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https://www.musical-u.com/learn/halloween-ear-training-insider-horror-film-music-secrets-uncovered/
What makes a Halloween film score creepy? Use ear training and your aural skills to learn some of the key elements of Halloween horror film music. Then create your own Halloween film music at home. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/halloween-ear-training-insider-horror-film-music-secrets-uncovered/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/7-strange-musical-secrets-for-making-your-own-scary-soundtrack/
Halloween is upon us, and with Halloween comes a creepy plethora of freaky cult films, scary soundtracks, and a fascination with the horrific and the macabre that overtakes culture by a storm. Learn how to write your own disturbing retro Halloween soundtrack with these seven secrets inspired by the theme from Stranger Things. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/7-strange-musical-secrets-for-making-your-own-scary-soundtrack/

We deconstruct the myth that jazz is an advanced genre requiring a perfect ear and perfect chops, clue you into the secret of making music sound spooky (it’s not nearly as complicated as you think!), and guide you around that gaping, unseen hole in the ground known as the ear training trap.

But first, let’s see what we’ve added to our already-towering stack of musical resources…

October’s Offerings

It’s been a busy month here at Musical U. Besides our regularly-scheduled programming of ear training tips, podcasts, and musicality advice from the pros, October has seen the addition of three resources for you to sink your teeth into!

First off, we’re releasing a new module to make mastering scales easier than ever. Our new Scale Degree Recognition module will enable you to identify notes of the major scale simply by singing them in solfa (a.k.a. solfege).

 

Our Instrument Packs have been updated with a lesson in rhythmic precision, teaching you how to hone your inner metronome. Our pros for singing, guitar, bass, and piano all offered up some amazing advice (both general and instrument-specific) on how you can better feel the beat.

And last but absolutely not least, the imminent return of Halloween calls for some scary studies in spookifying your sound! This time around, our resident piano pro Sara Campbell shares the secret of turning upbeat, happy songs into something nicely suited for…  a horror movie soundtrack.

Head over to What’s New in Musical U: October 2017 for more details on these new offerings!

Jazz is for Everyone

This week, we interviewed Learn Jazz Standards founder Brent Vaartstra about how the foundations of jazz can be of value to any musician, whether or not they’re interested in jazz itself.

Ear training is an invaluable skill for jazz musicians; this is the foundation of improvisation, playing and singing around the beat while still staying in time, and expressing yourself musically! These lessons benefit musicians of all backgrounds – nobody wants to play robotically.

Brent’s website is a goldmine of resources for any kind of musician, with lessons on chord progressions, intervals, playing by ear, and more. Most importantly, he bridges the gap between learning music theory and actually applying it to your instrument.

 

Tune into our podcast episode An Ear for Jazz, with Brent Vaartstra to learn about Brent’s musical background, what led him to start Learn Jazz Standards, his teaching philosophy for ear training, and a wonderful freebie he has kindly provided to our listeners to get started with developing their ear!

Brent has such a fascinating story about how he came to be the musician he is today. One interesting aspect was that he was forced, with the mysterious disappearance of his  teacher, to begin playing by ear at a very early age. While this is not the path that many of us take, it begs the question, when is the right time to begin playing by ear? Key-notes explores this question.

While most piano players begin with learning by sheet music, guitar players tend to pick up sheet music later. But, what if piano players started the same way that guitar players do? Piano Picnic explains how pianists could benefit from starting without sheet music.

Jazz players often think of music in terms of the chord changes that the chart is built around. This requires an additional step in the ear training process to be able to recognize the chords and anticipate where the music is heading. Jazz Advice has a great guide on anticipating chord transitions!

Jazz is one of the most aurally intensive forms of popular music, in regards to the amount of listening that musicians in this genre tend to do. Today’s jazz musician still looks to the many classics like Miles Davis, The Dave Brubeck Quartet, and Charlie Parker.

But does that mean that good jazz hasn’t been made since back in the day? Absolutely not! Brent Vaartstra compiled this list of 92 modern jazz albums on his blog for you to expand your repertoire.

Spookify Your Songs!

What gives horror movie soundtracks their visceral, hair-raising effect? Why are some melodies so unsettling to the ear? How do different chords and chord progressions lend completely different character to songs?

 

The answers to these questions are complex, but can be be boiled down to one thing: transposition.

Musical U’s resident piano pro Sara Campbell works her magic on   nursery rhymes and other simple, innocent happy notes, and shows how changing just a fewl notes can transforms the song from upbeat and cheery to creepy and foreboding.

Throw your own malicious mix into Sara’s cauldron as you learn to Transpose and Terrify!

Transposition is certainly a valuable skill that any musician will benefit from mastering. For our guitar players, Guitar Trance details how to easily transpose in only four steps.

Transposing into a minor key is just one way that you can make music sound scarier and fit in with your Halloween adventures. Beyond minor, there are many other elements in music that help to create scary music. 12tone shows you the key components of scary music and how you can create your own!

Aside from these types of special effects, there is an interval that is traditionally labeled as the “Devil’s Interval”: the dreaded tri-tone. The tri-tone is a perfect fourth interval, raised by a half step. This essentially splits the diatonic scale in half, creating a sound that you will never forget! Learn more about this staple in horror music from the Sync Project.

During the course of this mini-lesson, three distinctly different minor scales were discussed, which can all be used to make your music more Halloween-y. Rich from Trumpet Planet explores the different types of minor scales, and the key characteristics of each one.

Escaping the Trap

The ear training journey is not without some speed bumps and roadblocks along the way.

It’s easy to do the exercises, but some musicians find themselves in a rut when it comes time to play. Let’s say a guitarist can recognize intervals by ear with no problems, but has a hard time strumming out a perfect fifth when they pick up their instrument.

What’s going on?

Check out About the Ear Training Trap to learn how Musical U can help you avoid this pitfall, and how to best combine ear training and instrumental practice to get the results you want.

Taking all that you are learning in your musical studies -whether it be aural training, music theory, or other bits of instruction – and applying it to your music makingis the missing element to achieving the musical freedom that you are seeking. For another look at this, Todd from Liquidrum describes the importance of learning your instrument and not just your pieces.

There was a fascinating moment in the interview where Brent discussed that the greatest musicians are not just “playing an instrument”, but that the instrument is a vessel for their musical expression. This is particularly enlightening (and inspiring!), and a big reason that we stress singing so much within Musical U. Jay Friedman, principal trombonist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, has a very similar philosophy.

Singing is a such an important part of ear training, even though most of us are not singers! Don’t be frightened!ou don’t have to be a vocalist to be able to sing through your intervals. If you are uncomfortable with letting your voice free, it will be helpful to start out with some exercises that have reference pitches for you to build on. Let Verba Voice Technique help you on your way:

Apart from applying ear training exercises directly to your instrument, you could take another approach and incorporate the music you are trying to learn. By taking one song, and using sight singing, you willmake great progress in applying your newfound ear training success to real music. The process is really quite simple, as laid out by the School of Popular Music.

Still scared of the dark?

Even with a lantern in hand, the dark places won’t light up until we step inside.

The post October’s Offerings, Jazz is for Everyone, Spookify Your Songs, and Escaping the Trap appeared first on Musical U.

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/improvisation-how-to-score-halloween-horror/
A good improv can yield hours of good spooky material! We’re going to use a particular short film clip as an example of how to improvise and then develop your score for a horror movie. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/improvisation-how-to-score-halloween-horror/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/ear-training-possible-impossible/
“Is ear training even possible for me?” I certainly know that feeling. When I was learning music at school I would ask myself this kind of question often. The self-doubt returned later on when I began doing ear training. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/ear-training-possible-impossible/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/lydian-scale-seeking-ultimate-mysteries-music/
Anyone who loves music senses that magic lies within the relationship from one note to the next. What discoveries can you uncover in this article about the Lydian Scale?
https://www.musical-u.com/learn/lydian-scale-seeking-ultimate-mysteries-music/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/how-long-does-it-take-to-learn-musical-intervals/
Depending on your starting point with interval ear training, you will be able to start applying your new interval recognition skills after just a week or two of practice. However, as you see the benefits of interval ear training, you will want to continue – not declare yourself finished with it! https://www.musical-u.com/learn/how-long-does-it-take-to-learn-musical-intervals/

The ear training journey is a long, yet immensely rewarding one. Along the way, there’s a trap that 90% of students will fall into, leading them to think they aren’t making progress and causing them to lose focus and motivation to develop their ear. Thankfully, one simple tip will prevent you from falling into this trap and will help you make the most out of your ear training practice.

Listen to the episode:

Links and Resources

• An Ear for Jazz, with Brent Vaartstra
• Learn Jazz Standards
• Instrument Packs at Musical U

Transcript

Over the years I’ve seen a lot of musicians make a lot of mistakes with ear training.

There are a few of them that come up a lot more than others, and one of those really common ones is what I call the ear training trap.

In our recent episode with Brent Vaartstra from Learn Jazz Standards we talked about his new ear training course and one of the things I highlighted was that he’s cleverly designed it to avoid this trap.

Before we dive in and talk about the trap and how you can avoid it, let’s take a quick moment to define what ear training is.

At Musical U we define ear training as “any activity you do to improve your ears for music”. That is a very broad definition, as it should be. But what we’re going to be talking about today is the traditional definition of ear training that most musicians associate with the phrase, and that’s doing dedicated exercises, drills, to recognise different elements in music by ear. Examples would be practicing recognising the interval between a pair of notes, or listening to a sequence of chords and trying to identify the progression.

There are loads of different areas where you can do useful ear training exercises, but with all of them you’re in danger of falling into the same trap…

Let’s start with an example. Jeff is a saxophone player who wants to improvise jazz. He’s heard that intervals are really important for having a good jazz ear so he grabs an interval training app or maybe some practice MP3s, and he spends a few weeks dedicatedly putting in 20 minutes a day practicing. He makes some progress, after a few weeks he can recognise a handful of interval types, ascending and descending.

But Jeff’s losing enthusiasm. He’s glad to have made progress, but when he picks up his sax he doesn’t really feel any different about improvising.

Jeff has fallen into the ear training trap. What’s gone wrong?

Well, he has treated ear training as an isolated activity. He’s done well with the ear training itself, but he has been doing drills that aren’t connected with his instrument or the music he loves, and he hasn’t had any way to make that connection.

If you never relate ear training exercises to your actual musical life, ear training can quickly feel pointless and it becomes incredibly hard to keep up your motivation – and that’s fair enough! You’re not really seeing any benefit from all your efforts!

So what’s the solution? Well, naturally, it’s to make sure your ear training efforts *are* connected to your musical life.

In the new ear training course from Learn Jazz Standards there is a section all about applying your new ear skills on your instrument. At Musical U, in our ear training Roadmaps we provide the dedicated training modules with the core ear training exercises – but then we always accompany them with recommended exercises you can do directly on your instrument to put it all into action. We also have a set of modules specifically about applying ear training to real musical tasks like playing by ear and improvising. And our Instrument Packs provide tutorial videos showing you exactly how to apply ear training on your specific instrument.

The ear training trap is simple – and once you know about it, it’s easy to avoid. Unfortunately the traditional ear training courses and methods leave you totally prone to falling into the trap, and in my experience 90% of musicians who pursue ear training do fall into the trap and it leaves them thinking that ear training is difficult and pointless.

Don’t fall into the trap yourself. Now you know about it, you can find ways to make sure you always connect your ear training to your real musical life, and of course if you need guidance on doing that we’re always happy to help at Musical U.

Before I wrap up I do want to mention one other thing.

Some musicians actually try so hard to avoid the trap they end up falling into another one. I was talking just the other day to a professional bassist who runs a popular website teaching bass guitar, and he was telling me how after years of gigging he had a really good ear and could happily sit in with a band and pick things up by ear. But he hadn’t really done any ear training exercises, he’d just learned it gradually by repeated trial and error playing his instrument year after year.

Now that’s good, and clearly it served him okay. But I found myself wishing he’d been shown a good way to do ear training. Because while the brute force instrument-only approach does work, it really does take years of playing, probably at a semi-professional level, before you get a really solid ear.

The beauty of ear training exercises is that they can dramatically accelerate that process by quickly giving you the building blocks required to do all the practical musical tasks. If you don’t give yourself those building blocks it’s a much slower journey.

So that’s another trap to be avoided: thinking that instrument practice alone will get you a good ear fast.

Ear training is a powerful and efficient way to get good ears. But you mustn’t fall into the trap of doing it isolated from your instrument and your real musical life. And you should also try not to swing too far in the other direction and miss out on the fast progress that dedicated exercises and ear training practice can provide.

I hope that whether you’ve never tried ear training before, or you’ve tried it and fallen into the trap of doing it in isolation, this quick episode has helped show you this dangerous trap and how you can make sure you avoid it in future.

The post About the Ear Training Trap appeared first on Musical U.

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/5-key-skills-musical/
Becoming a musician means much more than just learning to play an instrument. There are a wide variety of skills involved in learning to become a capable and versatile musician beyond mechanical abilities and understanding music theory. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/5-key-skills-musical/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/music-life-spooky-halloween-song/
Make ear training easy this Halloween with a spooky song that explores major and minor scales in the key of C. Even if a child doesn’t know the difference between major and minor scales, most students can recognize a “spooky” sounding song in minor. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/music-life-spooky-halloween-song/