Musicality World

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/learning-to-sing-the-first-lesson/
Our recent podcast guest Marshall McDonald stressed that singing is the key to expressing your musical self on your instrument.

If you haven’t yet begun singing, here is a first lesson to get you on your feet. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/learning-to-sing-the-first-lesson/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/patterns-playgrounds-4-ways-approach-improvisation/
If you want to improvise music you are eventually going to have to confront the fact: learning to improvise is hard.

Fortunately, there are a handful of insights and approaches you can use to transform this traditionally hard and confusing skill into an easy and natural part of your musicality. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/patterns-playgrounds-4-ways-approach-improvisation/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/music-mentor/
There’s no denying that it takes a lot of personal motivation and dedication to succeed in meeting one’s musical goals.

Learn more about finding a mentor help you in your musical journey. And how you can get started. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/music-mentor/

Listen to the episode:

Links and Resources

• Interview with Todd McCarty
• Heat on the Street
• Approaching Improvisation module preview
• Podcast episode: Approaching Improvisation
• Podcast episode: Improvising Rhythm
• Podcast episode: Improvising with Scales and Chords
• Podcast episode: Improvising with Structure and Phrasing
• Podcast episode: Learning to Improvise
• Lisa McCormick’s website
• Interview with Leila Viss
• Interview with Marshall McDonald
• Interview with Bree Noble
• The Female Entrepreneur Musician podcast
• Ira Glass on “having taste”

Transcript

In our recent episode with Todd McCarty we talked a lot about getting your music out there and finding fans.

And I know that some of our loyal listeners may have hesitated to actually listen to it, because despite what I said in the intro about it being relevant to all, I know that a lot of you don’t feel like you’re ready for creating your own music or sharing it.

So I wanted to address that today – because at Musical U we really believe that creating and sharing music isn’t an advanced thing for the best musicians only, it can and should be accessible to every musician from day one. But I totally recognise that with the way music is often taught, you might be feeling a bit intimidated or reluctant to think about that. I’m channeling my past self here – I spent a long time with a chip on my shoulder about this stuff and feeling like there was a big barrier between people who just played instruments and those who really went out there and created music worth sharing.

Today I want to share with you two simple ways to get started creating music worth sharing, and then talk a little about the sharing itself. I think, and I hope, that the ideas I’ll be sharing are going to be useful for those of you who feel like you’ve never created any music of your own, and also for those of you who dabble, or indeed spend a lot of your time writing songs or composing music.

Creating One Note at a Time

The first way to get started creating music is something from our Approaching Improvisation module in Musical U. If you’ve been listening to the show for a while you’ll have heard our Improv Month episodes where we talked a lot about getting started with improvising in music, and at the time we were releasing our full Improvising Roadmap in Musical U. One of the modules we released then has gone on to be one of our most popular across the whole site, and that’s Approaching Improvisation.

It’s designed for people who’ve either never improvised before or have tried one of the “paint by numbers” rule-based systems for improvising – and it gives you a totally fresh way to look at the beautiful simplicity that improvisation can be all about.

What I wanted to share today from that module is something Andrew from our team calls the “Listen/Play, Play/Listen” approach. It’s the idea that whenever you’re making music you can either be hearing something in your head, i.e. listening, and then bringing it out into the world. Or you can be playing something, for example from sheet music, and then listening to it as it emerges from your instrument. The first, Listen/Play, is essentially about playing by ear, which is one wonderfully free avenue to improvising. The second, Play/Listen, is about really paying attention to what comes out of your instrument and allowing it to inspire and guide you.

In the module we combine these two ideas and build on them step-by-step to help you explore improvisation in a way that’s pure, and simple, and incredibly versatile.

And that’s what I wanted to share today, on this theme of creating something worth sharing. Because completely independent of all the specifics of scales, and keys, and pieces you’ve learned and instrument technique you may or may not have – these two approaches provide a way to tap into your creativity.

We recently had a phenomenal masterclass at Musical U with Lisa McCormick, creator of the Note2Self method for music practice, and I think we’ll probably talk more about that in future episodes – but one comment she made almost in passing really stuck out to me and is relevant here. She said we need to remember that even a single note in music can be beautiful. Pick up your instrument and play just one note – and really listen!

That’s actually something else we feature in the Approaching Improv module, starting from one note and building up, and it’s that which I really wanted to put in front of you today: that reminder that in opposition to all the grand ideas we might have and the great ambition we might (or might not!) have for our music, we need to remember how simple a lot of the greatest music is. And simply sitting down with your instrument and playing, and listening – and listening, and playing – that is a beautiful route to creating something which truly comes from inside you.

So that’s the first way to get started creating. And if you want more of the specifics about how to make that improvisation experience fun and effective I’d suggest checking out our Improv Month episodes, I’ll put links to those in the shownotes, because there are some extra ideas and guidelines that’ll help.

Creating From a Starting Point

The second way to start getting creative is something that’s come up a few times in interviews on the show, such as with Leila Viss talking about “stealing like an artist” and Marshall McDonald talking about starting from a solo or a melody you like and starting to play around with it. A moment ago I talked about creating pretty much from a blank slate, just sitting down and starting from scratch. But it can be just as effective to start from something very specific that you know how to play (or want to figure out by ear) and using that as your starting point.

For example, just changing the ending notes of each phrase. Try taking the melody up instead of down, or vice-versa. If you stick to the notes in the key you won’t sound too strange – or try exploring outside the key and see how it sounds! Of course there are a lot of ways to experiment. In our improv Roadmap we call these “dimensions”, such as pitch, rhythm, dynamics, timbre, and so on. They are all ways to take something known and make it your own.

One personal tip on this front: try to silence your inner editor when you do this. If you’re anything like me then when you sit down to try to create your own thing and start from some existing bit of music you’re going to almost immediately hear a voice in your head going “Well, that’s almost the same, you can’t claim that’s your own” or “this is silly, you’re just making little adjustments”. You need to ignore that voice and keep exploring. Sure, changing one or two notes in the riff from Layla or a John Williams soundtrack melody isn’t going to provide you with your own unique masterpiece! But ignore that inner critic and keep exploring and experimenting and you’ll be surprised how quickly you find your way to new territory and the riffs, melodies, rhythms, harmony and more which truly are unique and have come from your own taste and creativity.

So that’s the second way: simply experiment!

Again, that’s something you can take away and do immediately – but it can also be bolstered by knowledge and skills, and all the musicality material we teach at Musical U comes into play here. It’s a lot easier to experiment in a way you find satisfying if your brain and your ears understand what’s going on in the music. Don’t let that hold you back, if you haven’t yet done musicality training. But I just wanted to mention it as an opportunity if you find yourself enjoying that experimenting and wanting a way to feel a bit more intentional with it.

So there are two ways to start creating, and I hope one or both will help you start creating little bits of music that you really enjoy playing and hearing.

Don’t forget: Record Yourself!

Remember to record yourself whenever you’re playing around like this! I was talking with Glory St. Germain from Ultimate Music Theory recently and she made this point, that whenever you’re in that creative mode, even in a relaxed experimental way, make sure you have a recorder running! Because you never know when you’ll play something and think “wow, that sounded great!” And it’ll be a lot easier to capture and return to and expand on if you can listen back rather than relying purely on your musical memory.

What about Sharing?

So now that you’re creating, what about the sharing side?

Well, in the spirit of this show I’m not going to plough into the nitty gritty of online publishing and social sharing and establishing your online presence as an artist and all of that. If you’re already a songwriter or composer and you’re at the stage of wanting all those details I’d suggest our recent interviews with Todd McCarty and with Bree Noble, and checking out their websites – links in the shownotes.

What I am going to talk about is that critical word in this episode’s title: I said creating music worth sharing. We’ve covered the creating, we’re not going to talk about the sharing in detail. But from what I know of our listeners here at the Musicality Podcast it’s probably that word “worth” that’s going to trip you up.

So I’m going to talk to myself as a teenager. This is after I’d learned the fundamental instrument technique on a few instruments but before I’d discovered ear training. For about ten years, with the exception of a brief period where I did dabble with song writing, my mindset was definitely “I’m not really creative, I can’t make my own music, I’ll just play what’s been written before”. I’ve mentioned on the show before that I couldn’t play by ear, and improvisation to me meant just noodling up and down a scale and hoping it sounded okay. I wrote a couple of strange songs and one very angry one about my girlfriend dumping me, and that was about the sum total of my creative output for that decade or so.

And really it all hinged on that question of “worth”.

There’s this great video of Ira Glass, host of This American Life, talking about the curse of having good taste. And to paraphrase, he explains that what makes us passionate and gets us into creating art is that we have good taste and we know what we love – but then the irony is that it takes a really long time for our own creative output to get good enough to live up to our own taste and expectations, so it can be a really painful and discouraging journey if you’re not expecting that. I’ll put a link to the video in the shownotes.

So this is the key to it, I think: to put it bluntly, we need to lower our standards!

And that phrase normally has really negative connotations, like we’re giving up or copping out, or producing mediocre work.

That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about readjusting our sense of what’s worth creating. Remember that idea, of a single note being a beautiful thing to hear. By playing just that one lovely note you’ve made the world around you tangibly better than it was when there was just silence. If that’s the case then surely there’s a whole spectrum of things worth creating between that single note and the musical masterpieces you might be hoping to one day create.

So the first step is to accept that simple can be beautiful, short can be beautiful, different can be beautiful. And if you play something and you like the sound of it then it was worth creating.

The second step is to decide that if it was worth creating and it brought you joy to hear it then maybe it could do the same for someone else. Meaning it’s worth sharing.

Again, “sharing” doesn’t have to be this big intimidating thing. It doesn’t need to mean publishing, it doesn’t need to mean standing up live in front of a crowd, it doesn’t need to mean making it available for anyone in the world to hear and critique. Sharing can be as simple as playing back the recording for a musician friend and saying “Hey, check out this riff I played the other day, it’s kind of cool, right?”. Or even, as Gerald Klickstein suggested in his interview here on the show, it can just mean playing for an audience comprised of your cat!

Take small steps and you’ll realise that the things you’re capable of creating are worth creating, and the things that are worth creating are worth sharing with other people too.

This is something we talk about in our Get Confident module in Musical U, that there’s a great big mindset shift you can make in your expectations of other people’s expectations. We tend to think that other people are going to be really critical and judgemental and expect only perfection from us – when in fact, if you approach the right people in the right way, it will be only a positive experience to share your music with them.

Think about your musical friends, think about your family, think about a mastermind group like Todd McCarty was talking about. Or yes, think about your cat. Figure out who you do feel comfortable sharing even just a little musical creation with, and then go for it.

This is the best way – and in fact, the only way

Now I’m guessing that when you saw the title of this episode, “About Creating Music Worth Sharing” your mind might have immediately leapt to song writing and composing and publishing on YouTube and Spotify and all that. Clearly that’s not what we’ve covered!

But what I want to end with is one more point: It’s not an either/or thing. If you begin to create in the ways we’ve discussed, and you begin to share in the ways I just suggested, you’re going to find that it’s all a smooth and fun path towards those big impressive acts of creating and sharing. You don’t need to do the big things from day one, you don’t even need to think about them from day one.

Start creating. Start sharing. You might be surprised where it takes you, and I guarantee you’re going to enjoy the journey.

The post About Creating Music Worth Sharing appeared first on Musical U.

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/tension-in-music/
The art of music is all about tension and release. Creating moments of unrest and building an instrumental turmoil requires a subsequent resolution. This progression of tension and release hooks listeners as they begin to feel that moment of liberation at the end.

We explore different ways to achieve this in writing and playing music. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/tension-in-music/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/how-to-handle-criticism-as-a-musician/
Is fear of criticism preventing you from expressing the music inside you?

The Musical U team explores ways to take criticism to help your musical growth. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/how-to-handle-criticism-as-a-musician/

There is always more to learn, and new avenues of musicmaking to discover – regardless of your level. The pros know this better than anyone, and this understanding helps them continuously enrich their knowledge base, push musical boundaries, and create better and better music.

Meet ZSonic, a DJ and producer who has been at it for 18 years, playing gigs all over the midwest and composing music with an unlikely instrument: the turntable. In the years prior to joining Musical U, he was feeling stuck in his approach. He was practicing long and hard, and yet experiencing frustration with the process and results.

With the help of Musical U, ZSonic has developed healthy practice habits that allow him to be creative, consistent, and focussed in his music – and has began composing his own music again after a two-year hiatus, with the help of his newfound singing and audiation skills, and his piano chops, all of which complement his turntabling technique known as “skratching”.

In our interview, ZSonic talks about his musical journey and the setbacks, realizations, and successes he’s had along the way, what made him give Musical U a try, and how it’s exposed him to a new practice framework that allows for creativity, accountability, and efficiency. And of course, he gives us a peek at “skratching”, or the fascinating art of creating tracks from vinyl using a turntable, resulting in an incredible musical collage that transcends genre.

I’ve loved music my whole life! I was inspired at a young age by the DJs, dancers, and musical guests on “In Living Color”. I would emulate the rapping and dancing. My first rap group was called “The L-A-Z Rappers” with my cousins Lisa and Anna (naturally, I’m Z). We even had a hit music video – well, it was a hit with our family.

Both of my parents listened to a lot of different music, with well-rounded collections of vinyls, cassettes, and CDs. It was a pleasure growing up with a diverse influence of styles and genres.

I took violin lessons when I was in first grade. I didn’t like it. That didn’t last very long. In 4th grade I took some piano lessons. That lasted a little longer than the violin. I still didn’t stick with it. In 8th grade, I picked up an electric bass. That was fun, but I didn’t dukey-stick with it.

Then, as a high school sophomore, I got into electronic production and DJing. This was awesome! I didn’t have to choose just one instrument – I had control over them all. I went on to win the Senior talent show by performing an original rap and turntable skratch to a beat I made. I’m a one man hip-hop army!

I’ve now DJed all over the midwest and done sample-based production for about 18 years. I’ve released many original songs and remixes over multiple labels, domestic and international. I’ve taught children how to rap and DJ at the Hip-Hop Academy in Kansas City, Missouri. I did freelance audio engineering for a couple years, during which I essentially lost time to work on my own music – that was soul-sucking.

As a result, I decided to not do mixing and mastering for other people and just focus on my own music. Over the last two years, I’ve been learning music theory and piano in an effort to be able to compose original music. Fortunately for me, I’ve been able to apply what I’ve learnt to my main instrument, the turntable. Studying and practicing piano has really made my skratches more musical.

It’s very hard for me to pick a favorite, so I’ll mention two pieces I feel are very important.

The first is C2C with their 2005 DMC Routine, a clear demonstration of the turntable being used as an instrument to create any style or genre. It illustrates how any piece of recorded sound can become an instrument and how multiple turntablists can work together to create music as a band. So cool:

The turntable is also a great improvisational instrument that can work with more traditional instruments. Here’s a video of one of my favorite turntablists, DJ Kentaro, jamming with an amazing shamisen player, Kinoshita Shinichi:

I just finished a 21 Days of VGM Challenge via Video Game Music Academy. I am continuing to work on my composition skills with a focus on writing melodies.

I have a couple of collaborative songs with another turntablist DJ and fellow Qbert Skratch University member, Fresh Kit. I am working on a song for a Brooklyn-based Footwork label, Zona Music. I am also building a repertoire of original dance music to release via my own label and to perform live. I’m always working!

I was losing steam with my piano practice. I had also been practicing ear training for a couple years and didn’t feel like I was improving much. I felt like I didn’t really understand how to apply the theory and ear training to actually making music.

I first heard about Musical U via the fantastic Hooktheory.com. I was interested in it when I first heard of it, but I wasn’t ready to commit to a full membership, so I signed up for the email list. I’ve heard a saying that when the student is ready, the teacher will present themselves. Musical U presented themselves in my email with a fantastic sign up offer, and I got on board!

One of the biggest benefits I’ve received from Musical U is a more musical mindset. I no longer just practice to get better – I practice with a bigger picture in mind.

I have found a much more musical focus with everything I practice. This has reduced stress and allowed me to find balance. I used to practice as much and as hard as possible, which is not a sustainable approach. I had previously gone two years without really writing music, just studying and practicing. Musical U has given me the mental tools to form effective practice habits that allow me have fun making music.

I have learned that I need to encode and apply – so I study and practice, then immediately apply it to my own music. This was definitely a missing link for me. Not only does this strategy help me learn faster, but I actually get musical ideas out there!

I was surprised at the amount of foundational practice concepts, goal setting, and planning strategies on Musical U. The change in mindset that happened in the first week after joining was very profound. It has shaped my whole life for the better. I haven’t just learned about music – I’ve learned effective practice strategies that I can apply to any aspect of my music. This helps me constantly improve in all areas.

I have learned that singing is a major weakness of mine. In fact, I wasn’t practicing or learning anything singing related before Musical U. I was trying to play melodies by ear, but as I’ve learned, if you can’t sing it, it’s so much harder to play by ear. Audiating (hearing music in my head) and singing have greatly improved my ear. I am still a beginner in singing, but I have had a new path opened up to me in that I now see the musical benefits to singing. I know my musicality will improve in great strides once I’ve developed a basic singing proficiency.

Everyone at Musical U is so wonderful and supportive. The staff and the other members are inspiring and helpful. I feel like I can really be my musical self – everyone is very open-minded to different styles and approaches. This is a very fertile learning environment.

I have had this idea of writing music and doing cover songs using the piano, my voice, and the turntable as an instrument. Prior to Musical U, my plan was to practice the turntable as hard and as long as possible until I reached mastery, then practice piano in the same manner, then practice voice. I would spend hours a day on one thing, just doing boring drills, really.

Now, I’ve learned to balance these musical components with shorter, consistent, and focused practice chunks. I’ve started to apply these skills in a way that resembles my end goal. I’m having a lot more fun and I’m making a lot more music!

Writing down goals along with a plan is crucial for progress. I strategize, then execute. By pre-planning what I will practice, I eliminate the decision-making step when I actually go to do my practice. This way I can focus much more efficiently on listening and performing as accurately as possible.

Journaling after I practice is extremely helpful – I write about what went well and what needed improvement, helping me hone in on what works and what doesn’t, and what to practice next time. This way, I can continue to improve my focus during my practice sessions.

I’ve learned that improvement doesn’t have to do with how long or how much I practice. It has to do with how consistent and focused my practice is. As Bruce Lee said, “Long-term consistency trumps short-term intensity.”

To quote another great: Mick Kremling said, “The only time you should look back is to see how far you’ve come”. The progress journal makes this very actionable. I can see how far I’ve come in the last week, month, even year! This is a powerful motivating force to keep me moving forward.

The online Personal Journal at Musical U is a really great supplement to my daily written journal. It gives me an accountability system, as I know the Musical U staff and members are looking at my journal, and they want to see me improve.

Having people other than yourself who are dedicated to your improvement is very powerful – I honestly can’t believe I went so long without it. Not only do they provide accountability, but also support and encouragement. If I get to a roadblock, I don’t have to beat my head against the piano indefinitely or scour the internet for reliable advice. I just ask the Musical U community on my personal journal!

Sharing Your Journey

We at Musical U swear by progress journals – there’s hardly another tool that allows you to track, examine, and share your successes and setbacks quite like it.

Even musicians with ample knowledge and experience under their belt stand to benefit greatly from keeping a written record of their practice – just ask ZSonic, who relies on his journal for everything from planning to retrospective self-critique, even with a successful decades-long career.

Not only does this allow you to track your progress, but in online communities such as Musical U, it helps hold you accountable to your peers – all of whom want to see you succeed, improve, and meet the goals you’ve lovingly inscribed in your journal.

The post Musical U Member Spotlight: ZSonic appeared first on Musical U.

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/finding-tonic-in-minor-keys/
We all know that finding the tonic can help to understand a song. Is it any different finding the tonic in minor keys?

We explore this topic. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/finding-tonic-in-minor-keys/