Musicality World

This week, we’re looking at some merry tunes that snuck their way onto Christmas albums without being Christmas songs themselves, celebrating one Musical U member’s journey, and looking at some non-Christmas music that will lift your spirits this holiday season. It doesn’t stop there: for those looking to practice their covers of “White Christmas”, we’re including a great tutorial for creating backing tracks to play along and practice with.

Last but not least, this week, Musical U guest-starred on the world’s largest trumpet community: Trumpetland! Our own Adam Liette gives players advice on incorporating ear training into their daily practice routine on their website.

Christmas Misfits

“Deck the Halls”? Check. “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”? Check. “White Christmas”? Check. Wait. What’s that track on your favourite Christmas album that… doesn’t sound like a Christmas carol you’ve ever heard before?

To spice up their Christmas releases, many artists cleverly incorporate some festive tunes into their albums that have nothing to do with Christmas. Sure, some may sing of snow, but many of these tunes are just so jubilant and homely that they need not mention anything related to the holiday season at all.

The 15 Best Non-Christmas Songs That Appear On Christmas Albums showcases these merry misfits, with everything from blues to Bob Dylan covers to numbers from musicals!

This was a fun exploration into songs that sound like Christmas songs, but have nothing to do with the holidays. Why do we confuse this in our ears? Are there certain elements to music that make them sound… Christmassy? ClassicFM has the answers.

We all know and love many of these classic Christmas (and non-Christmas) songs of the holiday season. But what if you want to mix it up a little bit? The Nerdist has compiled this wonderfully entertaining list of contemporary pop holiday songs certain to spice up your playlist.

Music, CarlyA2Z’s Way

The conservatory is a place whose hallowed halls will give you an excellent, structured music education.

However, it’s certainly not for everyone, and sometimes, achieving your goals means taking your musical journey into your own hands.

For CarlyA2Z, the mindset of conservatory teaching wasn’t meshing with her musical sensibilites. After almost giving up music for good, she stumbled across Musical U on a Google search.

For Carly, it turned out to be the perfect tool for working towards her specific goals while ensuring that her musical practice was a positive emotional experience. To learn how she keeps track of her accomplishments while keeping self-doubt away, and how she personally uses the tools of Musical U to meet her musical goals, head over to Musical U Member Spotlight: CarlyA2Z.

Like many musicians, CarlyA2Z struggled with thoughts of quitting music. This can be difficult to deal with for both musicians and music educators alike. In an insightful podcast episode, James Divine details how to change the mind of the student that wants to quit.

Musicians can often doubt their own abilities, and feel like they don’t belong. This is true no matter how successful you are. Remember that this is completely normal and there are ways that you can figure out how to get these thoughts out of your head. For some practical advice, Nick Ruffini at Drummers Resource has recorded this outstanding podcast episode on how to overcome imposter syndrome.

We talk a lot about the importance of having a mentor here at Musical U. Having someone to guide you through the difficult times can be extremely beneficial to your overall musical growth. Adam Ivy has some great advice for those that want to pursue personal mentorship.

Finally, having a practice journal has proven to be a great resource that has improved CarlyA2Z’s musical progress. You can download a practice journal from our friends at the Musician’s Way. Once you have this powerful resource, learn how to best manage your practice journal system with renowned bassist Jason Heath.

Merry Non-Christmas Music

Singing about the usual suspects such as Santa Claus, Jack Frost, and the black sheep of the reindeer family is all fine and well, but who said songs have to even mention Christmas to get you into the holiday spirit?

Charlotte Farley has compiled 10 Songs That Sound Like Christmas (But Aren’t) for your listening pleasure. It turns out that merry string arrangements, feel-good riffs, and uplifting lyrics evoke the spirit of Christmas just as well as, say, a reverie about walking down Santa Claus Lane.

With so many existing Christmas songs, certainly the world doesn’t need another one. Or does it?! Nashville Christian Songwriters explore the current repertoire of Christmas songs and challenge songwriters to explore this genre through storytelling. If you want to get inspired to write your own Christmas masterpiece, look no further.

What are some of keys that you need to consider when writing a great holiday tune? We turned to one of the most successful holiday performers in the United States, Jim Brickman, for his advice. Every year, Jim wows audiences throughout the midwest with his fantastic holiday renditions – let him teach you the tricks of mastering this genre!

The Beauty of Backing Tracks

Backing tracks are an incredible accompanist: they’re always right on rhythm, never miss a note, and encourage you to keep going even if you slip up.

Joanne Cooper has put together an incredible tutorial on using the program Band-in-a-Box to create customized backing tracks for improvisation, playalong, and more. In How To Make A Backing Track, with Joanne Cooper, she takes you step-by-step through the process, from finding the chords of your favourite song to inputting them into the software to tweaking the song to your liking.

Whoever thought that we would be able to create such wonderful background music using a regular computer? Technology continues to refine the way that we make, consume, and talk about music. To learn more about the various tools that you can begin using today, take a listen the Music Education and Technology Podcast.

Joanne talked about how a backing track can be a great tool for you to better practice your instrument. One way that backing tracks are used is for improvisation. But, there are some great exercises that will spice up your scale study by using this method as well. Gary Potter teaches how to use backing tracks for scale practice.

If you are already using backing tracks, or have an interest in doing so, remember that you don’t need to limit this technology to the practice room. Having a computer on stage is easier, and more accepted, than ever before. Soundfly has compiled 8 ways to perform with a backing track that inspired us to think more about incorporating this tool into our musical endeavors.

Regardless of your knowledge of music theory, making your own backing track can be a fun exercise. After listening to Joanne’s tutorial, delve deeper into making backing tracks with Better Practice App!

Musical U Around the Web

This week, Trumpetland borrows our very own Musical U Communications Manager and classically-trained trumpet player Adam Liette for a guest article on adding a new dimension to your daily practice by incorporating ear training!

Adam gives invaluable advice for trumpet players seeking to improve their ear in their everyday practice, touching on everything from what scales to focus on to learning to recognize intervals on the instrument.

Head over to Trumpetland to learn 6 Ways To Practice Ear Training In Your Daily Routine, and get on track to playing your trumpet freely and expressively!

Getting Into the Spirit

How will you celebrate music this holiday season?

Will it be by throwing on some festive music, looking back on your own musical journey and feeling pride for all your incredible accomplishments, or making a nice backing track for a holiday song that you’ll serenade your loved ones with?

The post Christmas Misfits, Music, CarlyA2Z’s Way, Merry Non-Christmas Music, The Beauty of Backing Tracks, and Musical U Around the Web appeared first on Musical U.

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Ready to accelerate your ear training? The Musical U team has compiled 7 easy ways that you can speed up your progress in any of your musical goals. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/7-ways-accelerate-ear-training/

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Have you ever been told that you needed to “learn intervals”? Why is this so important, and how can you get started? https://www.musical-u.com/learn/ultimate-guide-to-interval-ear-training/

A few months ago, my four year-old and I were sitting the car waiting to pick up my kindergartener from school, and I decided to pop in some Dean Martin. Upon hearing the first few bars of the tune, my little guy announced in his tiny-but-loud voice, “This is Christmas music, Mommy! But it’s not Christmas yet! It’s Halloween!”

It’s happened to you, hasn’t it? Sometimes a song comes on the radio, on your Pandora station, or on YouTube and even though it’s not a Christmas song per se, it triggers an auditory memory – all of a sudden, you went from listening to Radiohead to picturing yourself in front of the fire with a cup of hot cocoa (or whiskey).

What makes a holiday feel like a holiday differs from one person to another – you could say “fireplace”, but that doesn’t play if you grew up in Australia or Hawaii. You could say “church services”, but not everybody attends. The same goes for what sounds like a holiday.

This begs the question: what makes something sound like a Christmas song?

Everyone from country artists to Irish tenors and pop princesses puts their own spin on classics like “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” and “Blue Christmas”, so, clearly, there’s as much variety to Christmas music as there are types of Christmas cookies. You could get into different theories on chords or lyrics, but it all boils down to what the listener tends to associate with Christmas.

Since more than half of the most performed Christmas songs of all-time were recorded from 1935 – 1965, it makes sense that most of us might hear big band sounds and doowop harmonies and note a bit of Christmas (layers of strings or brass always seem to do the trick). Add in any lyrics about winter, hope, peace, merriment, or the birth of a king and there you have it: a song, unbeknownst to itself, suited for a Christmas playlist.

And so we begin with the tune that started it all:

1. “Ain’t That A Kick In The Head”

From the album Dino: The Essential Dean Martin by Dean Martin

Maybe the Christmas feel is a result of the of the swingin’ horn introduction – reminiscent of so many intros on any Harry Connick Jr. Christmas record. The big band sound, orchestral strings, and cheeky piano fills feel like they came straight down from Santa Claus lane (and every time my youngest child hears this song he insists it’s a Christmas song, so that needs to count for something):

2. “Snowed In With You”

From the album Snow Angels by Over The Rhine

Karin Bergquist’s voice summons the spirit of Billie Holiday on this tune when she sings these lines: “When you come home and all the world’s asleep / I’ll close my eyes and breathe with sweet relief / This world has had you long enough for now / And when I get you home I’ll show you how / I wanna get snowed in with you”. Every line captures the true essence and message of Christmas classic “Let It Snow,” but with a more direct romantic twist:

3. “I’m Gonna Be Warm This Winter”

From the album Christmas In My Heart by Connie Francis

This is a straight-up 1950s pop love song that others have covered over the years (notably Kylie Minogue), but there’s nothing like the original with the authentic girl group sound, rippin’ sax solo, and drama of string overlays. “It’s gonna snow outside / The weather will be cold / But I’m gonna be warm / This winter”. It’s a cute, feel-good song that would fit in perfectly with any tree-trimming setlist (or any Meghan Trainor album – you know you want to hear that girl cover this tune!):

4. “Warmer in the Winter”

From the album Warmer in the Winter by Lindsey Stirling

The intro sounds like it would be right at home in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade while the lyrics sound like a perfect Target or Old Navy commercial selling fuzzy sleep socks and other stocking stuffers. The song is sweet and sentimental without being sappy, and how often do you get to hear a trombone and violin duet? Only at Christmas (Check out Trombone Shorty on this track!):

5. “The Frim Fram Sauce”

From the album All For You by Diana Krall

Krall’s rendition of the Nat King Cole Trio’s classic song lists all the things she doesn’t want and insisting instead on what she does want. Isn’t this what every mall Santa experiences every December, or what parents of picky eaters deal with at every meal? Now think about all of the delicious foods mentioned in the song and you have the makings of a holiday dinner:

6. “For The Beauty of the Earth”

From The Little Women Soundtrack

There are other versions of the hymn out there, but this simple, sweet version appeared in the film adaptation of Little Women, a movie ripe with wintery Christmas scenes. One verse of this hymn contains the following lines: “For each perfect Gift of Thine / To our race so freely given / Graces human and Divine / Flowers of earth, and buds of heaven / Christ, our God, to Thee we raise / This our sacrifice of praise”. The idea of God’s perfect gifts is perfectly appropriate for the Christmas season:

7. “Canon in D”

From the album The Canadian Brass Plays Great Baroque Music by The Canadian Brass

There’s something regal about Pachelbel’s Canon, and Christmas certainly celebrates the royal, with baby Jesus known as the king of kings! Add a fine brass quintet to the mix and you have the perfect recipe for a royal Christmas song:

8. “The Prayer”

From You’re The Inspiration: The Music of David Foster and Friends

This live track, featuring Andrea Bocelli and Katharine McPhee, is light classical pop at its best. It’s just easy to imagine the three wise men and the shepherds following the star with lyrics like these: “Lead us to a place / Guide us with your grace / To a place where we’ll be safe”:

9. “It Doesn’t Have To Be That Way”

From the album Life and Times by Jim Croce

The song begins with a guitar lick that sounds like “Deck The Halls” and then Croce launches into a sentimental ballad about “Snowy nights and Christmas lights / Icy window panes / Make me wish that we could be / Together again”. This song amplifies that shred of hope for reconciliation that we tend to hold on to, and since Christmas celebrates the hope of what could be and what is to come, this tune is perfectly Christmas-y:

10. “Switzerland”

From the album Quill by The Last Bison

The Last Bison refers to their sound as “mountain-top chamber music”. Whether you agree with this description or not, you’ll certainly hear that the guitar, mandolin, and bell sounds, along with the repetition of “Oh, call home” work together to evoke the feeling of Christmas. Plus, the song is about the snowy, peaceful country of Switzerland. Snow plus peace equals the stuff Christmas carols are made of:

Beyond the Christmas Carol

As you can see, what makes something sound like Christmas can range from a jazz standard to a brand new tune by an up-and-coming indie band. Whether you’re a budding songwriter or a professional musician, use this list to challenge yourself: what instrumentation can you add to a tune to make it festive? What lyrics can you develop to convey a subtle sense of holiday celebration?

The post 10 Songs That Sound Like Christmas (But Aren’t) appeared first on Musical U.

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Backing tracks are the perfect accompaniment: they’re present enough to keep you on track, but are not so overpowering that you can’t focus on your own playing. They are invaluable to soloists, songwriters, and vocalists alike.

Today, I’m going to be showing you how to make a backing track using PG Music’s Band-in-a-Box product. Using this backing track, you can do all sorts of things like play along and sing along and improvise over it, but before I get into the video tutorial, I just want to mention our video course that I’ve just finished making called, “First Song with Band-in-a-Box,” where I take you through the whole process of writing, recording, mixing, mastering and producing and also releasing your own song using Band-in-a-Box from PG Music.

You can access the course directly from my website.

Now, I’m going to demonstrate to you how I can very quickly and easily make a backing track for a popular song or for a song that you have composed yourself so that you can practice and sing over it. I’ll show you how to change the key, how to change the tempo, how to change the groove, and how to change the instrumentation of the backing track. For this tutorial, we’ll assume that you’ve all already purchased and installed Band-in-a-Box from PG Music, but if you haven’t, here are links to purchase the program on Windows and on Mac!

Without further ado, here’s your introduction to using Band-in-a-Box to create backing tracks that will give you incredible practice opportunities:

Pick A Song, Any Song

First, choose the song that you want to use. For this tutorial, I have chosen “Amazing Grace,” purely because I don’t want to get into trouble over copyrighted material and this song is public domain. So, I’m going to be walking you through how I make a backing track for “Amazing Grace,” but you’re welcome to choose any song or a song of your own composing. I just recommend that when you’re starting out with Band-in-a-Box that you choose something fairly easy until you become familiar with the process.

Learning the Backbone

Step number two is to get the basic chords for the song. If you don’t already have them, I use a site called Ultimate Guitar. So let’s just go to that site and type in the name of the song that I’m trying to make a backing track for, “Amazing Grace”. If you do this, you’ll see two versions: there’s Daniel Thomas’s version and then there’s a miscellaneous traditional version. I normally just select the one with the most stars and the most reviews.

The site will show me the chords that I can use for this song. I wouldn’t worry too much at this stage what key the song is going to be in because I will show you a little bit later how to change the key and for you to practice in different keys.

Getting Started with Band-in-a-Box

Open up Band-in-a-Box on your computer, and it will open up a blank song. Change the end number of bars to something arbitrary, like 100, as that’ll give you enough space to work with. Next, change the number of choruses to one.

Have a look and see if you can find a style that you can use for your songs. If you open the star picker, you can see on the right hand side, you can type in the name of a familiar song title and it’ll give you star filters. Obviously, not all of the songs are in there, but many of the well-known songs and performances will be.

I’m just going to type in “Amazing Grace” here. Two versions exist in Band-in-a-Box: I’ve got an American traditional, which has got a folk backing. It’s a waltz and has a tempo of 85 BPM. So if I double-click that, it’ll bring up styles that will suit that song and I can audition them, and pick one that I like.

I’m going to start with my “Lilly All-time Autoharp Waltz,” so I select that style and press “enter”. You can see that the program has input the style and set the tempo at 85, and it’s giving you all the real tracks that make up that style.

In this particular style that I’ve chosen, which is my “Lilly-Style All-time Autoharp Waltz,” there’s a bass, a guitar, drums, another guitar, and there’s an autoharp. Those are the real tracks that are making up that style. Now, real tracks are actual samples of real musicians that have recorded these instruments and Band-in-a-Box is clever enough to adjust these real tracks to the chord progression key and tempo that you choose for your song!

Keys

The next thing I’m going to do is figure out the key of the song that I’m trying to make a backing track for. I can see that “Amazing Grace” is in G. Quite often, it’s the first chord or the last chord in the song. Often you can tell the key by the chord progression. You can also look for the sheet music for “Amazing Grace” and it’ll tell you what key it’s in.

This particular song I know is in G, so I’m going to select the key of G.

You need to figure out what tempo you want the song in. As a starting point, I’m going to leave “Amazing Grace” at 85 and see how that works!

Putting it Together

So the next step is to type in the actual chords that you see here on Ultimate Guitar. I usually make an introduction of either two or four bars. For this particular song, I’m just going to leave it at two bars, so I’ve got a two-bar introduction in G and I can just start typing in the chords. I think I’ve got “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound / That saved a wretch like me / I once was lost but now I’m found / Was blind but now I see.”

Now, I’m going to listen back to that and make sure that I’ve got everything in the right place and sing along with it.

After making sure that sounds good, I’ll carry on typing in the chords. In this particular song, it’s very, very easy, because all the chords are exactly the same for the refrains and for the verses.

Therefore, all I’m going to do is copy this down however many times is necessary. This particular version has four verses, and I see the end bar to be 66.

Setting Verses/Choruses

If I want to get fancy, what I sometimes do is I change the part markers. The blue part markers play a more simple arrangement, specifically on the drums (but sometimes on other instruments), and the green part markers play a little bit of a busier arrangement. I’ll sometimes use the green marker for the choruses and the blue marker for the verses, and the interchange is the drum pattern.

So now you’ve got your basic backing track in the key of G, and I can play the backing track and sing and play along with it.

Tweaking Your Track

So now you have a basic backing track in the key of G for “Amazing Grace”. I’m going to show you some of the things that you can do with this track.

1. You can change the key. Pull down the key indicator. I’m going to try and play it in the key of D. It’s a good idea to try and play it in all the keys that you can, and take notice of how the chord progression changes with the keys.
2. Another trick is to change the tempo. I’m going to take “Amazing Grace” up to 120 BPM and see if I can play along with it.
3. A third trick – you can change the groove completely! This particular song was a waltz, so I can change it to another style that’s not a waltz. I can select the folk category and sort by tempo to get the slowest ones up at the top of the search. I can then select something that’s not a waltz, but something in another style completely, such as a rock ballad!

Some Additional Tips & Tricks

It doesn’t end there! There are countless ways in which Band-in-a-Box can improve your ear and your playing. I’ll share some of them:

I can isolate a specific instrument and try and copy how that instrument is playing. For example, I can strum along in the style that an acoustic guitar is playing in.

I can learn how to play with a capo. In this example, the key of the back track is in A, but I can play the chords with my capo on capo two as if it’s in G!

Lastly, I can improvise over the Band-in-the-Box backing tracks. Select your favorite key to improvise over (say, C), hit play, and get improvising. Once you’ve done that for the key of C, change it to the key of G and improvise over that for a while. You can carry on doing that until you’ve covered all twelve keys, by which stage you’ll be pretty good at all your scales!

A Pandora’s Box of Musicality Training

As you can see, there’s endless possibilities for this marvelous tool for you to improvise over and improve your overall musicality.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this very short tutorial and that if you have got Band-in-a-Box already you will try some of these things with making backing tracks. Check out my “First Song with Band-in-a-Box” course on my website!

Joanne Cooper is a performing singer-songwriter from South Africa. She has been writing her own music since 2013 and has been performing and recording these songs, as well as her own unique interpretations of cover songs, in her tiny home studio in Johannesburg. She has produced and released 10 albums in collaboration with other artists and has recently had 8 songs placed in synch music libraries including this one co-written with Liz Petty called “Enough (Cement Shoes)”. Joanne writes a monthly blog post about her musical journey. She has recently created her first online course on how to record and produce your very first song using Band-in-a-Box for Windows.

The post How To Make A Backing Track, with Joanne Cooper appeared first on Musical U.