Have you heard of audiation? It’s a powerful skill which can help you memorise music, sight-sing from the score, and more – read on to learn all about it. This week we also have articles on what it means to “be musical” and whether there’s hope for people with “no rhythm”. Plus great interviews with a young successful songwriter and a musical comedy improv duo.
Let’s get started…
To Be a Better Musician, Use Your Imagination
“Audiation is to sound what visualisation is to images.” Audiation is a really useful but not commonly known technique which can really help you improve your musicality. It can help you fine tune your instrument playing technique, practice more efficiently and learn new music more quickly. Read our article Audiation: To Be a Better Musician, Use Your Imagination to find out how it can help you.
For the basics on what audiation is and how to do it check out our previous article The Secret Music Practice Skill, and this fascinating interview with Chad West about audiation over at SmartMusic.com.
Here’s a fun and simple demonstration, along with a clever exercise you can use to help kids understand audiation early on:
While we are on the topic of audiation part two of our Rhythm Bootcamp series – “Got no Rhythm?” talks about how audiation can help you internalise the beat in your mind helping you play rhythms more naturally and accurately. This is essential learning for all beginner and intermediate musicians, so you don’t end up like No Rhythm Dude:
No Rhythm Dude got no rhythm…
Posted by Easy Ear Training on Wednesday, April 6, 2016
If you want to know more about what it means to “have good rhythm” take a look at this interesting article from Laurie Riley Music breaking down seven different rhythmic issues a musician might have.
Musicality means… Playing By Ear
Playing by ear is a musical ability than many see as a talent that you have, rather than a skill that can be learned. This week, in the first of a new series exploring “musicality”, the Musical U team dispel the myth that playing by ear requires special talent and describe the steps that you can take to learn to play by ear. Find out how you can develop your musicality and take active steps to learning to play by ear today.
If you’re looking to get started playing chords by ear check out Musical U’s “Chords By Ear” Roadmap and these four great play-by-ear tips from WorshipOnline.
Singing Improvisation FUN!
As you may have noticed recently improvisation is one of our hot topics and one we know many musicians struggle with. On our quest to find interesting ways to learn to improvise we came across Open your Mouth and Sing, a duo of musical comedy improvisers who specialise in taking groups of people with no experience or particular ability and allowing them to be spontaneous and creative. We interviewed co-founder Joe to find out more in Can Musical Improvisation (and Singing) really be FUN!?
Musical improv is more common than you might realise. There are even professional West End theatre productions where each performance runs entirely on musical improvisation!
Oh, and if you’re into jazz, check out these three exercises for starting to improvise “scat” singing from jazz ear training site iwasdoingallright.com.
Writing from the Heart
This week the Musical U team interviewed songwriter and musician Adara Rae! Find out about her song-writing inspirations and how it feels to connect with and help others through her music in this insightful interview Writing from the Heart.
On the subject of song writing, Easy Ear Training author Sabrina Peña Young has just published a wonderful new workbook “Composer Boot Camp 101: 50 Exercises for Educators, Students, and Music Professionals” for aspiring composers, containing 50 exercises to spark your creativity and develop your skills.
Before you get too excited about composing though… is this even a task for humans any more? Dave Conservatoire asks the important question: Are Robot Composers The Future of Music?
Solfa Sight-Singing
Following on from our series Solfa and the Score, we have some free practice exercises for you to practice sight-singing using solfa. They start easy and gradually become more challenging as you become more confident having internalised the solfa syllables. If your knees tremble at the thought of sight-singing these sight-singing practice exercises are for you!
When you begin using solfa to sight-sing you will need to know how to identify the tonic, “do”, on the staff. Here’s a great tutorial on finding your do from MCTC Choirs which can help.
One big benefit to learning to sight-sing is that it can be key to acing your music exams. Find out why in this short, punchy post from SightReadingMastery.com.
I hope that you have found a few things to spark your musical imagination this week! To keep up to date with our latest resources don’t forget to like the Easy Ear Training and Musical U Facebook pages.
