or are even “tone deaf”, and walk you through a clear and simple series of exercises to start getting comfortable with your singing voice “as a tool”. You’ll learn to comfortably, confidently, and reliably sing in tune so that you can start using singing throughout your music, learning to improve your results and bring musical ideas out from inside you directly.

So we did two previous episodes of “Inside The Book” coming from that singing chapter, I’ll put a link to those in the shownotes to give a little sneak peek of what’s covered there if you want to know more about that one in particular.

Continuing then with the Part I chapters.

Chapter five, Active Listening.

The next foundational skill is active listening, the ability to dissect and decipher music you hear, understanding each component and how they all fit together. When you develop this skill, music comes to life in a whole new way. Not only can you increase your musicality solely through listening to music, you enhance your ability to create, play, and perform music yourself.

In this chapter, you’ll learn more about the benefits of active listening and the simple approach we’ve developed of “listening with a question in mind”. Along with the 4-dimensional Active Listening™ framework, which makes it easy to analyze any music you hear in as much depth and detail as you wish. Through a series of exercises and question lists, you’ll be guided through practicing active listening using any music you are learning, or even your favorite tracks.

Chapter six, Superlearning.

Over the past 20 years, the academic research into the neuroscience of learning has proven conclusively that seemingly-gifted musicians who learn significantly faster than everyone else, are simply practicing in a different way.

In this chapter, you’ll be introduced to the specific superlearning techniques for music practice, which let you learn and memorise music at up to ten times the normal speed. These are often strange and even counterintuitive, but when you start to practice in this way, you can make dramatically faster progress with even less practice time.

These techniques work for absolutely anybody, and once you’ve adopted this very different way of practicing, it will accelerate everything you work on in music for the rest of your life.

So that is Part I of the book, and hopefully you could appreciate, as I talk through those foundational skills, how much these will impact everything else, how far reaching they are.

You know, just to recap: that clear understanding of what musicality is, what it means to you, and what you aspire to achieve in your own musicality. Without that, you’re just wandering lost in the wilderness.

Musical mindset – it’s not a sexy topic, it’s not one most people would think to study, but it is the difference maker, particularly for adult learners, where we come with all of this baggage, psychologically and emotionally. There are these simple mindsets you can adopt and simple things you can do to really make sure you keep moving forwards fast.

And then audition, singing, active listening, and superlearning. Basically all of the stuff in Part III of the book where we’re getting into things like playing by ear, songwriting, performing, and so on, all of those come so much easier and faster if you’re baking in those four kind of “power tools”. If you’re using the super learning techniques to get more out of every minute you spend practicing. If you’re listening to really develop a sophisticated ear for everything you’re hearing and playing. If you’re singing as part of your music practice, even if you’re focused on playing an instrument. And if you’re audiating, if you’ve got ability to conjure up music really vividly and in detail in your mind. Hopefully you can imagine how each of those four make everything else go much quicker.

So Part II of the book, then.

In Part II, we explore the process of ear training and introduce a set of “building blocks” you can use to rapidly develop your musical ear. As you gain proficiency with these building blocks, leveraging the fundamental skills covered in Part I, you will unlock all of the skills explored in Part III of the book.

So this Part is kind of the bridge. It’s where we put in place the kind of nitty-gritty building blocks, really like the concrete, specific ear-related skills that enable you to do all of the practical stuff you’re probably most excited about being able to do.

So, chapter seven. We begin with a chapter on Ear Training.

Because the phrase “ear training” comes with a lot of baggage for most musicians, and even those who’ve studied the topic at university or conservatory level and passed all the requirements, still typically report dissatisfaction and disappointment with what they’re actually able to do with their musical ear.

And just side note, this was a surprise to me, in that I kind of discovered ear training and ventured into that world, really by myself in an isolated way. The Internet wasn’t what it was. I wasn’t studying at conservatory. And I thought it was just me.

I thought it was just me who was getting really good on paper at interval recognition or solfa or rhythm skills, but then really still couldn’t improvise or play by ear or do very much with it. I thought that was just, you know, me again lacking talent.

But over the years at Musical U, it’s been fascinating just how many people come to us who are graduates – I won’t name names – but, like, graduates of some of the top music schools in the world. And they’re like “I hated ear training. I passed all the tests. In theory, I got good at it. I still can’t improvise. I still can’t really play by ear”.

And so just to really underscore that point, like, this is really common, and that was the point of this chapter, really, because if you do it in a different way, you can completely avoid that pitfall.

So in this chapter, we present the Integrated Ear Training™ approach, which not only lets you develop concrete skills faster and more enjoyably, it also ensures that every step forwards you take in ear training results in real, practical abilities you can benefit from in your everyday musical life.

Chapter eight, Relative Pitch.

Everything you want to do by ear related to note pitches can be done by developing your sense of relative pitch, including naming or playing notes and chords by ear, choosing notes when improvising, transcribing music by ear, and more.

In this chapter, we cover the difference between relative pitch and absolute (or “perfect”) pitch, and how relative pitch enables you to accomplish anything pitch-related you want to. We introduce the idea of a pitch contour and explore how the three building blocks covered in subsequent chapters allow you to refine this contour by recognizing notes and chords by ear. Finally, we explain a step by step process for finding the key of any song or piece of music by ear.

And I suppose I should explain. Maybe we should update this text a little bit. But if you’ve never come across that term “relative pitch”, you’ve probably heard of perfect pitch, maybe absolute pitch. Relative pitch is just interpreting note pitches relative to the key or relative to other notes. It’s all about the relationships between note pitches rather than the absolute letter names.

So you’re thinking in terms of solfa or intervals or chord numerals, like the Nashville numbering system, or you might know the Roman numeral system for chords. It’s all about those relationships.

And this chapter talks a little bit about how the beauty of that is it matches how our ear actually interprets note pitches. That’s how we understand music we hear, and it is music to us. If we could only hear in absolute pitch with no sense of those relationships, music would be nonsense to us.

And so relative pitch, I think some people kind of see it as a “lesser than” compared to perfect pitch. You know, perfect pitch is this weird magical ability some people seem to be born with. But actually, it turns out relative pitch lets you do everything you want to do.

And there’s a whole section in that chapter about “can you learn perfect pitch?” (The short answer is “no, not really”) But you don’t need to, because relative pitch lets you do everything you’ve probably been dreaming of.

So I might update that text a little bit before this goes live, just to spell out what we mean by relative pitch.

So then on to the first three building blocks, which are the pitch-related ones.

Chapter nine, Solfa.

Solfa, also known as solfege or the do-re-mi system for naming notes, isn’t just some cute idea from The Sound Of Music. In fact, it’s a way of thinking about the notes of the scale, which perfectly matches how the ear naturally hears musical pitches.

In this chapter, we explore the benefits of solfa, how it works, and provide a learning sequence and a set of exercises you can use to gradually develop a robust ability to recognize notes by ear and produce them with your voice or on your instrument.

Chapter 10, Intervals.

Although intervals are often start with ear training, they are in fact one of the most challenging and confusing topics when taught in the traditional way.

In this chapter, we we’ll introduce a simple and natural way to approach learning interval recognition, explore how it relates to and can be combined with solfa, and present a learning sequence and set of exercises you can use to gradually develop a robust ability to recognize different intervals in music.

Chapter 11, Chord Progressions.

Intervals and Solfa can both be used directly to help you recognise chords and chord progressions by ear, but dedicating some attention specifically to developing your ear for harmony will produce much faster progress.

In this chapter, we’ll explore the topic of chord progressions from a relative pitch perspective, relating it to our solfa and interval building blocks and covering the most common chord progressions and how to start recognizing and playing them by ear.

And just a side note, you might be wondering at this point, you know, we’re talking about exercises and learning sequences. It’s been one of the most challenging parts of writing this book is figuring out what and how to provide in terms of practical exercises.

Because in the context of Musical U membership or our courses, everything’s multimedia and it can be very much, you know “listen to this, answer a question”, “listen to this, here are some examples”.

And obviously in a book, in a printed book, we can’t do quite that same thing!

But we’ve come up with some really elegant workarounds and ways to let you improve in a practical sense purely with the book in your hand.

So it’s not about a whole ton of notation and lots of, you know, go play this on your instrument. We’ve really taken advantage of some of the techniques we developed in our eat training material at Musical U, which are very practical and very exploratory.

And it means each of these chapters genuinely can help you master these skills, even if you’re not a member and even if you don’t have access to our more kind of interactive multimedia resources. So I’m really excited for how that’s going to work.

So those are the three chapters on our pitch building blocks.

Then chapter 12, The Beat.

Underlying all musical rhythm is the beat or pulse of the music. Musicians tend to take this for granted, but that frequently results in a weak connection to the beat or an inaccurate ability to keep the beat.

In this chapter, we’ll explore different ways of connecting with the beat so that you have a reliable inner metronome and accurate ability to synchronise with or create your own musical beat.

This is an awesome chapter, I’m really excited that we have that chapter before we move on to rhythm. Just to dedicate a whole chapter to the beat, I think is so powerful. And we’ve been seeing more and more at Musical U how that is overlooked and missing for people.

They’re so focused on the rhythms or not even thinking about the rhythms, so focused on the pitches, playing the “right notes” that actually the notes aren’t quite at the right time, and their sense of that inner metronome, that steady pulse, is not quite there.

And so that chapter, I think, is going to be really impactful for people.

Chapter 13, Rhythm.

A musician’s ear for rhythm is typically more capable by default than their pitch skills. For example, more musicians can clap back a rhythm they hear than could sing back or name a series of note pitches they heard. However, rhythmic accuracy and an ability to deeply understand and be creative with rhythm is a significant part of what sets a great performance apart from a mediocre one.

In this chapter, we’ll explore both the beat counting and rhythm syllables approaches to developing your rhythmic abilities, enabling you to sight-read rhythmic notation easily transcribe rhythmic patterns you hear and tune into your instinct for rhythmic creativity.

Then on to Part III.

In Part III of the book, we use the foundational skills and building blocks from Parts I and II to enable several musical abilities typically associated only with “talented” or “gifted” musicians: improvising freely and creatively, playing music entirely by earning writing or composing your own distinctive and satisfying music, playing with powerful expression and performing in a way that connects deeply with your audience.

Side note there, that makes it sound a little bit like there’s no payoff until you get to Part III – that is absolutely not the case! In fact, if you only read Part I of the book, the superlearning chapter alone would transform your musicality forever and your musical progress forever. If all you took away from part one was audiation or active listening or mindset. Any of those Part I chapters can have a life-changing effect. So don’t think that you need to wait until Part III to start feeling talented or gifted. But Part III is where it really starts to get exciting, I think.

Chapter 14, Improvisation.

Musical creativity is mysterious to many and often over-romanticised, making it hard to know whether you have what it takes to be creative or how to develop your musical creativity. Perhaps the epitome of this is improvisation, being able to conjure up your own great-sounding music on-the-fly. The traditional methods of teaching improvisation based on strict rules and patterns or some memorised “vocabulary”, they provide the illusion of creativity, but result in samey-sounding solos and little of the self expression and fulfillment that truly free improvisation can provide.

In this chapter, you’ll be introduced to the Expansive Creativity™ framework for unlocking your natural creativity. Through the concepts of “Constraints and Dimensions” and musical “Playgrounds”, you’ll be able to gradually start expressing your own musical ideas, sounding great, and feeling creative from day one and leading to total musical freedom. With the “Play-Listen, Listen-Play” feedback loop you’ll become your own best teacher, letting you have fun improving your improvising day by day.

Chapter 15, Playing By Ear.

If you have ever felt trapped on the sheet music or frustrated by always needing to run off to find the notation, tablature, or chord charts to be able to play something new, learning to play by ear can provide a wonderful and exciting escape.

In this chapter, you’ll learn the Play-By-Ear Process™, which transforms playing by ear from a magical all-or-nothing ability into a clear spectrum – from “figuring something out note by note” through to being able to play something easily and correctly immediately when you hear it. Leveraging the building blocks of Part II, you’ll discover how to tackle any and every part of a piece of music so that whether you want to just play the tune, or the bassline, or the chords, or the full arrangement, you’re ready and able to do it.

Chapter 16, Songwriting.

To write a song that stands the test of time – or even just something you wouldn’t mind letting other people hear – can seem out of reach to the average music learner. Our love and reverence for the great songwriters and composers of history can make it seem futile to even try to write something ourselves. And yet, if you’ve ever dreamed of writing your own music, you’ll know it’s a dream that’s hard to ever let go of.

Building on the same Expansive Creativity™ framework introduced for improvisation, and introducing song specific concepts such as lyrics and musical form, in this chapter, you’ll be led step-by-step through writing your first music and learn to gradually develop and refine your creations into something uniquely yours and which you’re proud to share.

Quick side note there, we’re calling it “songwriting”. The chapter is a bit focused on songs specifically, but hopefully you can imagine all of the same skills are at play to compose. So if you think of yourself more as wanting to compose music, this is all absolutely applicable, too.

Chapter 17, Expression.

We all know the difference between a dry, robotic, lifeless performance and music that’s played truly expressively, moving the listener with each and every note. Or do we? What exactly does it mean to “play with expression”, and how can you learn to do it?

In this chapter, we’ll use the same 4-Dimensional framework introduced for active listening to practice shaping a note and series of notes in each of the possible ways. You’ll develop your ear’s sophistication for appreciating and understanding all the expressive choices being made in the music you hear. And you’ll also develop your own instinctive ability to make those same choices on-the-fly any time you play or perform. You’ll learn to understand and speak the language of emotion in music, empowering you to play with deep, moving, personal expressiveness.

We did a previous “Inside The Book” episode peeking into that chapter, so I’ll put a link in the shownotes to that one if you’re curious to know more. I share that 4-Dimensional framework and some ideas for how you can start exploring that.

Chapter 18, last, but certainly not least, Performance.

What does it take to put on a truly memorable and moving musical performance? We know it’s more than just overcoming stage fright and managing to play the right notes, but it can be hard to get further than that.

In this chapter, you’ll be introduced to the three C’s of the Performance Free-Flow™ framework, which enable you to connect deeply with the music, with your instrument, with other musicians, and with your audience. All spellbinding performances are making use of each of these three C’s: Connection, Conversation, and Creativity. Through simple ideas and exercises, you will develop your own skills with each of these and discover how to put on spellbinding performances of your own each and every time.

And finally, a Conclusion chapter.

We wrap things up with a recap of what’s been covered and suggest a process you can use to continually review and improve your musicality going forwards, moving you closer and closer to your musical dreams each day.

So there you have it! I hope you enjoyed that run-through. That is the full table of contents for the Musicality book, and I hope you enjoyed getting a little preview of what’s in each and every chapter.

I would love to know which of those chapters sounded the juiciest and most exciting to you! Leave a comment whether you’re on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, or if you’re on the audio podcast, drop me an email hello@musicalitynow.com. I would love to hear which of those chapters you’re most excited about.

Coming up next, we have our “Meet The Team” episode with Mark Hanna on our Admissions Team here at Musical U. I’m excited to have him with us tomorrow. If you are part of our live crew, just a heads up, that one is going to be two hours later than normal. It’s going to be two hours later than our normal time for these livestreams. So heads up on that. And then wrapping up the week with our next Coaches Corner episode. It’s a really good one. I’m psyched to share that with you on Saturday.

Until then, cheers! And go make some music!