Could A Forgotten 83-Year Old Method Hold The Missing Piece To Easily Becoming A “Natural” in Music?
Everything we ever thought we knew about “talent” in music might just be wrong.
The latest scientific research has proven conclusively that there is no “magic” required to be a talented musician.
In fact it has revealed there is just one crucial difference between the average struggling music learner – and the “talented” greats.
Now music learners are turning to an ancient method of music learning that fills in this “missing piece” and can transform your natural musicality.
You see, although modern educational institutions would have you believe they can teach you how to become a great musician, in reality generally all they teach is instrument technique.
But what about:
- Playing notes and chords by ear?
- Improvising?
- Creating your own music and expressing the musical ideas that are in your head?
- Being able to look at a piece of sheet music and just sing it directly, or hear in your head how it should sound?
We all know these things are possible.
In fact they seem to come easily to certain musicians.
So what do those “gifted” musicians have that the rest of us seem to be lacking?
You might have found yourself thinking:
“This shouldn’t be so hard!”
… and suspected there’s some secret…
Some insider technique or gift that makes the difference between feeling free, confident and powerful in music – versus feeling like every note is hard work.
If you could just find that switch to flip, everything would be easier.
It turns out that there is one thing which mainstream music education utterly fails to deliver – yet can make that difference and transform any aspiring musician into a confident “natural”.
It doesn’t require any innate “talent” or special “gift” for music. But it can make you feel like you have both of those things.
It doesn’t require a lot of time. In fact once you put this missing piece in place, you’ll find you seem to have a lot more time for music – because (just like those “naturals”) everything seems to come easily now, as each thing you’re learning just slots smoothly into place in your brain.
And it doesn’t matter what instrument or style of music you play, or whether you’ve been playing for weeks, years or decades.
Put this missing piece in place – and you’ll discover a whole new relationship with all the music you hear, love, imagine, sing and play.
Let’s be honest:
Most music learners are struggling.
Even with a good teacher and great resources, it can feel like a gruelling battle to improve in music.
You carefully learn each new piece of music note-by-note in your practice sessions – but then you always feel nervous to go beyond what you’ve carefully practiced and prepared.
You feel limited because you’re prone to hitting the wrong notes or making some other embarrassing mistake when you go out into the “real” world of music.
Add in all the different musical skills and all the activities you want to include and improve in – and it quickly becomes overwhelming.
There’s too much to juggle and just never enough time.
If feels like even the time you do have is somehow being wasted…
It doesn’t have to be like that.
Have you ever wondered why music seems to come easily to some people?
Those musicians who can sing anything, play anything, pick just the right notes in any key, any style, any musical situation…
They seem to have absolutely no fear or nervousness in music.
It’s like they have a deep instinctive connection to music that lets them feel free and do whatever they want to easily.
We’ve all been taught that some people are “talented” or “gifted” – and so when we see those amazing musicians, we assume they just “have it”. They’ve got something we don’t, and those impressive skills are probably beyond us.
Over the last 10 years scientific researchers have dug deep into this question of “talent”.
The conclusion of all the research is clear.
According to Cambridge University’s “Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance” over 100 leading scientists have now studied this topic in a wide variety of disciplines and have all come to the same conclusion:
There Is No Such Thing As “Talent”.
Everything that looks from the outside like a “gift” in fact was built, step-by-step, through hard work and practice.
As Harvard Business Review put it:
“Consistently and overwhelmingly, the evidence showed that experts are always made, not born.”
Sure, some people seem to find it easier to begin with, making us think they’re a “natural”. But that headstart quickly fades away.
None of those musical skills which seem magical, like:
- Playing by ear
- Sight-singing
- Improvising
- Jamming
None of these require any special innate abilities…
Every single one of those skills can be learned.
In fact, you might have already discovered books, courses and training which promise to teach you these “inner skills” of music.
But there’s a serious problem which means that trying to learn these skills ends up being hard, slow, frustrating work.
(So hard, slow and frustrating in fact that most musicians give up.)
After attempting “ear training” or studying up on music theory, it doesn’t seem like we’re any closer to these amazing skills we were craving.
So we come back to the idea of “talent” and decide we just don’t have what it takes…
What’s hidden from view is:
There’s actually a systematic problem with modern music education.
It puts music learners at a huge disadvantage.
And we don’t even realise it.
We all know that learning needs to be a step-by-step process.
But:
What if the process you’ve been given actually has a step missing?
And what if that “missing step” isn’t just any old step – it’s the first step…
Imagine you wanted to build a skyscraper.
Where would you start?
Probably not with the roof.
Probably not by laying bricks.
In fact, if you started with those later steps you’d find everything you built had a tendency to collapse.
It would be incredibly hard to make any progress.
However hard you worked, however quickly you put new pieces in place, it would seem like you were frantically rushing – but getting nowhere.
Why?
Because you need to start with the foundation.
Without a foundation, any other steps you try to take will be much harder than they need to be.
Without a foundation it can seem like every new piece is a bit random and disjointed. It’s hard to make sense of it all.
Without a foundation it can feel like you’re perpetually struggling without making progress, like you’re back at square one again and again.
Without the right foundation you’re just wasting your time.
But put the right foundation in place, and it becomes easy to build on top.
You can even enjoy the process – because every step you take actually moves you forwards.
So what does that have to do with musicians and “talent”?
Well, the scientific research has shown that “talented” musicians are different from the average struggling music learner in one key way:
So-called “talented” musicians have
“more sophisticated mental representations”.
Put simply: they understand music in a different way.
And that makes sense, right? Because we can see that they experience music and can express themselves in music in ways that show their brain is clearly tuned in to how music works in a fundamentally different way than we seem to.
It seems like they just have a “musical mind”.
But here’s the fascinating thing:
“Sophisticated” doesn’t mean “Complicated”.
In fact, it turns out that what can transform a musician into feeling like a “natural” isn’t a vastly complicated mental model packed with music theory and extensive decades of instrument practice.
What matters is:
Having the right foundation
of suitable mental models.
You don’t need to understand every detail of all music in full complexity to start playing by ear. Or improvising. Or sight-singing directly from notation.
What you need are mental models for understanding music in a way that matches up with the tasks you’re trying to do.
Think about it:
What’s the difference between you and those great “natural” musicians you admire?
It’s not their level of instrument technique.
Sure, that can be impressive – but flashy technique is only going to wow an audience for a minute or two. After that, you better have something more substantial to keep them enthralled.
It’s not the instrument technique that makes us look at a musician and think “Wow, I want to be like that“.
It’s the ease, the confidence, the freedom, the creativity that they seem to embody.
Pick any instrument, any style, any musical situation, and one of those “naturals” is going to dive in with enthusiasm and fit right in.
Again:
It’s not about mastering your instrument.
Ella Fitzgerald wowed the world with her “One Note Samba” – literally using just a single pitch. Did it take incredible vocal technique? No. It took an incredible understanding of rhythm and how to use it.
Beethoven’s Fifth (“da da da duuuh”) is still remembered two centuries later. Did he require an in-depth mastery of any instrument to do that? No, he just needed an incredible understanding of what would work musically.
And ask any harmonica player if Bob Dylan’s harmonica technique is any good – and you’ll get a strongly-worded “NO!” But his understanding of what to do with the harmonica to make compelling music? Well in that, he is truly world-class.
So:
If it’s not instrument technique that makes for a “natural” musician, what is it?
The biggest piece that lets them feel free, confident and creative in music: mental models.
It’s their understanding of music that sets them free
That instinctive grasp of what’s going on in music and how to participate, modify and conjure up music from scratch that we all crave.
The good news?
You can learn these new mental models – and they can be fast to put in place.
Once you put this new foundation in place, everything else comes quicker and easier than it ever could before.
And the even-better news? This isn’t about scrapping everything and starting again.
It’s about taking the time to fill in the foundation, so that all the skills you’ve already been working on finally “click” into place.
So what is that foundation?
What are the mental models that make you feel like a natural in music?
How can you develop the musical mind of a “natural” musician?
“How is that musician so incredible?!”
I’d hear people respond by saying simply:
“Oh, they’re Kodály trained.”
The first few times I heard it I was curious – but I didn’t really think much about it.
But it kept coming up. Over the years in my work on musicality training I kept hearing mentions of this approach that seemed to hold almost legendary status…
Hi, my name’s Christopher Sutton.
I’m the founder of Musical U, the leading provider of musicality training online.
And I have a confession to make…
You see, Musical U has now helped well over one million musicians worldwide to learn the “inner skills” of music. The skills that can enable you to play by ear, improvise, and express yourself freely in music.
But I discovered we were actually falling short of how much we could help people.
We were equipping people with tools and skills which helped them, yes.
But it was a bit like laying bricks or putting tiles on the roof – before you’d secured the foundation.
I had always assumed that since people came to us with the basics of instrument playing or music theory under their belt, we could take the foundation for granted…
But that stuff is not the foundation.
Sure, it’s presented as being the starting point, in pretty much every music lesson and course around the world – but it doesn’t actually equip musicians with the mental models they need to really succeed.
While we were able to help our students and members at Musical U – it always felt a bit like building on quicksand.
So eventually I decided that I had to find out what this Kodály thing was all about, because clearly it was deeply tied to this subject I was so passionate about: unlocking the “inner instinct” for music.
It turned out that this “Kodály method” was created in the early 20th Century in Hungary, where it quickly became the official music education method throughout the country and delivered amazing results for everyone who used it.
Its creator, Zoltán Kodály, was invited to America to lecture at Stanford and even had statues erected in his honour.
But, for reasons of politics and history, this method mostly stayed hidden away and never really broke into the mainstream…
I sought out one of the top instructors in the UK and took some private one-on-one lessons – and it was really interesting.
I remember in my first Kodály lesson, I found myself thinking “this is all very basic…”
Because I knew notation, I was comfortable singing, I’d done a lot of ear training.
And we were starting from the very beginning.
But in the course of that lesson I was given some new mental models for all those familiar concepts – and I came to realise this was a whole new way of approaching music.
By the end of that first lesson I’d done some impressive things with those simple concepts that were quite different from anything I’d been able to do before.
I came away thinking
“Oh, wow – this is actually really fundamental and powerful”.
It took me a while longer to click that this wasn’t just an alternative to what I knew already – in a lot of ways it was the missing foundation that all the other stuff should have been built on.
Later I went on a 3-day intensive course where I was surrounded by Kodály instructors and students.
And that was fascinating because I got to see the impact Kodály training has.
These people ranged from amateur musicians, to teachers, to professional musicians playing in national orchestras…
Now if you’ve ever been in situations where musicians get together to learn or perform you’ll know – there’s often a lot of competitiveness and one-upmanship. There’s a lot of insecurity on display.
But on that Kodály course the atmosphere was completely different to that.
These people all had an ease and delight in music.
The skills and viewpoint that Kodály training was equipping them with – it just let them enjoy music.
It was remarkable. And exciting.
And it wasn’t just an attitude – these people could do some seriously impressive things, in terms of collaborating, creating, playing by ear, singing, and more.
But what stood out most was that having the new mental models that Kodály training equipped them with let them feel a confidence and ownership in music that just made it all a joy.
Once I’d seen this I knew we had to somehow incorporate the Kodály approach into what we provide at Musical U.
Because although Kodály training is well-proven and extremely effective, it’s still mostly hidden away…
You can find instructors or courses for in-person training here and there.
But there was no convenient, affordable, instant access way for people to get Kodály training.
So we started to adopt parts of the Kodály approach in our online training at Musical U…
And each new thing we borrowed from the world of Kodály quickly had a massive positive impact on how effective our training system was.
But there were some aspects of Kodály that we couldn’t just “bolt on” to our existing training.
So we decided to go “all in”.
To put together something brand new, based on Kodály principles, and designed specifically to deliver the firm foundation you need for your “musical mind”.
Can you imagine having the kind of musical mind that can:
- Hear music and effortlessly recognise the notes and chords by ear.
- Glance at sheet music, tab or a chord chart and immediately hear in your head how it should sound.
- Spontaneously create your own original musical ideas as easily as breathing and share them with other musicians or an audience using your voice or your instrument.
- Just sit down and play for your own pleasure, relaxation and creative fulfilment.
- Sit in on jam sessions or gigs with any group of musicians with no prior preparation required because you know you’ll have something solid to contribute.
A musical mind that feels capable and confident in any musical situation – because you understand instinctively how music is put together?
The kind of musical mind that makes learning new things in music is a breeze – because everything just connects together and makes sense.
Presenting:
A new 6-week course from the leading provider of musicality training, using Kodály principles to equip you with the mental models that let you feel like a “natural” in music.
Yes! I Want The New 6-Week Course For Just $199 $149
This 6-week course provides day-by-day instruction and exercises which start from the very beginning and train you to:
- Recognise note pitches by ear
- Recognise rhythmic patterns by ear
- Write down the score notation for music you hear
- Sing or imagine music in your head directly from score notation
- Improvise your own musical ideas
Each week a new module uses specially-chosen songs to:
- Introduce Learn the new musical material which will be used to teach this module’s concepts.
- Explore Start to play around with the musical elements to get an instinctive feel for how they work.
- Discover Clear explanations of the key concepts behind these musical elements, enabling you to establish your new mental models.
- Extend Go beyond the musical material used so far and see how these new ideas impact other music you know, including creating your own musical ideas.
- Practice Independent exercises let you test your new knowledge, understanding and abilities.
Every week rounds off with a Live Q&A Call where you can ask questions and get direct help from Anne herself.
- The course material is all provided at your convenience online and compatible with any modern internet device.
- Each module is broken into bite-sized chunks that make it easy to see your progress.
- It’s designed to require just 15 minutes per day, and the timing is flexible so that you can fit it around a busy schedule.
- Drawing on the principles of the Kodály approach, Foundations of a Musical Mind provides song-based learning – meaning that all musical concepts and skills are taught through actual musical material. You learn a song, and from there you explore its various dimensions to acquire a deep understanding of how the music works.
- It is also a multi-sensory approach, so that you learn to relate the notes your eyes see on the page, to the notes your ears hear, to the pitches and pulse you indicate with your hands, to the musical ideas you express with your voice. By approaching the same ideas from multiple angles it becomes much easier to internalise the new mental models and make them a core part of your personal understanding of music.
Meet Your Instructor, Anne Mileski
Anne Mileski specialises in making music learning purposeful, sequential and joyful.
She is the founder of Anacrusic.com and host of The Anacrusic Podcast where she is a leading voice in modern music education.
Anne holds a Masters of Music degree in Music Education from Southern Methodist University and is a Kodály Teacher Trainer. Her teaching is informed by a wide breadth of experience and knowledge of best practices. As well as being Kodály Certified she has qualifications in all the other major musicianship methods including Dalcroze, Gordon Music Learning Theory and Orff-Schulwerk.
Over the 6 weeks of the Foundations of a Musical Mind course you’ll discover:
- The powerful solfa model for naming notes by ear.
- How to sight-sing music or imagine it in your mind from the score.
- A systematic way of using your hands to help you internalise note pitches.
- The rhythm syllable model which lets you immediately translate rhythmic patterns you hear into the corresponding notation, and vice-versa.
- The relationship between pulse and rhythm, and how to always keep the two connected.
- How to improvise your own musical ideas based on a song.
- … and much more!
By the end of the 6-week course you’ll be able to instinctively make the connection between every note you hear, read, write, sing and play.
“Everyone I talked to and most people on the web all recommended Musical U as the best there is. And it seems they were right.” – William P.
“I’ve been very impressed by the level of care the team takes for us.” – Luke B.
BONUS 1: Singing 101
Part of the power of the Kodály approach is in using your voice to train your ears and internalise the new mental models.
Not a singer? No problem. You only need one singing skill, and that’s the ability to “match pitch” i.e. sing in tune.
With the Singing 101 module you’ll learn exercises that will have you quickly singing in tune so that you can make full use of the 6-week training course. (and if you want to go on to develop a rock-star voice and audition for X-Factor – well, that’s up to you!)
Value: $29
BONUS 2: An Ear For Keys
In the course you’ll discover a new mental model for pitch which makes it easy to recognise any note from the scale.
But what if you don’t know what scale or key is being used in a certain musical situation?
With An Ear For Keys you get a video walkthrough showing you specific techniques and processes you can use to quickly and easily identify the key of any song or piece of music by ear.
Value: $19
BONUS 3: The Slowdown Shortcut
One of the biggest challenges in applying musicality skills is that often our new abilities work fine with slow, artificial, one-note-at-a-time examples – but “real” music or actual musical situations require us to respond much faster.
To bridge this gap and get your skills up to speed it can be helpful to practice with real music – but slowed down.
With this bonus training you’ll be shown in detail how to use three free software tools to slow down any music you want to practice with, so that it matches your current skill speed.
Value: $19
BONUS 4: Instrument guides
As your musical mind develops, naturally you’ll want to pick up your instrument and put all your new skills to use!
We’ll be providing handy cheatsheet-style guides for the most popular instruments so that you can immediately make the connection to your instrument and real playing tasks.
Value: $15
Imagine how your musical life would be transformed if you had the kind of musical mind that you always thought required “talent”.
- No more confusion and frustration in your music learning.
- No more feeling overwhelmed, or like you’re just wasting your time.
- No more painful struggling to learn things that deep down you know should be as easy and natural as music itself.
- Instead imagine having the musical mind that just instinctively understands every note, rhythm and chord you hear.
- Imagine having the musical mind that lets you confidently and intuitively collaborate with other musicians in any situation.
- Imagine having the musical mind that makes all your musical activities (and even music practice and learning) simply a joy.
In just 6 weeks, for the price of a cup of coffee per day, that musical mind can be yours.
Foundations of a Musical Mind
Is Available Now
But Places Are Limited!
We’ll be providing unlimited personal support and guidance to make sure you succeed with this training course – so places are limited to just 200.
Musical U members were offered an “earlybird” opportunity to purchase in advance of the official launch and 65 places have already been filled.
This discounted price and bonuses are available in this offer only, and only until the 200 spots are filled.
LAUNCH OFFER
From 1st-5th November you can purchase the course (RRP: $199) for just $149 AND get all the bonuses listed above.
Yes! I Want The New 6-Week Course For Just $199 $149
200 135 92 53 17 5 Places Remaining
(last updated: 2018-11-05 17:00)
100% GUARANTEED
We are so confident that you’ll love this training course and be delighted with the new foundation it provides you that we are covering it with a 90-Day 100% Money-Back Guarantee.
So if you’ve ever felt like learning music was harder than it should be…
If you’ve yearned for those free, creative, expressive skills of the “natural” musician…
If you’ve felt held back, or like you just “didn’t have what it takes”…
Or if you’ve worried that it might just be too late for you…
Ask yourself: have you been missing the foundation you needed?
The foundation that provides the mental models which make it easy to learn even the most impressive musical skills.
Put that new foundation in place – and see the transformation on every aspect of your musical life.
Buy Now And Here’s Everything You Get:
- Six Weeks Of Training Based on Kodály Principles
- Day-By-Day Instruction, Featuring Video, Audio, Text and Exercises
- Downloadable MP3 Audio And Worksheets
- Weekly Live Q&A Call (+ Recordings Afterwards)
- Flexible And Convenient Online Access 24/7
- Unlimited Personal Support And Guidance
- Bonus 1: Singing 101 (value: $29)
- Bonus 2: An Ear For Keys (value: $19)
- Bonus 3: The Slowdown Shortcut (value: $19)
- Bonus 4: Instrument Guides (value: $15)
Total Value: $281
Your Price Today: $149
Yes! I Want The New 6-Week Course For Just $199 $149
200 135 92 53 17 5 Places Remaining
(last updated: 2018-11-05 17:00)
Frequently-Asked Questions
Q: When does the course begin? Is it flexible?
The course will begin on Monday 5th November. It’s structured as a 6-week program providing daily training and it’s expected to take on average 15 minutes per day.
You have flexibility about when you do each day’s training (e.g. no problem to do Tuesday and Wednesday’s exercises all on Wednesday) and you’ll have access to the course materials in perpetuity.
The Live Q&A sessions will be synchronised with each week’s material, but you will have access to the recordings afterwards.
So although the course will run “live” with a set start date, you are free to begin the program whenever you like and proceed at your own pace.
Q: What if I can’t make it to the Live Q&A calls?
No problem. You can submit questions in advance to be answered on the call and we’ll be recording them and providing you with access to the video. You can also submit questions for direct help and guidance at any time.
Q: What happens at the end of the course, can I keep the material?
Yes. You’ll have access to the web material even after the 6 weeks are over, for as long as you need.
Q: Is this suitable for beginners?
Yes, absolutely. We’ll be starting from the absolute fundamentals, and the course will have valuable material both for those who are totally new to music learning (or just to musicality training) for and those who’ve been learning for a while.
Q: Do I need to know music theory?
No. This course is designed to teach you all the essential concepts from scratch.
In fact, this is how “music theory” should be.
There’s not going to be tons of arcane terminology and classical music theories you’ll never need to know or use.
Instead you’ll learn the fundamental concepts that will benefit you every day in your musical life.
Q: What if I can’t sing?
The course does use songs as teaching material and singing as a core tool for developing your musical understanding.
But you do not need to be a “good” singer!
The only singing skill you need is the ability to match pitch and the “Singing 101” bonus included in this offer will quickly teach you that skill – even if you’ve always thought you were “tone deaf” :)