Musicality Now

Musical U's very own content editor and product manager Andrew Bishko discusses and demonstrates a variety of scale types, discussing the "flavor" of each one and how they're put to good use in music.   Subscribe For Future Episodes! Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube   Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 067   Links and Resources •  Interview with Forrest Kinney • Module Prev...

Today we're getting to speak with someone we've been hearing about for years, Forrest Kinney. He's the author of the Pattern Play series of piano books which you might remember past guests Natalie Weber and Sara Campbell both mentioned as being fantastic for helping students get "off the page" and start to be more creative in their music-making.   He's actually the author of 35 music learning book...

Are you intimidated by the idea of sight-reading music, finding the skill to be intimidating and unattainable? This podcast episode explores how you can get started with learning this skill through musicality training, and the endless benefits that this ability yields.   Subscribe For Future Episodes! Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube   Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 065...

Today we're speaking with Ben Parry, the Artistic Director of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain - but as you'll hear that's just one of many musical roles he has, including formerly being a singer and arranger with the world-famous a cappella group The Swingle Singers, and directing the London Voices choir which has performed on many of the Hollywood film soundtracks that we all know and...

You may be putting in the practice hours, but are you getting the results that your hard work deserves? In this episode, we take a look at the concepts of deliberate practice and purposeful practice, and how to integrate the two in order to make the most out of your practice time.   Subscribe For Future Episodes! Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube   Full Show Notes and Transcript:...

This episode was a really exciting one for us because we got to speak with Professor Anders Ericsson, the leading academic researcher on the topic of "talent". If you've been listening to the Musicality Podcast for a while, then you know we have a particular perspective on "talent", and we're often asking our guests their opinion on how important talent is to become a great musician and learn the...

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 mu...

Today we're joined by Dave Isaacs, a man known as the "Guitar Guru of Nashville". Dave has been teaching music for over thirty years and provides online courses at JamPlay.com. Dave is also a performing artist, releasing ten CDs of his own and continuing to perform with an Americana trio called Renfree Isaacs. Dave wrote a terrific guest post on song writing and arranging for the Musical U website...

Over the last eight episodes, we've covered a lot of ground: we first looked at the right mindset for improv, then dove right into how to use rhythm, scales, chords, harmony, structure, and form to really get your spontaneous playing off the ground. In this episode, we give you an overview of how you can approach the task at hand - learning to improvise!   Subscribe For Future Episodes! Apple Podc...

Today as part of Improv Month we're speaking with Brenden Lowe, the man behind JazzPianoSchool.com and the Jazz Piano School Podcast. Jazz and piano can both be intimidating things for aspiring musicians and they put front and center their belief that "Anyone can learn", as well as encouraging self-expression from the outset - so clearly a good match for our philosophy here at Musical U! Jazz Pian...

When speaking, we use phrasing to emphasize ideas, capture our listener's attention, and tell a story. The same holds true in music, and more specifically, in improvisation! Learn how to use phrasing to add structure, interest, and musicality to your improv.   Subscribe For Future Episodes! Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube   Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 057   Links an...

In this episode we're speaking with David Wallimann, who has one of the most popular guitar channels on YouTube with over 100,000 subscribers there. As always when we're interviewing an expert in a particular instrument, we recommend staying tuned even if you don't play that instrument - because very little of what we cover is really instrument-specific. As well as his popularity as a guitar educa...

Many musicians stick exclusively to improvising with scales, leaving them feeling frustrated and creatively stunted. This episode reveals how to integrate the idea of chord tones and harmony into your improv to really tell a story with your playing!   Subscribe For Future Episodes! Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube   Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 055   Links and Resourc...

Today we're excited to welcome on to the show someone we were particularly hoping to feature as part of improv month: David Reed, the creator of Improvise For Real. You may have heard of this popular method for learning to improvise and it's one of the few we feel is totally aligned with the ear-led approach we recommend at Musical U and which we've been talking about on this podcast lately.   In...

Rhythm is an under-appreciated component of music - and we're here to put it in the spotlight for improvisation month! Learn all about improvising a rhythm, how to do it, and the musicality benefits it yields.   Subscribe For Future Episodes! Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube   Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 053   Links and Resources •  About Improvisation • About Active...

Today, we have the first of our interview series for Improv Month here at Musical U. To celebrate the launch of our new improv Roadmap that helps you learn to improvise from scratch, we've put together a month packed full of material all about improv. In our first episode for improv month, we talked about how to approach learning to improvise and how it's something core and fundamental to any musi...

March is Improvisation Month here at Musical U, and what better way to kick off than with a crash course in the subject? In this episode of the Musicality Podcast, we share how to (and how not to!) improvise, the far-reaching benefits of this skill, and how it ties into the creative essence of being a musician.   Subscribe For Future Episodes! Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube  ...

Today we're joined on the show by Vincent James, who is the co-founder of an organisation called Keep Music Alive. They organise two big music holidays each year: Teach Music Week and Kids Music Day. In 2017 they partnered with over 600 music school and retail locations to help celebrate Teach Music Week and Kids Music Day by offering free music lessons and holding other community events including...

Arranging music is not nearly as complex as its name may lead you to believe - if you've ever plunked out the chords to your favourite song on the piano and sang along, you've already done it! In this episode of the Musicality Podcast, we discuss the elements involved in arranging music, and why you (yes, you!) should take a whack at it.   Subscribe For Future Episodes! Apple Podcasts | Android |...

Today we're talking with Brad Davis, a guitar icon in the world of country and bluegrass music. As you'll hear on this episode, Brad has had an amazing career. As a go-to stage and session player in Nashville he's played on Grammy-winning albums and worked with artists like Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Earl Scruggs, Emmy Lou Harris and Johnny Cash. He's also an artist in his own right, recording cr...

Rhythm is rarely random - instead, it follows an underlying structure to give the song a certain flow, a structure called meter. In meter, depending on which beats are emphasized in a bar, completely different rhythms and "flows" can be created. Let's look at how this works!   Subscribe For Future Episodes! Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube   Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episo...

Have you ever heard of Dalcroze? It's a remarkable and effective approach to music-learning that's often discussed alongside Kodály or Orff. Today we're speaking with Dr. Jeremy Dittus, the founder and director of the Dalcroze School of the Rockies in Denver, one of the most prominent Dalcroze schools in the US, about his own experiences learning this approach and how (and why) he teaches it now....

If you sing, it's likely you've recorded and listened back to your voice. Chances are, you were surprised by what you heard, and thought "Is this really what I sound like?". In this episode of the Musicality Podcast, we explain why recordings of yourself sound different from what you're used to hearing, and how to get comfortable with listening to recordings of your own singing voice.   Subscribe...

Today we're speaking with Judy Rodman of judyrodman.com and the All Things Vocal blog. Judy went from being a professional jingle singer in the 70s to getting a recording contract as a singer and having a Billboard #1 song, to writing songs and having one of them become a #1 hit for Leann Rimes, to now being an in-demand vocal coach in Nashville and the creator of the All Things Vocal blog and pod...

Without the 12-bar blues, we wouldn't have rock 'n' roll... or, come to think of it, much of the Western music we have today! In this episode of the Musicality Podcast, we'll look at the simple chord progression that comprises the 12-bar blues, how to play it in any key, and how the 12-bar blues can be used as a powerful songwriting tool (and not just by blues musicians!).   Subscribe For Future E...