Musicality Now

Did you know that wearing good headphones is one of the easiest ways to improve your ear training? Why is that - and what exactly makes a pair of headphones "good"?   Learn how to choose the right headphones to level up your ears in this clip from the archive of live member Q&A calls at Musical U. Enjoy!     Subscribe For Future Episodes! Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube   Full...

Audiation is one of the most powerful ways to develop your musicality - but what if you find you really struggle with it? In this clip from the archive of live member Q&A calls at Musical U we share some practical tips to help you audiate. Enjoy!   Subscribe For Future Episodes! Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube   Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 241   Links and Resources...

Have you ever felt like you were guessing the answers while working on ear training? Believe it or not, that may not be a bad thing! Find out why in this clip from the archive of live member Q&A calls at Musical U - stay tuned!     Subscribe For Future Episodes! Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube   Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 240   Links and Resources • Musicality Now...

We're joined by Dylan Hart, one of the top French Horn players in Hollywood today. He has played on many well-known soundtracks including Moana, Frozen, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Baywatch, The Good Place, and Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.   You're about to hear Dylan's unlikely journey to becoming a highly-successful session player, concert performer, and French horn teacher.    In this conv...

We are excited to bring you another inspiring edition of Pathways. In this special series of episodes you'll hear the stories of music-learners just like you, reaching out and lending each other a hand on our musical journeys. We're speaking with Oli Fuhrmann, a swing dancer and swing dance teacher from Berlin, Germany.   Oli started learning piano and trombone in the last three years to play the...

Have you been feeling stuck on something challenging in music? A section of a piece, a specific technique, an overall plateau, or maybe practice goes fine but then everything falls apart in live performance.   Have you felt like you just don't have enough time for learning your instrument and learning new music? Maybe you feel like you're putting in the time and effort but just don't seem to be ge...

Feeling overwhelmed by all the information about what to practice?   This is the fifth and last in a special series of episodes on how to tackle the biggest sticking points in your music learning. We recently surveyed our audience to learn about their experiences with music practice. The results were astounding! Across several hundred responses, we found a handful of really common and painfully fr...

Have you lost your motivation for practice?   This is the fourth in a special series of episodes on how to tackle the biggest sticking points in your music learning. We recently surveyed our audience to learn about their experiences with music practice. The results were astounding! Across several hundred responses, we found a handful of really common and painfully frustrating practice issues – inc...

Struggling to get that complex section up to tempo?   This is the third in a special series of episodes on how to tackle the biggest sticking points in your music learning. We recently surveyed our audience to learn about their experiences with music practice. The results were astounding! Across several hundred responses, we found a handful of really common and painfully frustrating practice issue...

Can you get results from only 10-15 minutes of practice?   This is the second in a special series of episodes on how to tackle the biggest sticking points in your music learning. We recently surveyed our audience to learn about their experiences with music practice. The results were astounding! Across several hundred responses, we found a handful of really common and painfully frustrating practice...

Do you have enough time to practice your music?   This is the first in a special series of episodes on how to tackle the biggest sticking points in your music learning. We recently surveyed our audience to learn about their experiences with music practice. The results were astounding! Across several hundred responses, we found a handful of really common and painfully frustrating practice issues –...

We're joined by violinist and Suzuki pedagogue, Laura Nerenberg. Laura is founder of Rideau Falls Violins where she teaches based on the principle that all children are born with the potential to develop a high level of instrument ability and creative ability.   Laura shares the inspiring story of how she learned to combine improvisation and classical violin - and how improvisation has impacted he...

We are delighted to bring you another inspiring edition of Pathways. In this special series of episodes you'll hear the stories of music-learners just like you, reaching out and lending each other a hand on our musical journeys. We're joined by Joanne Cooper, a longstanding member of Musical U, who has particular expertise in a piece of software called Band In A Box .   Joanne's musical life has n...

Right now, millions of people around the world are choosing to stay in and help prevent the spread of COVID-19. In this challenging and unprecedented time, Musical U's priority is to provide new free training daily to keep you engaged, excited, and learning during your extra time at home. We're continuing to collaborate with world-class music educators to bring you everything you need to continue...

We're excited to have Zach VanderGraaff, the founder of Dynamic Music Room , on the show. Mr. V (as his students like to call him) is a K-5 music teacher who's developed his own teaching philosophy drawing on the Kodály approach.   Zach shares many of our core beliefs here at Musical U. He believes that "talent" is a myth, that music learning can and should be enjoyable, that the learning process...

Hi, this is Christopher Sutton from Musical U, and this will be a special short announcement episode to invite you to Stay In - and Play On.   If you're watching this episode when it airs then you'll be well aware of the current situation with the worldwide pandemic of COVID-19.   Now I'm not here to offer health advice or news updates - no doubt you've got enough of that flying at you already. Bu...

Welcome to a very special edition of Musicality Now. We invited Glory St. Germain of Ultimate Music Theory back on the show to teach something very specific. Glory overflows with joy as she shares this powerful lesson.   Transformative vocabulary is a broad concept that many successful people apply in their lives. In this episode Glory St. Germain teaches how you can apply transformative vocabular...

We were thrilled to speak with Annie Bosler, a world class French Hornist who has played with John Williams, Josh Groban, Michael Feinstein, Itzhak Perlman and Paul McCartney. Annie has performed for famous shows such as Glee, The Ellen Show, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and The 2020 Grammy Awards ceremony.   Surely such a high-level performer is long past any concerns of stage fright or perfor...

We were honoured to speak with Professor Henkjan Honing, one of the leading researchers of music cognition and biomusicology. The science behind musicality is at an exciting early stage, so there are at least as many intriguing questions as answers in this fascinating conversation.   Professor Honing has written two books exploring the science of musicality: The Evolving Animal Orchestra discusses...

We're joined by Mark Morley-Fletcher from Play in the Zone . Mark is a jazz guitarist turned peak performance specialist. He's developed a system for helping everyday music learners tackle performance anxiety.   Mark has taken ideas and techniques from the world of performance psychology and drawn them in to a clear, coherent framework. He does a fantastic job of tying the underlying concepts behi...

Today we're joined by Diane Allen, a former concertmaster violinist with the Central Oregon Symphony for 15 years. Diane speaks on the topic of flow and finding your own personal "flow strategy" to reach your full potential, in music and anywhere else in your life.   In the past, "peak performance" and "performance psychology" were the exclusive realm of top-level professional performers. Now thes...

We are delighted to bring you another exciting edition of Pathways. In this special series of episodes you'll hear the stories of music-learners just like you, reaching out and lending each other a hand on our musical journeys. Today we're speaking with Jon Magnusson, a Swedish songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and father who has done what many in our audience dream of: made music his full-time p...

What if you could learn music so fast, people would assume you're a genius? Imagine jumping over any learning hurdle, breaking through any plateau, and gaining professional-level instrument skills in a fraction of the time. These things are possible.   One of our most popular recent interviews by far was with Gregg Goodhart of Learn Like A Genius . Gregg specialises in taking all the latest resear...

We are joined by Ruth Power of Piano Picnic , home of high quality online training courses for pianists. However, this is not our usual kind of interview episode. We've invited Ruth to talk about something very specific: lead sheets.   Ruth brings a fun energy and creativity to the teaching process, and her material is always really cool and interesting. When we heard she was releasing a new cours...

Today we're joined by Dan Hulsman founder of The VGM Academy , the leading website dedicated to composing video game music. Dan helps aspiring composers from around the world hone their composing skills and break into the VGM industry!   The VGM academy is packed full of tutorials, resources, expert interviews, courses and workshops covering all aspects of the industry. Dan teaches everything from...