Musicality World

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/listening-for-diminished-triads/
Maybe you are listening to your favorite band playing a tune on the radio. When suddenly you hear a chord that’s not quite a minor chord. What could it be? Enter the diminished triad! https://www.musical-u.com/learn/listening-for-diminished-triads/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/jump-start-music-training-progress-journal/
When it comes to musical training success, have you considered keeping a journal? At Musical U, creating this journal is essential to attaining musical goals and training success. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/jump-start-music-training-progress-journal/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/developing-your-rhythmic-ears/
Today we decided to take a peek into the world of rhythm. Rhythm is the gas in the music engine that makes your body move and your head nod. Learn more about developing your rhythmic ears with the Musical U team! https://www.musical-u.com/learn/developing-your-rhythmic-ears/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/10-mini-songwriting-challenges/
Songwriting is a tricky business. Inspiration can be hard to come by and frustrating. Sometimes, though, all you need are a few simple exercises to sharpen your songwriting skills! Look no further than these 10 songwriting mini-challenges. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/10-mini-songwriting-challenges/

This week at Musical U, we tackle three distinct topics of musicality: songwriting, performance, and planning your musical learning journey.

We discuss a songwriting device that you’ll instantly recognize – and why it’s crossed the line between tried-and-true and clichéd. We interview a guitar guru on everything from improv and songwriting to musical mindset and overcoming learning roadblocks. We examine the difference between practice and performance, and a surprising truth about playing in front of others. And lastly, we look at self-directed learning, its pitfalls, and the secret to avoiding them.

A Musical Platitude

Sometimes, songs don’t just write themselves – a creative plateau is hit, and you’re unsure where the song is supposed to go next.

For many songwriters, the answer is to change keys. We’ve all heard it – there’s one minute left of a song, and suddenly, the song modulates into a new key, “raising the stakes” and capturing your ear’s attention.

However, this trick has been used so much that it’s no longer exciting or creative – rather, it sounds cheesy, almost Disney-like.

We explore this phenomenon in The Truck Driver’s Gear Shift, where we look at some famous tunes that have used this tactic to great (and not-so-great) effect, and share the secret of avoiding this songwriting trap.

The truck driver’s gear shift is often used when a songwriter feels that they need to change up the song to add interest. Any songwriter knows that they will have an occasional bout of writing block, but how can you overcome this? Jennifer Foxx at Music Educator Resources shares how to use pictures and story telling to aid music composition.

Much like the sudden surprise of a key change, there is a particular kind of chord that can have a big impact on your song. Jake from Signals Music Studio shows us the various ways that you can use the “God Chord” for a truly epic change in your song.

At Musical U, many of our members and followers want to become better at writing songs. Despite how easy some of our musical heros make it look, songwriting is a skill that must be worked at. Revolution Harmony has a songwriting mini-course to get those creative juices flowing.

While this article offers one perspective on the truck driver’s gear shift’s overuse, using key changes is a great way to shift the song you are writing in a completely different direction. And like all things, this is something that you can learn to do well! Kevin from Songwriting Planet explains more about composing with key changes.

Advice from the Guru

The Musicality Podcast’s interview episodes are so that you can hear words of musical wisdom directly from the experts.

This week, we interviewed Dave Isaacs, a man known as the “Guitar Guru of Nashville” – and make no mistake, his experience and accomplishments make that title very well-earned. His exploratory approach to songwriting, teaching, and music in general beautifully reflects the wisdom he’s gained from over thirty years of teaching, playing, and thinking in-depth about music.

Tune your ears into Follow Your Ear, with Dave Isaacs for the wisdom you’ve been seeking on topics such as diving into improvisation, improving your songwriting, and how to recover from the dreaded learning “plateau”.

Dave shared a story of how he struggled with making it to the next step in his musical growth. So many musicians have experienced similar plateaus in their musical progression! Nicola from Singers Secret has some great advice for taking your playing to the next level.

It was fascinating to hear that Dave was able to apply so much of what he learned as a classical guitar player to his career in Nashville. Learning to play classically can make a big difference in your ability to play in other styles of music. Classical Guitar takes a look at how you can play musically on the classical guitar.

After years of preparation, are you ready to follow in Dave’s footsteps and land on Music Row in Nashville? Before packing up the gig bag, take a moment to read these tips from Twin Monarch to make the most of the trek.

Practice or Performance?

Performing, and we mean really performing, is hard. The self-assurance that you’ve so carefully cultivated during your practice sessions seems to fly out the window, you begin overthinking every move, and your mistakes (whether you’ve even made them yet or not!) come into full focus. And so, many performers tragically fall into the trap of practicing on stage, or scrutinizing themselves when they should be just… playing.

There’s a villain at play, and here’s a hint: it’s not your audience members.

In Are you practicing on stage – instead of playing?, we look at how to wrestle with this villain – and win.

Of all the great experiences in music, there is nothing quite like the energy and excitement of playing live. Stormer Music explains how performing live can help you grow musically.

You’ve done it! The venue is booked, the set list carefully written out. All you have to do now is go play that concert. As we’ve discovered in this article, there is much more to performing live than just showing up and playing. Mella Music has 7 tips to help you make the biggest splash at your next big gig.

No matter how much you prepare, not everyone who shows up to your concert will enjoy your performance. It’s just inevitable. But criticism isn’t always a bad thing… it may inspire you to work just a bit harder the next time! Ari Koinuma shares these tips for receiving criticism and using it as a learning opportunity.

Learning with Roadmaps

There are countless perks to self-directed learning. With no rigid music curriculum looming over you, you are free to focus on learning what interests you, at a speed that suits you, and in a manner that matches your learning style.

However, with the seemingly infinite supply of music education resources found on the web and beyond, how do you ensure that your learning is focussed, goal-oriented, and produces actual results?

The Holy Grail for the self-taught musician is the almighty Roadmap. In About Having a Roadmap, we explain this flexible training system, how we at Musical U use it to great effect, and why it produces the results that “one size fits all” courses and scattershot learning never will.

The roadmap is such a useful tool when learning music. Having everything laid out right in front of you can help you concentrate on one task at a time – but make sure that you are keeping track of your progress and tasks with a practice calendar and journal. Piano Cub explains more about how to use this is simple yet powerful tool.

Even with a rock solid roadmap that is booked in your calendar, approaching practice with the right mindset and method can make a really big difference. As Liberty Park Music explains, revisiting the fundamentals of practicing is a great way to continue to improve, even for the experienced musician.

Like constructive criticism, a little tough love can be really good for your musical progression. In this episode of the The Modern Musician Podcast, Ben and Dan discuss why it’s not enough to be motivated to learn music. It requires hard work and a roadmap on how you are going to achieve your musical goals!

Making Your Time Count

Regardless of whether you’re trying to write an impactful song, learn to play a challenging piece, or gain the confidence you need to perform freely and expressively, you want the time that you’re devoting to your craft to be well-spent.

This means taking a long, honest look at your practice habits. Or your songwriting approach. Or your long-term goals. And figuring out how to use your time in a smarter way – so that every minute spent practicing is a minute that you are engaged, learning, and working towards a goal.

How do you use roadmaps (or a similar tool) to keep your learning structured, relevant, and motivated?

The post A Musical Platitude, Advice from the Guru, Practice or Performance?, and Learning with Roadmaps appeared first on Musical U.

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/7-ways-accelerate-ear-training/
You’re working hard on your ear training. Whatever your goal might be, regular practice is essential. Here are 7 ways you can get more from your ear training practice and move faster towards your musical goals. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/7-ways-accelerate-ear-training/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/vocal-control-and-how-to-improve-yours/
Vocal control is one of the most fundamental aspects of singing, and is something every singer has to learn at some point. It is the “bread and butter” of singing, which should be learned by everyone who wants to pursue singing seriously. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/vocal-control-and-how-to-improve-yours/

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/training-ears-chords/
Isn’t it magical when someone sits down at the piano or picks up the guitar and seems to know how to play every song by ear? Learn about chord ear training to master that skill. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/training-ears-chords/

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. 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.

Listen to the episode:

Links and Resources

• Interview with Dave Isaacs
• LearnJazzStandards podcast interviews Christopher Sutton
• Roadmaps at Musical U

Transcript

In our last episode with Dave Isaacs we touched on the challenge of modern music learning where you have access to unlimited resources and tutorials for learning – but somehow that rarely actually produces results for the self-taught musician.

This has come up a few times on the show and so I wanted to share with you the way we tackle this at Musical U, what we call “Roadmaps”.

First though, let’s talk about two things that *don’t* work.

The first is the scattershot approach. You are putting in effort and paying attention – but your music learning is all over the place. This week you find a new website and do lots of their exercises and tutorials, then they mention a music theory thing you’re not familiar with and you go on a jag learning all about that, and one of the theory tutorials mentions ear training so then you’re off downloading ear training apps and passing a week or two dabbling in a bunch of those.

Sound familiar? This is probably the most common way self-taught musicians approach things and unfortunately it’s basically a disaster. The one good thing is that it can keep that spark of enthusiasm alive, as you continually get that hit of dopamine from the novelty factor. But even that can flop, as you occasionally get really frustrated and disillusioned that despite all the time spent, you haven’t actually progressed in a noticeable way and you’re not really any closer to your musical goals.

Oh, speaking of goals – that’s a whole other topic but an equally vital one. For now, if you’re not 100% clear on your musical goals I’m just going to point you to an episode of the Learn Jazz Standards podcast where I was a guest and we talked all about effective goal-setting and planning for musicians. And it’s not jazz-specific at all, so do go check that out, we’ll have the link in the shownotes for this episode at MusicalityPodcast.com.

Okay, so the scattershot approach can entertain and occupy you but it doesn’t lead you steadily forwards towards your goals.

So a lot of people then switch to the other extreme. They find a guru or an institution and they say “Okay, I’m going to 100% dedicate myself to their course”. And they buy the course or they sign up for the program and they start moving through it, step by step.

Now what’s good here is that the course has been laid out clearly and it is aimed at a real goal. And typically that goes quite well to begin with.

But in the first few years of running my company and devoting myself to finding out what works in musicality training, I discovered something insidious here: it’s that online course completion rates are atrocious. Like 10% or less of students who sign up for a course will ever finish it.

Why is that? Well, there’s a bunch of factors and I don’t want to over-simplify what is a genuinely difficult problem to solve. But what we found was that the biggest problem with offering a straight-line “course” for musicality training is that there can be no “one size fits all” solution for this kind of skill learning.

In fact, every musician is different. We all have different backgrounds, instruments, genres, interests, existing ability levels, and so on. And we are all seeking slightly different goals, and we all learn in different ways and at different speeds.

This means that a “one size fits all” course ends up fitting nobody. So although the straight-line course is appealing it actually ends up being really frustrating for students as they inevitably get stuck at some stage and then don’t have any options for how to move forwards. This is made much worse by the fact that many online courses offer little or no personal support to help students out when they hit these struggles.

So those are the two most common approaches – the scattershot approach, and a straight-line course – and why they typically fail the majority of musicians who try them.

When we built Musical U I was determined to do better. We knew we had a ton of training material on all the important topics, some really powerful interactive tools, and a lot of experience helping musicians get great results with each of those. But it wasn’t immediately obvious how to pull it all together into something that would work better than letting members wander around scattershot, or trying to put them all on a straight-line course through it.

What we came up with was “Roadmaps”. The idea is that when you’re setting out to learn a skill like playing chords by ear or improvising, there is a ton that’s going to vary musician-by-musician. But there is also a lot that is going to be common, and it’s incredibly useful to have at least a suggested step-by-step explanation of how you can learn that skill.

So what we built – and this is an idea you can use yourself, even outside of Musical U membership – was a flexible training system, guided by Roadmaps. A Roadmap explains the sequence of training modules and exercises that can lead you from zero to having a fully-developed musical skill like playing by ear. But instead of forcing members to proceed through a Roadmap step-by-step, instead it’s there to guide them. The actual training plans they follow are 100% customisable, so that if a certain module is something they’ve learned before, or they know a bit of the Roadmap is irrelevant for them, or they get stuck midway through a phase of the Roadmap and need some way to keep moving forwards – their plan is totally adjustable to accommodate that.

So that alone went a really long way to solving this problem. Members get the clarity of a straight-line course but without the rigidity that causes them to fail. And they get the option of as much scattershot novelty and exploration as they might want or need, while still always keeping their eyes on the goal.

Have you got a Roadmap for what you’re currently learning in music? It’s different from a single resource, or app, or course. It’s the big picture guide to how to learn a skill. If not, we do offer free previews of all our Musical U Roadmaps that could be a great starting point for you – I’ll link to those in the shownotes.

Once we built the Roadmaps there was one more thing that was needed, and again this is a big point I’d love for you to take away even if you’re going to implement Roadmaps your own way rather than being a member of Musical U. And it’s something else that came up in our interview with Dave Isaacs, and in fact it’s come up a ton of times here on the podcast because many of the experts I’ve interviewed have wanted to point out the importance of it. And that’s having guidance and support.

There’s something wonderful about self-teaching, drawing on the wealth of resources available online and taking responsibility for your own learning journey. I am 100% in favour of that.

But a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that also has to mean going it alone.

Just because you are taking charge of your learning, that doesn’t mean you can’t get help!

What we added to the Roadmaps system and what was 100% essential for it to really work so effectively was: unlimited personal support and guidance.

So that if you don’t know where to start on the Roadmap, you can ask. If you’re not sure which bits you should adapt to suit you, you have an expert to advise you. And probably most importantly, when you hit a hurdle or a point of confusion, as inevitably happens at some point even with the best resources and the most dedicated student – you can ask for help and get advice that’s going to get you moving again.

The community and expert team at Musical U are our hidden amplifier. The training system and Roadmaps are fantastic – but in truth there are some other great courses and apps out there too. What really sets us apart is that we transform the effectiveness of it all by actually being there day-in, day-out to help members.

So whether it’s with Musical U or some other source of training and support, please make sure that you have a Roadmap for what it is you want to accomplish in music – and that you have personal support and guidance to help you really succeed on that Roadmap and reach the musical goals you’ve been dreaming of.

The post About Having a Roadmap appeared first on Musical U.